Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba has described the Spanish deputy prime minister’s decision to continue supporting the Uribe model of combating the FARC as “unfortunate,” reports W Radio.
Cordoba spoke with Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega at a ceremony for the Peoples’ Summit in Madrid, an alternative to the EU and Latin America and Caribbean event being held in Madrid.
The Colombian senator, who has been involved in negotiations for the release of FARC hostages, emphasized the “self-determination of peoples” and called for “a political and negotiated solution of social and armed conflict in Colombia.”
She gave praise to Bolivian President Evo Morales, who, though invited to the conference, was unable to attend, and Venezuelan Preseident Hugo Chavez, with whom she worked when brokering for the release of a group of hostages in Colombia.
“I am increasingly proud,” she said, “of men like Evo Morales and that America has given birth to a man as great and important as Hugo Chavez.”
Cordoba described the “five thousand false positives” in Colombia, where anonymous civilians were killed and then presented as enemy combatants, as “cold-blooded crimes against my country’s neighbours to strengthen the foundations of discord.”
She called for the removal of the FARC from the list of international terrorist groups, favoring a “political negotiation of the social and armed conflict in Colombia.”
Illustrating the problem, she said “In Colombia there are 250,000 people missing; in the last three years, nearly 40,000 people have disappeared.”
Cordoba, in Spain to attned various diplomatic functions, has recovered well after a car accident last week, an event which she described as “very strange.”