Colombia: Government Admits "Weakness" in the Face of Violence

Colombia's Interior Minister Alicia Arango has admitted this Tuesday the failure of Duque's government to halt the plague of violence that erodes the country. "We cannot deny the weak presence and capacity of the State to resolve these unfortunate murders and these unfortunate threats and risks to the lives of human rights defenders (...) as well as those who have been reinstated," Arango said during a debate on political control in the Senate.

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Also, Arango reported the country's poor conditions to manage and solve the nation's violence. According to official figures, 77 massacres have been registered this year, with 243 ex-combatants killed since the peace agreement.

According to the minister, defending human rights in Colombia has become a risk; even so, she has said that the Duque government is trying to generate strategies and actions that will reduce or eliminate massacres and selective murders of social leaders or ex-guerrillas.

In the parliamentary session, the political party Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (FARC) questioned the government for not implementing concrete actions to protect civilians' lives and asked for security guarantees.

"What they did not achieve during 53 years with the weapons, today they pretend to do it through the shameless, systematic extermination against our people, against us, against our existence, that is what is happening," lashed Senator Victoria Sandino.

Last November 1st, ex-members of the former guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) arrived in Bogotá, the capital, to get from the government guarantees to combat violence.