After UN Security Council Vote on Resolution, ICP Asks Colombia Foreign Minister Holguín About Urabeños, She Calls Them a Gang

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 25 -- After the UN Security Council quickly passed a resolution on Colombia for unarmed international observers responsible for the monitoring and verification of the laying down of arms on January 25, Inner City Press asked Colombia's foreign minister María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar two questions.

   Are there any names yet for the UN envoy post, should he or she like the observers come from CELAC? And what about the Urabeños, which some call paramilitaries and some call merely a gang?

    Holguín said it will be up to Ban Ki-moon to propose names -- and derived the Urabeños as narco-traffickers, to be frontally opposed. Video here.

   The resolution, which Inner City Press put on Scribd as soon as it was passed, “decides to establish a political mission to participate for a period of 12 months, as the international component and coordinator of the above-mentioned tripartite mechanism (the Mission), headed by a special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and decides further that the Mission will be a political mission of unarmed international observers, responsible for the monitoring and verification of the laying down of arms, and a part of the tripartite mechanism that will monitor and verify the definitive bilateral ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, consistent with the Joint Communique, beginning all monitoring and verification activities, which will commence the 12 month period, following the signing of the Final Peace Agreement between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP."

  In its resolution, the Security Council “requests the Secretary-General to initiate preparations now, including on the ground, and to present detailed recommendations to the Security Council for its consideration and approval regarding the size and operational aspects and mandate of the Mission, consistent with the Joint Communique. as soon as possible and then within 30 days of the signature of the ceasefire agreement by the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP, in light of its provisions and looks forward to the contributions of Member States of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to the Mission.”

 The Security Council in conclusion “requests the Secretary-General, based on the reporting of the special representative to the Secretary-General, to report to the Security Council on the implementation of the Mission's mandate every 90 days after the start of its monitoring and verification activities and on completion of the Mission and expresses its willingness to consider extending the Mission upon the joint request of the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP.”