The Republic of Colombia

1

The Republic of Colombia

Texas State University

The Republic of Colombia

Position Paper

I. General Statement

As a proud member of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Delegation of Colombia is extremely eager and thrilled to be among fellow member states to discuss all important issues that are at hand. The Delegation of Colombia recognizes how important the Organization of American States is not only to Latin America, but to the western hemisphere as a whole and is proud to be able to participate in this year’s session. This delegation is in high hopes that all member states will work together in diplomatic and peaceful means to strive for the betterment of the western hemisphere and work together towards the strengthening of peace and security as a whole.

The goal for this delegation is to “promote, by cooperative action, their economic, social, and cultural development”[1] as well as hope that all fellow member states can cooperate and explore all decisions diplomatically.

“Colombia has a huge variety of plant and animal species, and we have enormous potential. Small and midsized companies should come to Colombia. From here, they have access to the entire Latin America market” as stated by President Juan Manuel Santos. The Delegation of Colombia has extreme unearthed and unexplored potential, as much of the member states do as well and all is needed is the need for exploration and excavation. It is a time for all member states to utilize their strengths to the maximum which is what the Delegation of Colombia will strive to do and encourages all fellow member states to do the same in order to better the western hemisphere and the Organization of American States as a whole. It is a time to reach new goals and this organization has immense potential that is greatly used by all member states and can be even greater.

The Delegation of Colombia has made immense strides in progression towards the unequal wealth distribution, the growing elderly and retired population, the eradication of poverty, sharing and allocating water resources, standards on surveillance, meeting new hemispheric security challenges, protection of political refugees and asylum seekers, and establishing standards for prisoner rights and prison conditions.

The goal for this Organization is to raise hemispheric standards and strengthen each member state as an individual and utilize those strengths to form a powerful, secure and strong western hemisphere.

The Delegation of Colombia is extremely aware of each member states sovereignty and notes with gratitude that in the Organization of American States Charter, Chapter II, Article 3e states that “Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State. Subject to the foregoing, the American States shall cooperate fully among themselves, independently of the nature of their political, economic and social systems”.[2]

Bearing all this in mind, the Delegation of Colombia hopes to achieve success through cooperative, diplomatic and peaceful means in order to strengthen the Organization of American States as a whole. This delegation hopes for a well-executed general assembly with plenty of diplomatic and peaceful debate.

II. Particular Statements

A. General Committee (GC)

Topic One: Programs to Address Disparities in Wealth Distribution

The Delegation of Colombia, much like most of the member states in the western hemisphere is facing a major issue of wealth distribution. According to the CIA world fact book[3], over thirty percent of all Colombians are living below the poverty line and most of the economy is held by six percent of the wealthy population.

There is a lack of basic human rights, which include the lack of security, the lack of health care, the lack of education and the lack of employment. Because of this lack in basic humanitarian rights, there is a cycle of poverty that the impoverished population live in, meaning that they are born into poverty, live in population without having access to education and healthcare and continually work at a young age and end their education to help their families make money and therefore are never skilled to get actual employment with health benefits, security of employment and the chance to break out of the poverty cycle thereby continuing it for future generations. Through agrarian land reform, better access to education, and employment programs for the impoverished population, this delegation hopes to raise a strong percentage of this population out of poverty and to break the poverty cycle.

In the 1950’s, Bolivia, Mexico and Chile went through immense agrarian land reform where they passed land reform legislation in order to help out the impoverished people. Through this legislation, the government allotted a certain amount of land to peasants for them to live on and thrive and through this, these farmers reduced rural inequality and the poverty level decreased in these areas because these impoverished people were responsible for sustaining themselves and even began to contribute to the agricultural sector of the economy. There was immense agriculture innovation and cultivation by putting unused land into use.[4]

Education is the most powerful tool that can be instilled into the mind, and especially for the young this is essential for future economic and social development. With better access to education, there would be a decrease in the poverty rate in not only Colombia, but in the western hemisphere as a whole. This delegation is hoping that with better educational facilities and more qualified teachers, that the will and desire to remain in school will be stronger. If the younger generations had a stronger drive to continue their schooling, that they would be better educated and skilled to be qualified for better employment and be able to break the poverty cycle. The Organization of American States Charter states in Chapter 7, Article 34h hopes for “Rapid eradication of illiteracy and expansion of educational opportunities for all”.[5]

With the Delegation of Colombia having over thirty percent of its entire population living below the poverty line, there has to be a time for employment to change and make steps forward. The Republic of Colombia is greatly invested in improving its national employment and improvement by means of making free trade agreements and promoting domestic investment. By providing pilot programs to employ impoverished people, it will provide people that have never had access to some basic human rights access to health care by being employed in a government sector. With this, by being employed and receiving payments for work, it will raise people out of the poverty level just by having a job. The implementation of domestic jobs is as important as education and will be able to help civilians whether nationals or aliens because it is up to every state to have jurisdiction over them and promote as well as protect their basic human rights.

This delegation hopes to decrease the inequality of wealth distribution in not only Colombia but all of the Western Hemisphere and believes that with these solutions that this will be achievable for all member states. Through agrarian land reform, better access to education and more domestic employment, it will be more than possible to take a step in the direction of equality.

B. Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (ESID)

Topic One. Eradication of Poverty within the Context of Sustainable Development

The Bolivarian Republic of Colombia understands the importance of breaking out of the poverty cycle and to motivate people to try and get out of poverty. Colombia believes that breaking the cycle starts with a good education. Literacy rates need to increase to help promote the advancement of culture. By doing so the state can look towards a brighter future with more educated citizens.

Educated citizens are not only a benefit for the individual but for the whole state as a whole. It helps people be aware of their health, finances, and politics. As citizens increase their knowledge on health issues, that means that the government’s expense of health insurance can be lowered and the lower income citizens can make better health decisions to help keep themselves healthy and working. Knowing about diseases and how they can be contracted would be taught in classes and also learning how to read opens so many more doors of knowledge.

Colombia needs a change in its education to help more students and families. In the Colombian budget about ten percent of it goes toward education. Other Latin American countries are about the same. Ten percent is not much going toward something that is so vital to a country. Citizens that live in the more urban areas of Colombia are exposed to better teachers than those citizens that live in more rural areas are not as lucky. Most of their teachers are not as well educated and do not have the qualifications that should be met to be teaching students.

Primary education is provided and paid for by the government, this is age six to twelve. There is little early childhood schooling and care but with the help of National Institute for Family Welfare things are changing and providing more and more daycares. Secondary schooling is an additional two years of vocational education and then the following two years are more specific to a trade that the student is interested in and is during the age of 12 to 16. Primary school starts to loose attendance due to having to help their families.

Tertiary education is very unfamiliar type of education for those not in urban areas. It seems that children and families that live in rural areas are at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to education. If these citizens where able to learn more and help build themselves at our poverty by education, then they could be looking at other jobs with better paying rates and less excruciating hours. By educating oneself, only positive things can come out of it. There are more opportunities for them and more chances to break the cycle of poverty.

Topic Two: Sharing and Allocation of Water Resources

The Republic of Colombia first would recognize and commend the tireless work done by all of the member states within the Organization of American States (OAS) for their contribution towards improving the hemispheric water quality. The Delegation of Colombia, however, believes that the best way to solve the pressing issue of a degraded water quality is to apprehend the problem at the source. Furthermore, the delegation strongly believes that long term, self-sustaining improvements to factors which are proven to greatly lessen the quality of water are a more wise investment of water resources and monies and will prove to be more beneficial over time than would a short term improvement of water itself.

Seeing that the single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture[6]; furthermore, noting that a leading cause of sedimentation to rivers is the erosion of soil as a result of deforestation, the Delegation of Colombia seeks to improve the quality of water by improving the causes at the heart of the issue. Approximately 7.8 million hectares of forested land is cleared each year[7] with OAS states clearing over 662 thousand square kilometers.[8] The cutting down of trees is inextricably linked to a decrease in water quality due to the decreased regulation of erosion and sediment flow caused by rampant deforestation.[9] Water saturated with sediment and land-based pollution agents flows downstream and oftentimes ends up having a direct impact on the quality of a people’s drinking water and ultimately the quality of life of the same people who require a clean source of drinking water to survive.

Keeping this in mind, the Delegation of the Republic of Colombia seeks to put an end to the need for further deforestation throughout the OAS as a result of unsustainable cattle ranching practices which will greatly retard the overarching problem of deforestation in and of itself. In order to do so, the Delegation of Colombia would suggest the implementation of Silvopastures and Silvopastoral Systems (SPS) in place of traditional ranching practices – practices which, due to their inherent inefficiency, hold a direct correlation to the decrease of water quality. These environmentally friendly practices aim to increase the efficiency of a smaller plot of land so as to increase the overall yield of production while presenting no necessity to expand the operation further by destroying forests. The way this feat is achieved would be by negating the traditional view of pastureland and planting various trees and shrubs interspersed among leguminous herbs and fodder crops. The implementation of greater botanical resources such as those mentioned will not only improve the quality of sustenance intake, but it will eliminate the need for the use of pesticides and pollutants; it will eliminate the need for deforestation for the purposes of cattle ranching; but ultimately, it will help to lessen greatly the monetary burden of purifying the water taken from freshwater sources throughout the OAS.

The Delegation of the Republic of Colombia believes confidently that the implementation of these environmentally sustainable ranching practices will improve the overall quality of water throughout the hemisphere and will place those delegations that so wisely choose to practice these measures at the forefront of environmental sustainability.

C. Secretariat for Multidimensional Security (SMS)

Topic One: Hemispheric Standards on Surveillance and Information Gathering

The delegation of Colombia recognizes the ever increasing importance of cyber security in the 21st century. The delegation believes this to be an issue that has the potential to impact every member state, and is looking forward to collaborating with other countries on this threat. The very nature of this threat is different from conventional security threats facing members of this organization, and this delegation strongly believes that international cooperation is necessary to effectively address this issue.

Colombia adapted the Plan Vive Digital as part of the 2010 – 2014 National Development Plan recognized the need for not only contingency plans, but active defense against cyber threats. With internet use growing rapidly within not only Latin America, but the world, the chances of attacks have gone up drastically. Colombian internet use has gone up over 370% from 2005 – 2010, and recently the government has passed a new series of laws to better punish illegal activity.[10]

The Colombian government agencies have also been raising awareness about the importance of creating an effective cyber defense policy since early 2007. The Colombian government, working with the Organization of American States , through the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism , organized a committee hearing on cyber defense preparedness in May 2008.[11]

Topic Two: Updating the Rio Treaty to Meet New Hemispheric Security Challenges

The Delegation of the Republic of Colombia recognizes the importance of updating the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal assistance to better deal with present conflicts, new threats to security and rising political crisis that are not enclosed within the context on which the treaty was originally established. The Delegation of Colombia not only believes in the Rio Treaty’s relevance in strengthening collaboration and support amongst member states but in its imperative role in dealing with today’s hemispheric challenges. The Delegation of Colombia also believes in the treaty’s integrity to ultimately maintain member states’ solidarity amongst each other intact.

The Delegation of Colombia acknowledges the time and context in which the treaty was created in 1947, when an armed attack from across the seas was a substantive menace to the western hemisphere. The Rio Treaty became a hemispheric defense system, a doctrine invoked to respond to an armed attack or threat of aggression against a member state as an attack to all. Today, however, the hemisphere is presented with new crisis that affect its peace and security. The Delegation of Colombia believes that by updating the treaty to include border conflicts as a present threat and new substantive menace the Organization of American States will ensure the protection of those affected by the crisis and once again reaffirm member state’s collaboration and solidarity.

The Delegation of Colombia firmly believes in each country’s sovereignty but strongly encourages the Organization of American States member states to facilitate dialogue and participation when a border crisis is present in the hemisphere to avoid any future situations. The Delegation of Colombia is looking forward for member states that have ceased their commitment to the treaty to reevaluate their position and ultimately unite towards a more secure and peaceful hemisphere.