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UNICEF launched a campaign in Colombia this week that aims to bring together more than 2 million Colombians to promote peace, reports Bogota's El Pais. The "Manos a la Paz" (Hands For Peace) campaign, which began Monday and runs through Sunday, has recruited 100,000 youth between the ages of 14 and 18 to act as "peace builders." After receiving training, the youth deliver messages on peace building to families, schools, businesses and unions in more than 1,000 towns. According to its promoters, the campaign supports the Colombian peace process and is intended as a "push" to resolve the Colombian conflict with negotiations. It also teaches "tolerance and respect for others, reconciliation, solidarity and participation" (Ignacio Tena, Bogota El Tiempo, 4 Nov, UN Wire translation). At least 35,000 Colombians have been killed in just the last decade of Colombia's 40-year civil war. "Kidnappings and extortion are common, and 1.5 million Colombians have become refugees -- more than there were in Kosovo," writes columnist Molly Ivins in the Los Angeles Times. The economy is "wrecked," she adds. Colombians "are so desperate for peace," Ivins writes, that last month, as many as 10 million people took part in peace demonstrations" (Molly Ivins, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov). According to In These Times, Colombia has "the most grave humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere" and the United Nations is "fully aware of the crisis" (Nick Rosen, 31 Oct). The Manos a la Paz campaign is promoting the "Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence," which was launched in Paris by UNESCO last March. Collected signatures will be handed to Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta, who will present them to a UN session on 11 November (Tena, Bogota El Tiempo).
UN Foundation, UNN Wire Nov 5, 1999
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