Colombia Under Uribe: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead
On August 3, 2005 the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington D.C. with sponsorship from AlvarAlice Foundation and other donors, organized a conference on "Colombia Under Uribe: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead." The panel discussed President Uribe’s administration's performance to date and examined the challenges that are likely to arise in its next, and possibly final, year.
The three main issues discussed at the event were:
- Domestic political landscape, including the security situation and its implications for the 2006 presidential elections,
- Prospects for peace, particularly in the context of talks with paramilitary groups and the recently approved justice and peace law, and
- Colombia's international relations. R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State was the keynote speaker.
Other international speakers included Peter Hamkik, President of the Inter-American Dialogue, Mr. Carl Meacha,, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Jose Miguel Vivanco, Director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas. Colombian speakers included Juan Manuel Santos, former finance minister; Antonio Navarro and Rafael Pardo, Colombian senators and candidates to the presidency in 2006; María Emma Mejía and Rodrigo Pardo, both former foreign ministers; Rafael Nieto, former vice-minister of justice and the interior, and; Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, former minister of government.
