The event was headed by Presidents Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico), and was attended by representatives ofArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.
“What I propose is to have a different and unified voice that defends our societies, our future and our history, and stop repeating a failed discourse that has already failed,” Petro said at the closing session of the Conference.
We Latin Americans must raise our voices “without shame, because we have nothing to hide, because those who have made the mistakes are not really us. We are the ones who have shed the blood. We are the ones who have suffered the pain. We are the ones whose beauty have been destroyed,” he expressed.
Petro emphasized that the war against drugs has failed and Colombia and Mexico are the biggest victims of this policy in Latin America, which he described as genocide.
“We have that experience of 50 years, a bloody and ferocious experience, and it has begun to be repeated for some decades in other countries such as Mexico. That is why, perhaps, the fact that Colombia and Mexico are the organizers of this meeting makes sense, a value on planet Earth, in humanity,” he commented.
The Mexican president, in turn, assured that the fundamental thing to confront the scourge of drug trafficking and violence is to address the causes with a new criterion.
We have to put forward the criterion that peace is the fruit of justice. We have to fight first against poverty, against inequality (…) offer good-paying jobs, serve young people, guarantee them the opportunity to study, to work,” the Mexican head of State noted.
Furthermore, to strengthen cultural, moral, spiritual values and use all the reserves of values that we have inherited from the great civilizations that flourished in our America and that “always take us forward,” he added.
Lopez Obrador also advocated strengthening the identity of the people of the continent, the idiosyncrasies and the family unity that has always characterized them. He called to confront the individualistic model that “has been imposed on us” in the region.
The final document of the Conference was released, in which participants reiterated their common commitment to addressing the World Drug Problem in a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, balanced, comprehensive manner, based on scientific evidence and effectively.
They designed the roadmap for this effort, which will entail the creation of a Monitoring Group made up of representatives of the States of the region to develop a reflective, sovereign construction adjusted to the realities of each country.
The final document highlights the will of the countries of the region, interested in comprehensively addressing the World Drug Problem, in order to begin a path of structural, critical and constructive reflection to propose political, legal and social measures at the national level that complement and allow for flexible compliance with the existing international drug regime, in accordance with the realities of each country.
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