Right here, in this same headquarters, 52 years ago, the Convention that gave the birth certificate to the war on drugs was approved.

We must rebuild Colombia, starting with ourselves, our hearts, put resentment aside, put hatred aside, put envy aside. The only thing that those attitudes accomplish is to sow violence and sow death and suffering.

If we are giving judicial benefits to one part, we should give them to the other part as well.

My generation has not seen one single day of peace, and my dream is for my children and the children of all Colombians to have the change to see it. I hope the guerrilla understands that the time has come to leave this 50-year confrontation behind; that the time has come to change from bullets to votes, from weapons to argumentations; that the time has come for them to continue their struggle, but within democracy.

Democracy is like three oxen pulling a plough. The oxen are the independent powers, but you have to walk in the same direction; otherwise, you cannot plough and that is what was happening in Colombia. One ox was walking in one direction, the other in another direction, so the democracy was not working.

I've not lived one single day of peace in Colombia, and 90 percent of people here say the same thing. We have gotten used to living in a war - we don't even react to massacres.

The Colombian economy is very strong. We have one of the highest rates of growth in Latin America.