UN General Assembly
2003

introduced reconciliation mechanisms in which all sectors participate in an effort to define the country’s strategic policies, including in the areas of economic and rural development. Our people have made significant advances in the area of participation in the past three years. We have carried out the country’s most significant reform by decentralizing our institutions, strengthening local development councils and granting greater powers and functions to municipal governments. Indigenous peoples are now recognized as such and are able to participate in defining a new institutional landscape grounded in their own cultures. Women also have an increased public role and are developing innovative ways of organizing. All those efforts are aimed at reweaving our social fabric, which had been torn apart by the war. Reconciliation is an essential task in that regard, and the Government must foster a favourable climate for it to take place. That is why I assumed international 14 commitments to counter violations of human rights. That is also why we have begun a national compensation programme that includes reparations for