A/HRC/7/39 page 4 Introduction 1. On 26 November 1996, the Government of Colombia and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) agreed on the establishment of an office in Colombia of OHCHR, which opened in April 1997. Its mandate is to assist the Colombian authorities in developing policies and programmes to promote and protect human rights, to advise civil society on matters of human rights, to observe the situation of human rights and international humanitarian law in the context of the violence and the internal armed conflict, and to submit its reports and analyses to the High Commissioner. 2. The High Commissioner visited Colombia from 7 to 9 September 2007 to sign an agreement with the Government of Colombia to extend the office in Colombia’s mandate1 in its entirety up to 30 October 2010. After 10 years of activities, the High Commissioner wishes to express her acknowledgement to the Colombian people and to the authorities for having welcomed and cooperated with the Office. The High Commissioner also extends her gratitude to those countries and organizations which have given support to the office in Colombia, and contributed to the promotion and protection of human rights. 3. This report covers the period from January to December 2007, focusing on the most significant aspects of the office in Colombia’s mandate. It is based on the following activities: systematic and analytical observations of the human rights situation, including field visits, the processing of complaints, the analysis of reports and statistics, interviews with State authorities, victims, other representatives of civil society, United Nations agencies in Colombia, bodies from the international community and NGOs. I. THE POLITICAL CONTEXT 4. Colombia has been seriously affected by an internal armed conflict for more than 40 years. It has also become increasingly evident that the illegal armed groups are directly or indirectly involved in drug-trafficking,2 and are associated with local and international networks of organized crime and corruption. The complex relationships between all these factors, added to persistent structural problems such as impunity and limitations of access to justice, inequality and discrimination, continue to affect the human rights situation negatively. That said, it must be 1 2 See chapter III, “Activities of the Office in Colombia”. These activities include charges to growers, storage and trafficking in their respective zones of influence or control, the direct administration of supplying the precursors required to process illegal drugs, the recruitment and payment of growers and harvesters, protection and maintenance of clandestine landing strips and, in some cases, the direct exportation of drugs and related money-laundering.