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Columbia
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Records of the First Lady's Office (Clinton Administration)
Melanne Verveer's Subject Files
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Colombia
Nohra Puyana de Pastrana
Santafé de Bogotá, November 3ʳᵈ, 1998
.
Mrs.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
First Lady
United States of America
Dear Mrs. Clinton:
On behalf of my children, my husband and myself, I wanted to thank you for the
hospitality during our stay in Washington. For us, it was a great pleasure as well as a
great honor to have been guests of the illustrious and famous Blair House. Moreover,
the State Dinner that you and your husband hosted for us will stay not only in our
memory but also in our hearts.
These wonderful days are a reflection of a new beginning in the relationship between
our two countries.
I also want to thank you for the offer that you made during our meeting. Your support in
all the ambitious programs that I presented to you is crucial in order to embark in the
different phases of the process of implementation. My staff is ready and very eager to
work with the person that you will assign from your office in this process.
Your help will bring hope to the people of Colombia that are in such desperate need.
Again thank you very much for all your special kindness.
Sincerely Yours,
NouRa de Parfrous
10/27/98 TUE 19:53 FAX
5
002
fill Caleemsia
October 27, 1998
TO:
Melanne
FROM:
Theresa Dr for TL
SUBJECT: Meeting with the First Lady of Colombia Nohra Puyana de Pastrana
Mary Louise Oates arranged an excellent meeting for us today with the First Lady
of Colombia, Nohra Puyana de Pastrana, which demonstrated the impact the Vital Voices
Initiative is having throughout the hemisphere. Mrs. Pastrana shared her commitment to
advance the status of Colombian women and her desire the incorporate these democracy
building efforts under the Vital Voices umbrella.
We have a unique opportunity to garner support for this initiative. The First Lady
spoke about the promises she and her husband made while on the campaign trail. Their
campaign platform was based on the basic premise that the voices of women are vital to
the peace process and must be heard. Her words "Peace has to start in our own homes"
reminded me of the language used by our own First Lady. I think that we have a great
friend in Mrs. Pastrana.
Mrs. Pastrana is looking forward to her meeting with Mrs. Clinton tomorrow. She
will ask Mrs. Clinton for help in creating a Vital Voices movement in Colombia. She has
plans underway for a two day conference in February for "political wives." She seemed
enthusiastic about our suggestion to expand the list of invitees to include a broader range
of women leaders from throughout society, including potential private sector partners.
She will seek U.S. assistance in shaping this conference and will likely invite Mrs. Clinton
to attend and energize the participants. She would be honored if Mrs. Clinton participated
via satellite or sent a video message. We provided Mrs. Pastrana's staff with information
about the Vital Voices Initiative that they will use as they plan their event.
Mrs. Pastrana prepared a remarkable presentation about her "peace train" of
medical supplies, including an operating room, x-ray laboratory, and dentist's office. This
train will run through the Atlantic coast of Colombia bringing medical treatment to people
in some of the poorest, war torn regions of the country. She will present this idea to each
of the government ministers and eventually expand the train to include cars that supply
communication and educational training. Mrs. Pastrana would like to link this train to
Vital Voices and seeks our support. We will work with our private sector partners who
may be willing and able to get this project off the ground.
10/27/98 TUE 19:54 FAX
0
003
Mrs. Pastrana is very interested in promoting public awareness about the issues
that affect women. She spoke about educating children by teaching values and spreading
the word that domestic violence will not be tolerated. We are already working with the
Discovery Channel to create Vital Voices public service announcements that will run
throughout the region. Unfortunately, there is no time for us to arrange a meeting with
Discovery or Univision while Mrs. Pastrana is in Washington. Once these messages are
completed, we will send them to Mrs. Pastrana $0 she can work with local television
networks to get them on the air. We will also follow-up and share existing public service
announcements that educate youth about the dangers of drugs.
Mrs. Pastrana was intrigued by our explanation of SBA' $ online business system
for women that was introduced in Spanish at Vital Voices. We will send along more
information as this program will be an excellent tool for encouraging women to start their
own businesses. We will also share information about this meeting with Ambassador
Hrinak in Bolivia to encourage her and Ginger Quiroga, the wife of Bolivia's Vice
President, to link up and collaborate on plans for upcoming events. One other idea,
though we did not discuss this with her, is to include Mrs. Pastrana in the Vital Voices
roundtable we proposed for Mrs. Clinton's November trip to El Salvador. We could
work with USIS to have this event broadcast throughout the hemisphere.
Mrs. Pastrana was grateful to us for arranging an action packed schedule for her
visit to Washington. She has meeting arranged with AID, the Inter-American
Development Bank, HHS, and the Department of Education. She will have the
opportunity to share her ideas for microcredit projects, public diplomacy campaigns, and
her women's agenda with many of our Interagency Council contacts.