From the rostrum of the United Nations Assembly in New York, via the Climate Summit in Egypt (COP27) to the Peace Forum in Paris, the Colombian president Gustav Peter called a global crusade to save the Amazon rainforesthe proposed debt relief to invest in climate action, denounced the resounding failure of the war on drugs and the damage of economic blockade policies, urged governments to start peace negotiations and end the war.
His latest front: mediation in the French capital in a dialogue table between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition in the research that the 2024 elections in Venezuela are a “social pact”.
Chaired by Gustavo Petro and his vice-president, the Afro-Colombian environmentalist leader Francia Márquez, the government of the Historical Pact, the first from the left in the republican history of Colombia, has as its objectives the conversion of the Latin American country in “World Power of Life Y planet food pantry”.
Angelica Pérez of Radio France International (RFI) and Marc Perelman of France24 spoke with the president of Colombia about these issues.
RFI: “Why the war? If what we need is to save the human species,” he said in the most vehement speech – call it the most insurrectionary – that a Colombian president has delivered to the United Nations Assembly. A week ago at COP 27 he called on governments to start peace negotiations immediately and get out of the war. Fossil wars that you denounced, just four hours ago, at the Paris Peace Forum. Wars that arise from hydrocarbons like the one in Ukraine and in Russia, you said. What echo did you have your appeal in those governments that are involved in the war, participating or financing it?
– Not really. And it is little, in the first place, because the speaker is a solitary president. If he spoke Latin America, the possibilities would be greater, the voice would be heard more. And if he spoke “of the South” much more. Or, at least, they would put things on paper, as they say in Colombia.
I have had to visit several COPs, from Warsaw to this 27th one I went to as head of state, and what I find is an absolute disrespect for everything that has been said. There was talk of a fund of 100 billion. That doesn’t exist. Today we are talking about one of the 40,000 for compensation for damages for the crisis that many developing countries have suffered, but which we have not produced or produced. Why is this fund not financed which, in the end, is small compared to the levels of wealth in the world?
In a sense, the market is the key tool to solve the climate crisis, also from the point of view of adaptation. And if the country can’t, then it’s not done. And if it doesn’t, the immediate effect is death, as Pakistan had today, as Colombia had today, as Europe had with 15,000 deaths from the heat wave. But some countries have greater resilience due to their economic power and others less so.
When it is said that the world powers are leaving humanity in a sort of each for itself in the face of the effects of the climate crisis, what is basically being said to the poorest countries or the most vulnerable sections of the population is that we are not interested to his life. It is a kind of politics of death, it is a repetition of something that had already been pronounced at the beginning of the 20th century and which had its rise to power in 1933. We are facing a global 1933.
France24: President, I want to talk about the war between Ukraine and Russia. Lula recently said that Ukraine’s current Zelensky was just as responsible as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Is that your opinion too?
– I’m going a little further. Latin America has been invaded many times. First invasion: Spain in Portugal. But from that moment the French, the British, the Americans invaded. There have been many US invasions in recent history. We have seen invasions in the Middle East during the 21st century: Iraq, Libya, Syria.
I wonder why there are invasions that do well and are applauded. And the same people who applaud these invasions repel others. Are there good invasions and are there bad invasions or is there an axis of power that determines and qualifies one and the other, promotes one and attacks the other according to its own geopolitical interest?
France24: But is Vladimir Putin more responsible than Volodomir Zelensky in this case? Or is it the US?
-No, that’s a discussion I’ll leave to you. What we are observing is a game of NATO which was helping to build a Russian reaction against a people who had nothing to do with NATO or the Russians, which is the Ukrainian people.
That game that also wanted to impose itself in the South American corner to which I belong: the NATO-Russia game. The US-China trade fight does not represent the interests of Latin America. And, in this sense, the best thing we can do is distance ourselves and propose peace.
RFI: “NATO stands for North Atlantic Alliance. We are Caribbean and Pacific and very, very Latin American,” you tweeted in 2013. Colombia is the only Latin American country that has a Comprehensive Agreement since 2018 with the North Atlantic Alliance, a status that allows it to have a close cooperation with NATO in military and security matters. In fact, the Colombian army is providing demining training, at NATO’s request, to Ukrainian soldiers. Do you think it appropriate to continue with this comprehensive agreement with NATO?
– I prefer a Latin American alliance. It is a path that must be built, of course, but from the perspective of global geopolitics and not from those conflicts that do not represent us, which have nothing to do with different social formulas but with economic powers facing each other and with disabilities such as that of Europe West to transmit clean energy which has made it dependent on gas, and that dependence has caused the conflict.
We will never be offensive. No Latin American country, that I can remember, has been offensive. We have always been on the defensive and I think this is important because world peace must always be written as a priority in the great constitution of our peoples.
RFI: Is it your idea or is it already being discussed with other countries?
– It has been talked about and there have been some intentions, but so far it hasn’t come true.
France24: Speaking of peace, on 4 November you approved the law that sets the Total Peace proposal in motion. This means, among other things, negotiations with ELN guerrillas, with FARC dissidents and also with other armed groups. In a very concrete way, are there already results? Are there any negotiations? What is happening?
-We collected the state in which the Santos peace process was left. The peace agreement was made with the FARC and now it must be respected. That deal is worth a lot of money. Only the first point, which I have addressed in recent months, which is land reform on 3 million hectares of fertile land, is worth between 30 and 60 billion pesos, between 6 and 8 billion dollars, which must be achieved in a short period of time and that we have to put.
This is one point: respect the peace agreements with the FARC and this opens up the peace options with the ELN, also at an intermediate point, abruptly interrupted. I set off from that intermediate point, recognized the protocols, and so on.
France24: Where are we now?
-We are in the fact that the ELN, according to the law just passed, has already chosen its spokesmen and negotiators, they have different denominations. We did the same. It will be made public in his time, at this moment we can not say. The location hasn’t been chosen yet, here’s what’s coming. It had been Cuba and because Cuba lent its territory, the far right that ruled the country after the Santos government decided to tell the far right that ruled the United States after the peace deal to put Cuba on the list of terrorist countries and they did.
So, the geographic point is more problematic today because there’s that background. And here we are. Once ready, negotiators on one side and negotiators on the other will sit at that geographic point with a few countries that have offered to be guarantors of the process. Among them, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela. There was Brazil and now we have to see what happens after December. There are countries that have come close to the process. France just told me to count on the French government for everything. Spain approached, even met me during the campaign period. Spain has put the ELN on the list of terrorists in Europe and this is making noise.
RFI: For several years, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has been considered persona non grata on the international scene. Today the climate emergency calls us to save the Amazon forest. You have proposed it and Venezuela must play an important role in this worldwide crusade to save the Amazon. This is how you formulated it at Cop27. I ask you, President, are you shaking hands with your Venezuelan counterpart to return to the international scene as a legitimate president in a revitalization not only of the Amazon jungle, but also of the jungle of international diplomatic relations?
-You are right. But not only at contexts such as the COP, but also at meetings in Mexico. Now, having finished this program, I go to a table that is being set up to discuss the issue with the French and Argentine governments, with a delegate from the opposition and from the Venezuelan government.
There will be elections in 2024. But this election shouldn’t be like the previous ones, a path to polarization, and while Venezuelans don’t end up with Colombian violence, that path could also lead to gun violence, rather they should be a path of pact .
France24: But, Mr. President, for many Nicolás Maduro is not the real president of Venezuela, because there were those elections and he is suspected of crimes against humanity by the United Nations. And what you’re doing is legitimizing someone who doesn’t deserve it. What is your answer?
These are political positions. The United Nations recognizes Maduro, otherwise he could not have gone to the COP.
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Source: Clarin
