Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández will go to the ballot this Sunday in Colombia.
Who will win the presidential elections next Sunday in Colombia, relations with Venezuela, interrupted three years ago, they will also feel the change in intention of both candidates to get them out of limbo, starting with the reopening of the border.
The two countries share a border of 2,219 kilometers closed to the passage of vehicles since August 2015 by order of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, who later broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia on February 23, 2019, in an escalation of tensions due to the recognition of his Colombian counterpart, Iván Duque, to the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, as interim president.
Whatever the center left Gustavo Petroas an independent populist Rodolfo Hernandezwho in the second round will dispute the Colombian Presidency, have declared that, in case of victory, they will reopen the border.
“I must tell you that Cúcuta cannot be a city, it cannot prosper, it cannot overcome problems without opening the borders”, said Petro a month ago during a visit to that city, while Hernández assured: “Win the presidency of the Republic the first ‘decree’ is to open that (the border) “.
In an interview with Efe, Hernández also promised that “the same day” of his investiture will activate the protocol for the re-establishment of consular relations.
AME6294. CÚCUTA (COLOMBIA), 06/14/2022.- Archival photograph from June 10, 2022 showing Colombian presidential candidate of the left coalition of the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro (c), recorded with a mobile phone during his visit to a clothing factory in Cúcuta (Colombia). Social networks have supplanted massive political demonstrations as the most effective means of luring voters, particularly undecided, into the campaign for the second round of Colombian presidential elections that left-wing Gustavo Petro and populist Rodolfo Hernández will contest this Sunday. Candidates’ teething troubles have shifted to small and less frequented events, as their teams work to keep their social networks active, where they spread their ideas and proposals through short messages or creative videos. EFE ARCHIVE / Mario Caicedo
close-up view
But beyond those speeches, a decision by Colombia in this sense without a doubt will require rapprochement with the Maduro government, which is not recognized by the duke.
“Of course it also depends on the Venezuelan government, we have to see if it shows the will to do it. I think it will show it, but in any case we have to see that part,” former Colombian Foreign Minister Julio Londoño Paredes, Dean of the Faculty, told Efe. of Political Science, Government and International Relations of the Universidad del Rosario.
Londoño explains that, “outside the commercial and economic aspect”, Colombia has “two and a half million Venezuelans herean indefinite number of Colombians in Venezuelan territory and a conflicting and difficult border “, so it is necessary to have at least one communication channel that does not currently exist.
The reopening of the border It is a clamor from the social and economic sectors of the two countries that for seven years have been suffering the difficulties that the closure of border crossings, in particular the one that connects Cúcuta, in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander, with the Venezuelan state of Táchira, the most dynamic of all for its intense commercial activity.
AME6298. PIEDECUESTA (COLOMBIA), 14/06 / 2022.- Archive photograph of 22 May 2022 showing the presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández, being filmed with a mobile phone during his visit to Piedecuesta (Colombia). Social networks have supplanted massive political demonstrations as the most effective means of luring voters, particularly undecided, into the campaign for the second round of Colombian presidential elections that left-wing Gustavo Petro and populist Rodolfo Hernández will contest this Sunday. Candidates’ teething troubles have shifted to small and less frequented events, as their teams work to keep their social networks active, where they spread their ideas and proposals through short messages or creative videos. EFE ARCHIVE / Marco Valencia
“I think we are coming to our senses, the two presidential candidates have hinted at the opening of the border,” said the executive president of the Colombo-Venezuelan Chamber, Germán Umaña, in a forum held Monday in Cúcuta in which businessmen and academics from the two countries have analyzed this possibility.
The safety factor
According to experts, the two countries should also work to improve security the area where the guerrillas move freely of the National Liberation Army (ELN), dissidents of the FARC and criminal gangs such as the Colombian Los Rastrojos or the Venezuelans Tren de Aragua.
“There is a very strong advance of transnational gangs and groups outside the law “, explained Francisco Javier Sánchez, researcher at the Center for Border and Integration Studies of the Universidad de los Andes (Venezuela), who explained that in order to fight them successfully,” coordination, cooperation and communication between authorities “of the two countries.
Duque’s government refused to any rapprochement with Venezuela with the argument that the breakdown of relations was a unilateral decision by Maduro and that it is not possible to negotiate with a “dictatorship”.
Maduro, for his part, said he hoped that with the next president there could be “peace and cooperation”.
For now, the distancing is such that Colombians residing in Venezuela have had to move to polling stations on this side of the border in these elections. in order to pay since all consulates have been closed for three years.
From Guaido to Maduro
The reopening of the border, if it happens, does not mean a normalization of relations because it would be a decision that requires a 180-degree turn in the current foreign policy, in which Duque has led, unsuccessfully, the “diplomatic siege” of Maduro.
“The establishment of relations, including consular relations, necessarily implies the recognition of the Maduro government as a legitimate government and we (Colombia) should leave aside the case of Guaidó, which has gradually weakened. This is a change that can bring some resistance to Colombia and some concerns in the United States “, explains the former foreign minister.
Londoño adds that an express re-establishment of relations is not so simple because it is necessary to reactivate “all the organizations, all the elements, all the agreements that were in force between the two countries in the commercial, economic, political, etc., and which are finished “after being abandoned in recent years.
“I think it should be done set up a commission, a contact groupand make a memorandum of understanding (…) indicate some guidelines and steps that must be taken to achieve the re-establishment of relations “, recommends Londoño.
EFE agency
PB
Jaime Ortega Carrascal
Source: Clarin
