With a clear message to the congressmen of the government coalition and its caucus, that of the Historical Pact, the new president of the Senate, Roy Barreras, and who reaches that dignity for the second time, insisted this Wednesday on the need to process the reforms that the country needs and said that this Congress will go down in history for being the protagonist of change.
In addition, he announced that Congress will provide tools for the submission of illegal armed groups to ordinary justice. He also pointed out that, in some cases, changes could be made to the transitional justice system.
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“This will be the Congress of change. Here the great reforms that the country has waited for decades will be carried out. That change is not made just to mention it and repeat it, we must be a guarantee seal for this to happen (…). Colombians expect a lot from us, we have a unique opportunity to show that change is possible”, said Barreras in his inaugural speech.
The Valle del Cauca politician, one of the main bishops in the campaign that led Gustavo Petro to the Presidency of the Republic, began his speech by thanking the trust of the elected president and the Historical Pact bench, which he described as “beautiful, almost unusual, made up of human rights defenders, environmentalists, animal rights activists, peasants, afros, indigenous people, half of us women”.
Barreras also thanked the youth, the peasants and the excluded population of Colombia, but he especially reminded the more than nine million victims of violence which, he said, “taught us that it is possible to get out of the bottom, advance against the circumstances and even succeed”.
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Immediately afterwards, Barreras went into the matter of what the work of the new Congress will be and for this he used the word guarantee on several occasions. In this sense, first of all, he assured that “we must be a guarantee of results, so that the popular mandate of the change for which more than 11 million Colombians voted becomes a reality in the laws”.
you guysit is said to the congressmen, they will be the change managers that “They will guarantee full peace, social justice and environmental justice within the structure of the State, which the president-elect has proclaimed as a path for Colombia in the coming years.”.
Second, he stated: “We must also be an institutional guarantee”, that is, he explained, “so that the thesis of checks and balances operates again in this room, in order to respect the division of powers, democratic discussion, legislative independence and political control.”.
He also referred to the opposition, noting that as president of Congress “We must be a guarantee for the opposition, so that the voices that disagree here have the respect and dignity they deserve, so that their positions are heard with a reflective attitude and taken into account to build from the difference.”
Likewise, he spoke to those who did not vote for Gustavo Petro and invited them to build a single Colombia, while sending a message guaranteeing stability and respect for the Constitution. “We must be a guarantee of stability, to speak to those two Colombias: the one that won with us by demanding profound changes and the one that did not vote with us out of fear. This corporation will be the guarantor of respect for the Constitution so that our democratic vocation remains firm in the face of the slightest sign or wind that wants to boycott it, wherever it comes from.”.
Barriers, aware of the negative image that Congress has, He told his companions thatthey must be a guarantee of work” and reminded them that the institution has a negative image of 75 percent. “I intend, rather than reverse this bitter perception, that we begin to recover citizen trust with gestures of commitment and work”.
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In this regard, he announced that They will support a bill to make Congress more efficient and more committed to its task. “The power belongs to the citizens, we must obey and set an example“, said.
And I add: “Here are the faces of the excluded, faces that represent the millions out there waiting and demanding answers; faces that have the hope that the first stone of a long period of collective construction will be felt”. Those faces, he affirmed, are the ones that await the educational reform, the comprehensive rural reform, the Police reform and the tax reform.
also made him a call to the armed groups to lay down their arms, to respect the lives of civilians and social leaders and said that this Congress “will give them an opportunity, in some cases, through the necessary adjustments in the transitional justice system and, in others, through regulatory provisions that facilitate their subjection to ordinary justice”.
“Today we take the first step in a route where citizens feel proud and represented by this institution. We are the ones called to materialize the change. Let’s not waste any more time, let’s make history and get to work”, Roy Barreras told Congress.
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Just hours before the message about the gangs in the speech of the new president of Congress, the heads of the ‘Gulf clan’ and other criminal organizations sent a letter to the elected president, Gustavo Petro, Vice President-elect Francia Márquez and Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva in which they offered to disarm, ask for forgiveness and other actions in exchange for guarantees similar to those of other armed groups in the past to submit to justice.
WEATHER – POLITICS
