The Foreign Minister of Colombia, Álvaro Leyva Durán, came out of the scandal over the absence of the South American country in the regional condemnation of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, on August 12 last. In a statement, the official denied that it was due to “ideological reasons” and attributed it to “humanitarian and strategic”, however, he did not offer details.
Leyva’s pronouncement occurs after the sustained criticism in Colombia by the main parties in Congress who demand an explanation from President Gustavo Petro, after days of silence that cast doubt on his democratic commitment, while Ortega persists in his human rights violations in Nicaragua.
? Press release regarding the Resolution on Nicaragua in the Permanent Council of @OEA_oficial pic.twitter.com/2IdbpL1ZxU
– Colombian Foreign Ministry (@CancilleriaCol) August 30, 2022
“The window of opportunity for a major humanitarian action in Nicaragua coincided with the vote that day,” said Leyva, who attributed Colombia’s subsequent silence to the fact that efforts could not be made public before obtaining a result.
According to the head of Colombian diplomacy, they hope “that the leaks do not have adverse consequences for what is sought,” while ratifying his government’s commitment to human rights both in his country and abroad.
“Colombia has a bilateral agenda with Nicaragua that requires a particularly careful treatment on the international stage, which the Foreign Ministry will preserve,” added the minister, but in this case he did not delve into explanations either.
On Monday, August 29, the journalist Daniel Coronell stated in the WRadius Colombia’s supposed strategy: Petro aspires to achieve a bilateral agreement with Ortega that allows the Raizal fishermen of San Andrés to continue working in the waters granted in the Caribbean to Nicaragua by the International Court of Justice in 2012.
According to published information by CONFIDENTIAL On Saturday, August 27, Petro’s silence was a strategy to create favorable conditions that would allow talks with Ortega, with whom he would sit down without calling him a dictator in the regional forum.
The confirmation that the decision to absent himself from the vote at the OAS came from Leyva came after a research, published by Caracol over the weekend. In it, the deputy minister of multilateral affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Juan José Quintana, confirmed that the decision of the current Colombian government was taken “based on delicate aspects of foreign policy that are confidential.”
“Cideological influences”
The other reason could be ideological. Petro’s position aroused suspicion among Nicaraguan and Colombian international relations experts who looked “ideological confluences” in the decisions of Bogotá, after the left-wing president reestablished relations with Managua, sending an ambassador, almost at the same time that he did it with Venezuela. The Colombian president also offered her support to the Peronist vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, investigated for corruption in her country and whom the new ruler assured she is a victim of persecution.
The internationalist Sandra Borda, a professor at the Universidad de los Andes, publicly confronted the Colombian government in an opinion article. She called Petro’s decision “naive” if it was based on a strategy to attempt a negotiation on the ICJ ruling.
Last April, the international court ordered Colombia to suspend its patrolling work in the 75,000 square kilometers, awarded in the Caribbean Sea to Nicaragua by the international court since November 2012.
The former foreign minister of Nicaragua, Norman Caldera, told CONFIDENTIAL also that it was feared that Petro was an ally of Ortega, while he assured that “the left has a one-eyed vision of human rights.”
