This Tuesday, September 27, the second meeting between the President Gustavo Petro and former President Álvaro Uribe. The first time the leaders met was on June 29, after the victory of the leader of the Historical Pact.
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On this occasion the meeting took place around 11:00 am in the Casa de Nariño and lasted more than an hour. Likewise, the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, and the congressmen of the Democratic Center, Miguel Uribe and Óscar Pérez, were present.
At the end of the meeting, the members of the right party held a press conference where they pointed out some of the issues discussed at the meeting. The former president assured that “We spoke frankly and respectfully, he proceeded in the same way“. He described the dialogue as “generous and constructive”.
By the Democratic Center They assured that they will support the purchase of 3 million hectares proposed by President Petro. Likewise, Uribe requested that they not stigmatize either the government as “neocommunist” or them as “extreme right.
The exmandatario clarified, in turn, that they will continue to make a constructive opposition to the current government. “Using the constructive word to describe the opposition implies some costs. It implies some behaviors. The opposition when it is announced as a constructive opposition has to be an opposition that knows how to dialogue and oppose with arguments, that knows how to criticize with reasons, that knows how to listen and that also be willing to reach agreements,” he said.
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Alvaro Uribe
Sergio Steel Yacht / Time.
Along with this, Uribe said that he had spoken to Petro about the concerns that citizens have approached to demonstrate. “I asked my colleagues for patience because I felt an obligation to pass on what I hear to people,” she said.
One of those aspects was the issue of land. He said that it was a big step not to talk about expropriating, but about buy a certain number of hectares because “that reconciles the need to solve peasant social problems and at the same time not affect the productive sectors of the countryside,” he assured.
In this sense, he said that they will accompany the Government in the purchase of land. They also talked about the military forces. “With all due respect, you are the commander and, without my having made a single comment in public, I want to tell you that there are sad military families who tell you: they took my father, the general, out of soon for an entry in the HV unjust and then they affected a long career of service to the Fatherland wearing the uniforms of the armed forces“, assured the former president.
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Finally, Uribe said that he had insisted on the creation of a special and impartial chamber in the JEP for members of the Armed Forces. “The guerrilla who goes there if he recognizes a crime, recognizes what he should do according to what the guerrilla was doing. But the soldier who has to admit a crime to enjoy freedom recognizes what he should not do and what he didn’t do,” he said.
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