“I am going to propose to José Félix Lafaurie that he join the commission that we have appointed on behalf of the Government as negotiators with the National Liberation Army (ELN).” That was the transcendental invitation that President Gustavo Petro made to Lafaurie, leader of Fedegán, within the framework of the 39th edition of the National Cattlemen’s Congress.
This is an unprecedented step because it seeks to sit at the dialogue table the representative of one of the sectors most affected by the war and, in the same sense, one of the most critical of the negotiations with the guerrillas.
Petro asked him to lafaurie let your guild in “to the intimacies of that complexity” since, according to him, they can “To have first-hand the debate on how to get the ELN to end the phase of what was the armed insurgency in Colombia, the end of a historic phase that began in 1948.”
For the President of the Republic, nothing is possible in the midst of violence, which is why he urged the cattle union to contribute so that “total peace” comes to fruition.
“We can make a pact so that ‘total peace’ can be possible”he said -which generated the applause of the ranchers-.
Finally, the president highlighted the mentality and way of thinking of José Félix Lafaurie, since he represents a sector of society that “undoubtedly has a lot to say.”
“His presence will be valuable in the dialogues that have begun with the ELN and that hopefully will be the initial concretion of what we call ‘total peace'”, Petro concluded in his message to the cattle leader.
On Thursday night, Lafaurie told EL TIEMPO that if the President of the Republic requests it, neither he nor the union he represents could refuse to contribute to the success of a negotiation with the ELN.
Hard critic of Petro for years and husband of the senator of the Democratic Center María Fernanda Cabal, who is today one of the visible heads of the Opposition, Lafaurie has been in rapprochement with the president for several months.
In fact, after a surprise visit to the Casa de Nariño, he agreed with Petro that the ranchers could sell close to 3 million hectares for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform promoted by the Government.
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