“Everything’s fine?…”. The phrase of President Nicolás Maduro when shaking hands with his counterpart Gustavo Petro at the Golden Gate of Miraflores, under the famous Balcony of the People, was clearly heard in the stands in front of the presidential palace.
The welcome ceremony began at 2:20 p.m. on that Tuesday afternoon when rain threatened. Petro arrived accompanied by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who received him in Maiquetía.
After the handshake, Petro and Maduro stood at attention to listen to the anthems of Colombia and Venezuela, interpretations that concluded at 2:31 pm, when they immediately began the review of the alley by the Guard of Honor. The short walk led them to another door of the Miraflores Palace where they began their work day. The leaders wore black pants and a white shirt with red filaments.
Three hours later, they made the journalists from Venezuela and Colombia go to the Ayacucho Hall, where the agreement aimed at relaunching relations between the two countries, broken since February 2019, when Iván Duque governed the neighboring nation, would be signed.
We learned from witnesses that there was a kind of plenary meeting of both delegations that took place between 2:45 and 4:30 pm. Later, Petro and Maduro had a private conversation. “It was a fruitful, intense and extensive day,” Maduro commented at the beginning of his speech at 5:38 pm in the Ayacucho Hall, once the agreement called “Joint Declaration” containing eleven points was signed.
Maduro praised the historical relations between Venezuela and Colombia, as they are “two countries that have a mark for brotherhood and understanding.”
Within the eleven points contained in the joint declaration, Maduro focused on “the new steps towards a total and secure opening of the borders.”
But the other point of interest on the agenda of both presidents is the return of Venezuela to the inter-American human rights system, which the country abandoned on September 10, 2013.
As of that date, Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights materialized, an instance to which the victims turned when they had exhausted the Venezuelan instances without obtaining justice.
“I have been very receptive and so it will be over the next few weeks on this interesting issue raised by President Gustavo Petro,” said Maduro, who concluded his brief speech at 5:45 in the afternoon.
The next minute Petro began, greeting the authorities present. And in the middle of his speech, he took up the issue of Venezuela’s return to the inter-American human rights system. In this regard, the Colombian president made a distinction between the use that was given to this inter-American system, translated into the American Convention, approved in 1972, and what such an instrument represents today.
Petro said that this Convention was made with the foundations of liberal democracy. “And the following year (after it was signed), what happened was the coup d’état against Salvador Allende, that is, the total destruction of democracy,” he pointed out.
From that fact in the political life of Chile that had elected Allende, and that Petro associated with the American Convention, dictatorial governments and armed movements were installed in the region, according to his account.
But the Colombian president says that today the American Convention is necessary “in the face of the barbarism that is being unleashed in the world, in the face of the advance of fascism, of authoritarianism, of the exoduses that are answered with bullets at the borders.”
Both presidents let see in their speeches, concrete actions derived from the “Joint Declaration” whose signature they stamped this saint’s day in the Miraflores Palace. Here are some of those actions.
· Strengthening of the Community of Latin American States (Celac).
· The re-entry of Venezuela to the Andean Community of Nations (CAN). “Good news for South America,” Maduro commented.
· Plans for the recovery of the Amazon through the strengthening of the South American Amazon Treaty.
· The good treatment of the population that migrates from both countries.
· Reconstruct the borders. “The border was left in the hands of the mafias, what we call multi-crime organizations, it is the expression of a failure,” said Petro, who announced a meeting in the coming days of Venezuelan and Colombian businessmen.
· Intelligence against drugs. “We are going to rebuild even the relations that existed at the intelligence level to be able to hit, not so much the drug trafficking worker, but the owners of capital,” suggested the Colombian president.
· Colombian Delegation: Germán Antonio Gómez (Presidential Advisor for Information and Press), Álvaro Leyva Durán (Foreign Minister), Laura Camila Sarabia (Chief of Cabinet), Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva (Ambassador of Colombia to the Organization of American States), Armando Benedetti (Colombian ambassador to Venezuela), Sandra Arboleda Zárate (private secretary of the ambassador). Added to this are the 25 journalists who traveled with Petro from Colombia.
· Venezuelan Delegation. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, Vladimir Padrino López (Min-Defense), Remigio Ceballos (Interiors), Ramón Velásquez (Transport), Tarek El Aissami (Oil), Hipólito Abreu (Industries), Carlos Farías (Foreign Minister), José David Cabello (Seniat) , Félix Plascencia (ambassador to Colombia), Freddy Bernal (governor of Táchira) and Nicolás Maduro Guerra (deputy).
