(EFE).- A call for the union of Colombia and Latin America and the search for peace with the armed groups were the main axes of the investiture speech of the new president of the country, the leftist Gustavo Petro, who also announced major reforms, among them a tributary, focused on the social.
In a speech that lasted nearly an hour, the president gave clues as to what his government’s priorities will be, criticized the lack of unity among Latin American countries, and said that he will work “to achieve true and definitive peace” that guarantees “a life fair and safe.”
Petro, who at times could not avoid tears, also appealed to the liberator Simón Bolívar to call for unity, citing the phrase “union must save us, just as division will destroy us if it comes between us.”
And, as his predecessors have done, he also quoted a passage from One hundred years of solitude of the Nobel Prize for Literature Gabriel García Márquez: “Everything written in them was unrepeatable forever and ever because the lineages condemned to a hundred years of solitude did not have a second chance on earth”.
In addition to claiming the symbols of “change”, Petro took advantage of the quote from One hundred years of solitude to talk about the “second chance” that he hopes will come to Colombia under his mandate.
Petro affirmed that his Government will be “decentralized” and will try to reach each of the corners of Colombia, since “the absence of the State in many parts of the country hurts a lot.”
Along these lines, he affirmed that his government will be “decentralized” and will try to reach each of the corners of Colombia, since “the absence of the State in many parts of the country hurts a lot” and one of the keys will be to achieve “total peace “.
“We have to end, once and for all, six decades of violence and armed conflict. We can. We will comply with the Peace Agreement, we will strictly follow the recommendations of the Truth Commission report and we will work tirelessly to bring peace and tranquility to every corner of Colombia,” said the president.
For this reason, he called on “all those armed to lay down their arms in the mists of the past” so that “peace is possible” and thus “end, once and for all, six decades of violence and armed conflict.”
“For peace to be possible in Colombia, we need to dialogue, dialogue a lot, understand each other, seek common paths, produce changes,” Petro stressed.
The president has promised a policy of “total peace”, which ranges from resuming talks with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to achieving the legal submission of other groups.
But that peace, according to the president, is only “possible if, for example, the policy against drugs is changed” to a “strong policy of prevention of consumption in developed societies.”
On Monday, a tax reform focused on social matters will be presented to Congress to obtain resources to help the most vulnerable population and that seeks to raise 50 billion pesos
Petro assured in his speech that on Monday a tax reform focused on social matters will be presented to Congress to obtain resources to help the most vulnerable population and that it seeks to raise 50 billion pesos (about 11,543 million dollars today) according to the estimates of the technical team of the new Government.
“Equality is possible if we are capable of creating wealth for everyone, and if we are capable of distributing it more fairly. That is why we propose an economy based on production, work and knowledge. And that is why we propose a tax reform that generates justice,” said the president.
The president recalled that “10% of the Colombian population has 70% of the wealth,” which he considered “nonsense and amorality.”
In his government, Petro will also propose “a reform of health and pensions, a reform of the employment contract, a reform of education.”
“We have prioritized in the budget the infrastructure of education, health, drinking water, irrigation districts and neighborhood roads. The taxes will not be confiscatory, they will simply be fair, in a country that must recognize as an aberration the enormous social inequality in which we live, in a State that must protect the transparency of spending, and in a society that deserves to live in peace,” he said.
Petro also took advantage of his investiture to launch a forceful message in which he advocated Latin American unity in the face of the challenges imposed by a “complex world.”
“Today we need to be more together and united than ever. As Simón Bolívar once said: ‘Unity must save us, just as division will destroy us if it comes between us.’ Let the division of Latin America come to an end. But Latin American unity It cannot be a rhetoric, a mere speech,” said the president.
He also assured that for Latin America it is “time to leave behind the blocs, the groups and the ideological differences to work together.”
“Let us understand once and for all that there is much more that unites us than what separates us. And that together we are stronger. Let us make the unity that our heroes, like Bolívar, San Martín, Artigas, Sucre and O’Higgins. It is not a utopia nor is it romanticism,” he added.
With his clear proposals and after taking office, Petro will lead Colombia in the next four years with the aim of giving it a “second chance”, since he considers that “the challenges we have as a nation require a stage of unity and consensus basics”.
“I congratulate President Gustavo Petro (…) and I wish him success in this new stage that begins after the victory achieved with great popular support”
For his part, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel ratified this Sunday Cuba’s commitment to peace in Colombia in a congratulatory message sent to the new president of the South American country. “I congratulate President Gustavo Petro (…) and I wish him success in this new stage that begins after the victory achieved with great popular support,” he wrote on his Twitter profile.
“I ratify Cuba’s commitment to peace in Colombia,” added the designated president.
Shortly after his election, Petro, a former guerrilla of the demobilized April 19 Movement (M19), proposed to the Cuban government his sponsorship to resume peace talks with the guerrilla National Liberation Army (ELN).
Then, he said that he wanted to return to the protocol already established in the negotiations that “allows the continuation of the ELN talks there (in Havana).”
Cuba had a crucial role in the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group as one of the guarantor countries and host of the talks during the four years.
These ended with the signing of the Peace Agreement between the Government of Bogotá –then chaired by Juan Manuel Santos– and the insurgents, on November 24, 2016.
After that agreement, Colombia began a similar process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in 2017, which began in Ecuador but moved to Havana the following year.
Nevertheless, the 2019 attack of the guerrilla group against the Police Cadet School in Bogotá, which left 22 dead and 66 wounded, led the Government of Iván Duque to definitively break off the talks and demand the return of the insurgents.
Cuba, which condemned this terrorist act, has refused to extradite the negotiators of the ELN –the last guerrilla in Colombia after the peace agreement that disarmed the extinct FARC–, protected by the terms of the pact signed by the previous Colombian government in event of a halt in talks.
In November 2021, on the fifth anniversary of the agreement with the FARC, Miguel Díaz-Canel highlighted his government’s “unalterable” commitment to peace in Colombia. Likewise, he referred to his country’s “principled” position regarding the Colombian armed conflict, and affirmed that Cuba will continue to support the initiatives for a negotiated political solution.
Likewise, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who is in Bogotá for the investiture, expressed in his congratulations after winning the presidency Cuba’s “unalterable commitment” to peace in Colombia and the will to “deepen bilateral relations.”
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