2024-08-30 04:00:00
Álvaro Leyva did not stop there, that was recognized by those close to him and those outside. The first president of the government Gustavo Petro, humiliated by the release that failed to produce Colombian passports and now without any official position, also appeared surprisingly on Wednesday next to Nicolás Maduro in the Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, the same week in which Colombia debated the conference. the highest possible solutions to the post-election crisis in neighboring Venezuela. “We analyze global geopolitics and the great challenges of our region,” Maduro wrote on his social networks, confirming himself in declaring himself the winner of the July 28 elections without presenting any evidence to do so. support that result, which is the majority of the world community. he doesn’t know. He accompanied his message with four photos, in two of which he is also with the Chancellor of the Bolivarian Republic, Yvan Gil.
Leyva’s visit was “on a personal basis,” explained the current head of Colombian diplomacy, Luis Gilberto Murillo, although he noted that the Government’s views include “a positive outlook” on the two-hour meeting he held with Maduro. “I believe that everyone who can contribute – and even more – to the fundamental solution, to the challenges of the political peace that Venezuela has, should do so,” said Murillo this Thursday, who has made calls that emphasize for understanding and discretion through his intense diplomatic efforts. The current president replaced Leyva after the Attorney General’s Office suspended him over a convoluted passport, a controversy that ended in his charge to remove him. Colombia has avoided recognizing any winner in the Venezuelan elections without burning bridges with Chavismo, while trying to mediate with Brazil in search of a negotiated solution.
Leyva, an octogenarian politician of conservative origin, has been a kind of shadow peace minister at various times during Petro’s government, which is in its second year. The first left-wing president of today’s Colombia puts diplomacy at the service of the overall peace project, with which he plans to discuss simultaneously with several armed groups. Leyva even used to introduce himself as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Peace, an unofficial title, to make that reference clear. In the past he has acted as an intermediary between different governments and different groups, sometimes as a kind of free agent who creates alternative communication channels, compared to officials.
With Leyva, Colombia recently repaired the often difficult relations with Venezuela’s Chavista, which became one of the sponsors of the peace negotiations with the ELN, the last guerrilla in arms, and the rebels of the destroyed FARC. These groups not only work on the other side of the border that unites the two countries, they also seek refuge in Venezuela, as many studies have documented. The constructive role of Caracas in the overall peace tables is key. Leyva’s administration at the Foreign Ministry was criticized, among many other reasons, for favoring this negotiation over the interests of other Colombian governments.
On the afternoon of the appearance with Maduro, Leyva has published on his social networks – after a month of inactivity – another photo with former President Álvaro Uribe, whom he describes as “an important candidate in the history of Colombia”, and also diatribe against Petro’s new Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo. In that message he insisted on his theory that the peace agreement with the destruction of the FARC guerrillas opens the doors to a Regional Assembly – although in this case he avoided using that word -, which is generally considered nonsense. The extent of his efforts “in personal power” is at least uncertain, but they occurred simultaneously with the great debate that emerged in Colombia about the position the country should have towards Venezuela.
Petro called the previous presidents, but Venezuela split positions
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A month after the Venezuelan elections, the reconciliation effort in which Colombia and Brazil continue has ended without palpable results. The opposition secured the landslide victory of Edmundo González, who was supported by almost all the electoral records he received, but Maduro turned a deaf ear to international pressure. Maduro himself has admitted that he had a close call with Petro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who stressed in a joint statement over the weekend that the credibility of the electoral process “can only be restored through the transparent publication of distributed and accurate data . “. The statement also says that they are still waiting for “the dissemination, by the National Electoral Commission, of the minutes broken by the polling station”, calls to avoid repression and, in a nod to Chavismo, criticizes the sanctions one to Venezuela.
Before, Petro and Lula have already publicly said to Maduro, separately, the possibility of a coalition government change and new elections with recommendations as a way out of the crisis. Petro then even listed a series of steps that included the lifting of sanctions, national and international amnesty, general recommendations for political action, a temporary coalition government and “new free elections”, an idea criticized from various groups. . For Colombia, it is important that the crisis be resolved peacefully, because in addition to the large border it shares with Venezuela and the overall peace negotiations, it is the main host country for the Venezuelan diaspora.
In the midst of internal criticism for not forcing Maduro – as the Chilean Gabriel Boric, another leftist of the President, has done -, Petro this week in the Foreign Policy Advisory Council, a high-level body to that of the six former President, as as well as some diplomats and Congressmen. The previous president who went alone was the liberal Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), while the conservatives Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) and Iván Duque (2018-2022) took advantage of the call to accuse Petro of being complicit Maduro, a figure very repudiated in Colombian public opinion. Neither Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) nor César Gaviria (1990-1994) have publicly expressed their positions.
“The most important thing about the Advisory Board is that there is an opportunity to discuss, regretting the absence of previous managers,” he said. Samper in communication with EL PAÍS. “The first conclusion on which we agree is that we must insist that the minutes must be shown; “There is a consensus to support the request made by Mexico, Colombia and Brazil,” he said, without going into the most confidential details. There are also serious accidents in the demand for guarantees for the opposition, he pointed out. “My position is that we must find a peaceful, democratic and institutional solution. And this solution has to come from the Venezuelan people, not imposed from outside,” said the former secretary general of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).
Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), who went to the previous term but did not go to this week, confirmed his position on Venezuela in a message addressed to Petro in which he showed that “the Venezuelan government lost all rights and Maduro must give” power. “It is the best thing for the region and especially for Colombia. We do not want another Nicaragua to be based in the important country of Venezuela, with which we have 2,200 kilometers. of the border and very reliable,” said the Nobel Peace Prize winner in a statement he made public. turn into a weakness or even a problem,” he said. Colombian diplomacy has encountered a labyrinth.
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