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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/08/05/colombia-achieves-milestone-in-peace-process-as-right-wing-intensifies-destabilization-campaign/">peoplesdispatch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Colombia achieves milestone in peace process as right-wing intensifies destabilization campaign <br></h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Peoples Dispatch - August 5, 2023<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><img src="cid:ii_lkyecywp0" alt="image.png" width="392" height="221"><br><p>Members
of the peace delegations and representatives of social movements
participated in the launch of the National Participation Committee in
Bogotá on August 3.
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<p>The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the
country’s largest left-wing guerrilla group, on Thursday, August 3,
began a 180-day bilateral ceasefire. The truce will remain in force
until January 29, 2024. The historic step was agreed upon on June 9
during the third round of peace negotiations between the two sides in
Havana, Cuba.</p>
<p>The development marked the most concrete progress to date for leftist
president Gustavo Petro and his government’s plan to bring “total
peace” to the country and end over 60 years of internal armed conflict,
during which more than 450,000 people were killed.</p>
<p>During an event held in Corferias, Bogotá, the National Participation
Committee, made up of 81 delegates from 30 different social movements,
trade unions, human rights organizations, victims’ movements, business
organizations, among other sectors from all over the country, was
established.</p>
<p>The Committee will be responsible for defining the methodology to
ensure the participation of Colombian society in making proposals in the
peace process. It will also be in charge of bringing the suggestions
and requests of the civil society to eradicate violence to the
negotiation table. Above all the committee seeks to help achieve a
successful peace process that is accompanied by transformations in
society.</p>
<p>The event was attended by President Gustavo Petro, the head of
government delegation Otty Patiño, the head of the ELN delegation Pablo
Beltrán, the high commissioner for peace Danilo Rueda, Senator Iván
Cepeda, and other members of the peace delegations. The event was also
attended by several government ministers and officials, representatives
of the UN, representatives from the Catholic Church and guarantor
countries, as well as around 2,000 citizens from regions across the
country, who have historically suffered the most from the conflict.</p>
<p>President Petro, in his speech, focused on the need for peace in the
country. He analyzed the armed conflict and insisted on the need to
value life above death. He stressed that a true revolution implies
betting on peace, that is, on life, without the use of arms.</p>
<p>“Today is about life or death, no revolutionary can be on the side of
death…, anyone who really wants to transform society in today’s world
has to be on the side of life. “Being on the side of life is the
revolution,” said Petro.</p>
<p>For his part, Beltrán highlighted the importance of the National
Participation Committee in bringing forward proposals, solutions,
alternatives and changes that the country requires and that are
fundamental for the advancement of the peace process.</p>
<p>“May the people make a diagnosis, but also say what must be done! May the elites join the change!,” said Beltrán.</p>
<h3><b>Social organizations hold national mobilization for Life, Peace and Popular Democracy</b></h3>
<p>The ceasefire began a day after thousands of citizens and members of
various social organizations took to the streets in different regions of
the country demanding dismantling of paramilitary groups, end to
persecution of social activists and movements, and real transformations
that guarantee life, peace, justice and democracy.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, August 2, under the banner of “For Life, Peace and
Popular Democracy,” thousands of people mobilized against violence and
in defense of human rights in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Tadó,
and Casanare.</p>
<p>The social organizations condemned that the paramilitaries continue
to expand throughout the country and attack the people who fight for
their rights and territories. Several social leaders denounced that the
police and military forces continue to work with various paramilitary
groups. “The existence and strength of paramilitaries is not possible
without the systematic help of the public force,” argued social
organizations such as the Congreso de los Pueblos, the National Agrarian
Coordinator (CNA) and the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO). They also
rejected the displacement and confinement of communities in regions hit
by paramilitarism and demanded concrete responses from the government.</p>
<p>Likewise, the members of Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities
condemned the Attorney General’s Office as the guarantor of impunity in
the country and for allowing paramilitaries to commit crimes without
being tried. They denounced the racism faced by the communities and
explained that their cases are never “prioritized” and remain partially
investigated and without conclusions.</p>
<p>The organizations also criticized the public petroleum company
Ecopetrol as a part of the criminal political network, operated by
private businessmen and members of various previous governments
responsible for paramilitarism and corruption, that finances
paramilitary actions in the country.</p>
<p>“It has lent itself to the looting of natural resources in order to
enrich a few “good people” and also had agreements to deliver its
products directly to the paramilitaries through an “agreed robbery” that
gave them more than 85 billion pesos, only between 2000 and 2005,”
denounced the organizations.</p>
<p>Last week, an investigation revealed a millionaire oil theft within
Ecopetrol, carried out by 17 businessmen and members of former
government officials with the help of paramilitary groups.</p>
<h3><b>Right-wing intensifies destabilization campaign against the Petro government</b></h3>
<p>The historic ceasefire between the national government and the ELN
rebels began just as the country’s right-wing forces launched a new
destabilization campaign against the Petro government following the
arrest of the president’s son Nicolás Petro in an alleged money
laundering case. Several right-wing opposition leaders and legislators
are demanding Petro’s resignation.</p>
<p>Last week, on July 29, the Attorney General’s Office arrested Nicolás
Petro, accusing him of the alleged crimes of money laundering, illicit
enrichment and data breach. The arrest came after the publication of an
interview given by Day Vásquez, ex-wife of Nicolás Petro, to Semana
magazine, in which she alleged that her ex-partner would have received
large sums of money from questionable sources. She mentioned that about
600 million pesos came from former drug trafficker Santander Lopesierra,
alias “Marlboro Man”, and another 400 million pesos from the son of a
controversial figure known as “Turco Hilsaca”. She also alleged that the
money was supposedly earmarked for Gustavo Petro’s presidential
campaign, but instead was used by Nicolás to purchase a luxurious home
in Barranquilla.</p>
<p>This Wednesday, on August 3, in the first hearing before the Attorney
General’s Office, Nicolás Petro admitted having received money from
irregular sources, and that a part of it was allegedly used for his
father’s 2022 presidential campaign.</p>
<p>Following the statement from the Attorney General’s Office, Vicky Dávila, director of the weekly magazine <i>Semana</i>
that has been critical of Petro since he was a candidate, claimed that
Nicolás Petro told the Attorney General’s Office that Gustavo Petro was
aware of the irregular money being used in his campaign.</p>
<p>President Petro immediately reacted to the claim, assuring that it
was a lie. “This is a lie. But in order to spread it, now several
networks put this statement as some sources of the prosecutor’s office,
this is how they spread the lie,” said Petro in a <a href="https://twitter.com/petrogustavo/status/1687296042092388352?s=20">tweet</a>.
“To this day there is not a single sentence or audio of months of
conversations recorded in the audios of my son and his ex-wife or in the
videos that the author has of all my private meetings of the
pre-campaign and campaign intercepted by government agencies that
confirms this lie,” he added.</p>
<p>During a public event on August 3, Petro once again rejected the
accusations. “Someone wrote today that my son had said that I knew that
illegal money had entered my campaign. This statement can be analyzed in
several ways and since it was not said by a judge, I am going to
analyze what he said. He has a subliminal instinct in what he said and
obviously if that were true, this President would have to leave today.
So I have to tell that person, don’t keep telling lies. My son didn’t
say that, and he didn’t say that for a basic reason, I have told my
children: never commit a crime,” said the president.</p>
<p>“This is not the first time that they have tried to use the family
scars, some will heal, others may never heal, they have tried to use all
the weaknesses and errors to open the way to the collapse of the first
popular government in Colombia,” Petro added.</p>
<p>To those demanding his resignation, Petro said “It is to the people
that I must answer, be sure that this government is ending by popular
mandate. There is no one who can end this government but the people
themselves, and the people themselves gave an order by majority at the
ballot box, we will continue until the year 2026.”</p>
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