President Iván Duque has only two and a half weeks left before leaving power, but he does not want to say goodbye without throwing a few darts at his successor. “This is the last time that he addresses me as president of the Republic before this Congress,” he said on Wednesday afternoon, when the new Colombian Congress was installed. He leaves office with a disapproval of 68% and with a parliament where the party of his rival, President-elect Gustavo Petro, now governs. Duque, however, entered the venue with pride by assuring: “We have fulfilled!”. The public did not agree. The congressmen of the opposition to his Government began to boo him. “Liar!” they yelled at him several times.
The first moment the screams started was when the president spoke about his first point in the speech: “Peace with Legality.” According to Duque, under his mandate, 1.3 million hectares were regularized for landless peasants, “the government that has provided more land to Colombian peasants in our recent history.” The dart to Petro came when he added that this process “demonstrated that social justice can be done in the countryside without expropriations.” The word expropriation was one that was used repeatedly by his allies against Petro, who has promised several times that he does not have in his program to expropriate the owners of the field. It doesn’t matter how much you repeat it. However, the president decided to provoke the petristas using that loaded word during the campaign.
Duque, moreover, went further. “We have provided all the necessary support to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Truth Commission,” he said seconds later. Both are institutions created by the 2016 Peace Agreement and Duque was elected in 2018 by voters who wanted to “tear the agreement to shreds.” During his administration, he tried to review the JEP with reforms that took away its powers (although he failed in the attempt), and recently he was absent when the Truth Commission presented its final report to the country, a titanic document in which several commissioners interviewed to thousands of war-affected citizens across the country.
Echoing the criticism that the military and right-wing sectors have made of this report, Duque said that he would like “a national debate to be installed in society that allows us to reach a truth without bias.” Later, speaking of the Army, he affirmed that “to the heroes of Colombia we reiterate that we are and will always be on your side and at your side, because you are the support of democracy.” The boos continued.
Duque was a president who several times turned his back on the institutions created by the peace process, which is why many of the regions most affected by the war voted for Petro. Raising the tone of his speech, the president added that “there is no objective cause that justifies a crime, much less appealing to false theories that rigged the word revolution.” Another implicit dart at those who support these peace institutions. But neither the JEP nor the Truth Commission have justified the violence of weapons.
In contrast, he spoke of military achievements, such as having managed to attack FARC dissidents, for example alias Uriel, alias Iván Mordisco or alias Rodrigo Cadete. “While others like Otoniel pay for their international crimes, without this preventing them from facing the Colombian justice system and repaying the victims,” he added. Several organizations asked him not to extradite Otoniel to the United States so that he could confess to his crimes in Colombia.
“This government has carried out a structural reform ensuring the well-being and integrity of the National Police and promoting a military and police institution that is closer to citizens,” said the president. The Police, however, have a disapproval of 58% that was increasing after the police violence that the government did not stop during the social protests. Faced with the protests against his government, which started in 2019 until 2021, Duque referred to them as “waves of violence that tried to block the country”, although there were “valid social claims for historical debts never settled”.
The president also spoke in his speech about the crises that were not under his control and that made his presidency more difficult: the coronavirus pandemic, the migration crisis in Venezuela with millions of people “seeking refuge from dictatorial opprobrium,” or the hurricane Iota of 2020 that destroyed the Colombian islands in the Caribbean. He highlighted that, despite the challenges, he managed to increase free education coverage for the youngest, in addition to creating new platforms for them to access employment. He added that he managed to have a joint cabinet for the first time (although it did not last throughout his term), and that under his government the country began the transition to renewable energy—a process that Petro has promised to speed up. . He also added that, under his government and during the crisis in Ukraine, Colombia managed to be included as a strategic ally, not a member, of NATO.
“We wish the next Administration success in its management,” Duque said towards the end of his speech. “Next August 7, when I regain my citizen status, my voice will always be attentive to build and build solutions for our nation.” He said it between shouts, boos, hitting the desks.
Duque is about to say goodbye to the Government, with very few willing to listen carefully, and the president does not seem to want to listen to his critics either. He described his opposition as those who promote “violence”, “dishonest attacks”, “fake news”, those “who seek to divide society”. He left Congress without hearing at least the reply from the opposition, that he had the right to speak after the president. He said goodbye as he governed: with many protests around, and without listening to those who wanted to reply.
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