Iván Duque and Mike Pompeo at the Casa de Nariño, in Bogotá, Presidency of Colombia
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, reiterated this Saturday from Colombia that the ELN guerrillas and the FARC dissidents that left the peace process are welcomed from the other side of the border with Venezuela in a behavior that cannot be tolerated .
The regime "has provided safe haven, aid and shelters these terrorists," he assured after meeting with President Iván Duque at the Casa de Nariño.
"Nicolás Maduro is a criminal against humanity," replied the Colombian president, alluding to the new UN report that accused the Chavista government of crimes such as torture and murder this week.
"This bleeding has to stop," Duque said after recalling that, as a senator, he denounced Maduro before the International Criminal Court.
"There is a regime of violations of human rights in a systematic way," said the president about the neighboring country, and the international community "has to act so that this situation ends."
Duque assumed power two years ago with a promise to isolate the heir of Hugo Chávez, whom he does not recognize and calls a "usurper."
As the main promoter of this "diplomatic siege", in tune with Washington, the Colombian Executive has also become the great support of Juan Guaidó, the leader of the National Assembly recognized by nearly 60 countries as the president in charge facing a critical moment before the legislative elections called for the end of the year.
This unrestricted support for Guaidó has raised the tension between two countries that share a border of more than 2,200 kilometers.
Colombia is also the main host country for the diaspora that is fleeing driven by hyperinflation, insecurity or the shortage of food and medicine, with 1.7 million Venezuelans settled in its territory, according to figures from immigration authorities.
"We have had a fraternal policy to serve Venezuelan sisters and brothers, but we know that the situation there is unsustainable," added Duque, praised by the head of US diplomacy for having attended to refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Colombians should be proud," Pompeo said.
At the last stop on a regional tour, Pompeo, who called Duque "a true leader for the region," has made sure to reactivate pressure on Maduro.
The day before, he described the Venezuelan president as a “drug trafficker” and reiterated that the United States intends to remove him from power from the Brazilian city of Boa Vista, capital of the state of Roraima, bordering Venezuela, where he was received by Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo in the only country in which it was not received by a representative.
"Maduro has to go," he had stated in Guyana, where he met Irfaan Ali, and his tone was similar in Suriname, where he met Chan Santokhi.
He will leave Colombia this Saturday for Texas, a state with an important Latino community, a key electorate in the midst of Donald Trump's campaign for re-election.
It is Pompeo's fourth trip to Colombia since Duque came to power.
He had already praised his commitment to reestablishing democracy in Venezuela when he visited Cartagena in January 2019, then in April he was in the border city of Cúcuta to learn first-hand about the humanitarian impact of the migration crisis, and earlier this year he met in Bogotá with both Duque and Guaidó in the framework of an antiterrorist summit.
That meeting took place in the same cadet school in which an attack with a car bomb by the National Liberation Army, the last guerrilla group active in Colombia, caused the death of 22 young policemen.
The Duque Government has insistently denounced, even before the UN General Assembly, that Venezuela has become a “sanctuary” for illegal Colombian armed groups, and that the ELN, sheltered by the Chavista authorities, maintains a rearguard to the other side of the boundary line.
Pompeo also thanked Duque this Saturday, as he did at that time, "for his leadership in the fight against Hezbollah in the hemisphere," as exerting maximum pressure on the Lebanese militia whom he described as the representative of Iran "is essential for the peace and security of all peoples ”.
Colombia, the privileged partner
The presence of the Secretary of State in the Casa de Nariño represents Bogotá's status as a privileged partner of the Donald Trump Administration on the regional board.
During the meeting, they discussed issues related to the management of the pandemic, economic reactivation, regional security, the fight against drug trafficking and transnational terrorism, as well as the situation of Venezuelan migrants, according to the Presidency of Colombia.
They also talked about the Colombia Crece strategy, "a new chapter in the bilateral relationship," according to Duque.
The program seeks to attract US investment and allocate 5,000 million dollars to the development of rural areas in the South American country, and was launched on August 17 during the campaign of Mauricio Claver-Carone, the White House candidate who prevailed in the election. for the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
In that recent diplomatic battle, Colombia was one of the first and most enthusiastic promoters of Claver-Carone, against regional pressure and despite the fact that his name breaks the tradition of keeping a Latin American at the head of the organization.
As former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), his political mentor, had already done with George W. Bush, Duque has played for a diplomacy aligned with Washington, an ally in the fight against drugs and counterinsurgency since Plan Colombia was launched. with the turn of the century.
Bogotá exhibits this close alliance with Trump despite the risk of being thrown off balance by an eventual defeat of the Republican in the November elections that implies the arrival of Democrat Joe Biden to the White House.
Several analysts warn of the danger of breaking the diplomatic tradition of seeking a bipartisan consensus in Washington.
Despite the good feeling around Venezuela, the United States has on several occasions aired its concern about the extension of coca leaf crops in Colombia, a constant source of friction.
This same week, the Trump administration certified Bogotá in its fight against drugs, but accompanied that memorandum with a warning for the "unacceptably high levels" of drug crops.
The total area went from 169,000 to 154,000 hectares at the end of last year, according to the official UN measurement, down from the record of 171,000 hectares in 2017. “We all need to do more to reach the goal of reducing crops of coca to the half ”, pointed Pompeo after his meeting with Duque.
The White House also decertified Venezuela and Bolivia for failing to comply with their international commitments to combat drug trafficking.