Humberto de la Calle: "We have returned to the darkest times in Colombia"

Humberto de la Calle (Manzanares, Colombia, 74 years old) has briefly returned to Spain, a country that is familiar to him since his time as ambassador in Madrid, to which he will return in September to teach at the University of Navarra and Zaragoza. The key man in the peace negotiations of the Government of Juan Manuel Santos with the extinct FARC guerrilla in Havana has been everything in Colombian politics: among others, the Government's speaker in the 1991 Constituent Assembly, Vice President of the Government of Ernesto Samper (1994-1996), former presidential candidate in the 2018 elections that Iván Duque won ... and has not yet retired. In fact, he is a member of the Coalition of Hope, which will attend the legislative and presidential elections of 2022, and has just published his autobiography

Dispersed Memories

(Ed. Debate).

"We are at the worst moment," he says this Monday, referring to the situation his country is going through, in a central Madrid terrace.

Question.

Last Friday there was an attack against President Iván Duque.

Who wants to destabilize the country?

Answer.

It makes sense that they are groups of drug traffickers because the attack occurred in the region bordering Venezuela, in Catatumbo, an area with coca crops and in the presence of various criminal groups.

The guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) always act to destabilize the system, but it is rare because they have denied responsibility and do not usually hide their actions.

One feels that we have returned a decade or two ago, to the darkest moments of Colombia

P.

The attack occurs after massive protests throughout the country, which have caused many deaths.

What's going on?

R.

We had believed that there was light at the end of the tunnel. I still think that the peace agreement was not only a solution for the military aspects of the confrontation with the FARC, but also a roadmap on very sensitive issues such as the reasonable and realistic treatment of illicit crops, a policy improvement purpose. and the fight against corruption and then rural reform, a century and a half aspiration for Colombia that has always been aborted by the blindness of the elite. It seems to me that this was accumulating a series of dissatisfactions, that the marches are not only a product of the pandemic, which has aggravated an oppressive social situation. Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The government's simplistic version that it is a pandemic and drug trafficking problem is shortsighted. I think there has been,Despite the vandalism and acts of violence against the police and property, an unprecedented mobilization that we had never experienced by duration, volume and presence throughout the national territory. That had not happened in 200 years of Republican life.

Q.

Do you think that the Colombian case is part of what is happening in Latin America as in Chile and elsewhere?

R.

It is indisputable that it is happening in many other places and also outside of Latin America, it is possible that there is some connection due to the imitation effect, but Colombia has enough very serious situations that explain what happened.

It is a more fundamental and very structural issue.

Unfortunately, there were responses that were derived from the peace agreement and the State's failure to comply has been notorious.

P

.

Five years after the signing of the peace accords, what went wrong and what went right?

R

. I feel there is growing support for the agreements. It seems to me that the setback we suffered in the plebiscite (in 2016) today does not correspond to the reality of today. Even in the mobilizations, there is an atmosphere of search for peace and compliance with the agreement. It turned out badly that those who won the elections and today are the Government are against what was agreed upon since the electoral campaign and it seems to me that with a very shortened and very myopic vision because it is to preserve order, which is the ideal of former President Álvaro Uribe, the chief natural of the ruling party, in detriment of freedoms and greater equity. And in fact what we are seeing is that, even in the face of such harsh repression from the police, dissatisfaction continues and it will reappear. It turned out badly that the adversaries of the agreement won and that the Government has since tried to moderate its language,to present an international face of compliance with the agreement, but deep down there are forces that have made it difficult to comply with key elements. One, that of illicit crops, which exist and are an undeniable problem, but the Government's proposal has been to return to aerial spraying, which is not sustainable, apparently effective at the moment. UN figures say that only substitution is sustainable. It is repeating the mistakes of the last three decades. Then, the issue of land, of peasants who do not have land or have insufficient land, and finally, the opening of a more democratic and more inclusive policy, all of this was hindered. Álvaro Uribe says that the recent mobilizations are a negative product of the agreement. And I say that they do have to do with the agreement, but out of frustration.There are things that have gone very well, for example, transitional justice, the Special Jurisdiction of Peace (JEP), which was the object of several objections from the Government in the constitutional court, in Congress, all of which failed, has been fulfilling its task. Sanctions are announced soon for those responsible and it is undeniable that the FARC committed horrendous crimes, but they are not the only ones responsible and hence the concern arises that these political groups that oppose the full implementation of the agreement want to minimize the other types of violence. the violence of members of the public force, the so-called false positives, and the violence of non-combatant funders.in Congress, all of them failed, it has been fulfilling its task. Sanctions are announced soon for those responsible and it is undeniable that the FARC committed horrendous crimes, but they are not the only ones responsible and hence the concern arises that these political groups that oppose the full implementation of the agreement want to minimize the other types of violence. the violence of members of the public force, the so-called false positives, and the violence of non-combatant funders.in Congress, all of them failed, it has been fulfilling its task. Sanctions are announced soon for those responsible and it is undeniable that the FARC committed horrendous crimes, but they are not the only ones responsible and hence the concern arises that these political groups that oppose the full implementation of the agreement want to minimize the other types of violence. the violence of members of the public force, the so-called false positives, and the violence of non-combatant funders.the violence of members of the public force, the so-called false positives, and the violence of non-combatant funders.the violence of members of the public force, the so-called false positives, and the violence of non-combatant funders.

P.

Duque's popularity is on the ground.

Do you think you are Uribe's hostage?

R

.

It is right.

The Democratic Center has an extremely radical lunatic fringe.

Sometimes you want to see the president's efforts to distance himself, but he can't, among other things because the base of his party in Congress belongs to Uribe's leadership, not Duque's.

Second, because very dubious actions have been increasing in the area of ​​respect for freedoms.

The atmosphere has become harsher, more fanatical, and the Government has also been opting more and more for the simple path of repression.

And Uribe from his Twitter is generating the line of conduct.

P

.

Many believe that his stay in Spain will mean his exit from politics.

It's true?

Or are you considering running for president?

There are those who think that you are the Colombian Biden ...

R

.

I have not launched a candidacy, but I have not said that I will not.

It seems to me that we must finish configuring the forces that, like the Coalition of Hope, do not want populism or extremism.

I will be in Spain for two months, but I will continue in politics.

Q.

What would a victory for the leftist leader Gustavo Petro [who heads Pacto Histórico] mean?

R.

They have turned Petro into the only benchmark of politics in Colombia and that is a mistake.

I think there are sectors even interested in growing it to destroy it.

In terms of political discourse, it has quite interesting and intelligent things, it is less aggressive than in the past, but that is part of the political exercise.

Petro's problem, above all, is his enormous difficulty in transmitting confidence, a matter more in spirit than in his ideas, which are quite social democratic.

There are certain sectors of society that feel a certain fear to which is added, yes, the capacity of the Democratic Center to lie.

These gentlemen on the right have an enormous capacity to lie.

Q.

And uribismo?

R.

Uribe or Uribismo have two paths: try to reissue a more moderate candidate as a step with Duque, although he later derived, or go to the more radical wing, which I think is doomed to failure, but it is too early to make predictions.

There is a lot of uncertainty about life itself and about the electoral result.

Q.

In your autobiography you make a very strong self-criticism.

What do you regret the most?

R

. I make several confessions. First, the one that we should all do and I include the guerrillas. The futility of a 60-year conflict and eight million victims for which we should have reached a solution earlier. In my case, it took me too long to be imbued with the effects of that profound inequity in Colombia, of the invisible and profound Colombia, today I am more sensitive than I was in the past and I accuse myself of that, we should have had a more astute attitude to understand that what was happening was unsustainable. I do not want to be dogmatic with the agreement, there are many Colombians who did not agree with the agreement, but all the opportunities were lost and that of the rural reform, which sounds a bit strange in Europe, but it is that the peasants live in a regime almost of servitude.

Q.

What do you expect from the final report of the Truth Commission that will be released this year?

R.

That is key.

I think there has to be a truth in the facts, that they have to be incontrovertible, but this is not an academic exercise.

It would be a triumph for Colombians to find that there are different true truths and that we can live with them.

In other words, the mother who lost a child at the hands of the FARC understands that there is another mother who lost a child at the hands of the self-defense groups and that we are capable of living together.

I'm not even talking about forgiveness, which is personal and sometimes has religious characteristics, but reconciliation if we achieve it will be a success.

P.

But the report will come out in full campaign.

Are you afraid of increasing polarization?

R

.

I am going to say something that may sound a bit sacrilegious, but I think that the report should be postponed until after the elections. It is going to be explosive, not only because of what it says, but because of how it is used.

As the start of its application with the new Government slowed down, it seems legitimate to me to replace that time and also the electoral moment is the worst to assume truths that will be painful.

Q.

You have said that Uribe should appear ...

R.

It will not, but that will be a very serious democratic failure because the commission is enshrined in the law ... That does not seem very democratic to me.

In addition, he would appear to say what is his truth, he cannot replace that with demonstrations in the press.

Q.

Do you think that Colombia would need a Constituent Assembly?

A.

Not for various reasons. I have visited Chile and there is a Constitution of the dictatorship, which is an obstacle. Ours was the other way around, the 1991 Constitution, among other things, is an arc that goes from that date to the peace accords and no rule in the Constitution today prevents peace, tranquility or social justice. There are things that can be changed, but the essence, the core of the Constitution and its message seems to me to be alive and intact. Secondly, when Colombia reached the Constituent Assembly in 1991 we were in the abyss or on the edge of the abyss and there was an enormous conviction in the search for consensus and agreement; today it would be a battlefield.