The Foreign Minister accuses Washington of using “false arguments” and highlights Bogotá’s work in the fight against drug trafficking
Colombian Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio emphasized on Wednesday that the United States’ “excessive military presence” in the region poses “a threat to Latin America and the Caribbean” and accused Washington of using “false arguments” about the fight against drugs to justify its recent operations in the area, including threats of military intervention.
“We have warned that the exorbitant military presence in the region constitutes a threat to Latin America and the Caribbean,” she said during an EFE-Casa de América forum held in Madrid, before reiterating that this region “is a territory of peace,” since “the conflicts are in other hemispheres.”
Thus, he insisted that “Latin America has declared itself, through the platform of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as a territory of peace, and we want to remain so, despite internal problems, which all countries have.” “From this position of autonomy and non-interference, we offer mediation services to resolve internal problems, and if that fails, we respect the nations’ ability to resolve and address any disagreements they may have,” he added.
Villavicencio maintained that, therefore, “it is an act of aggression and an affront for the United States to have a false argument, because the fight against drug trafficking has been carried out very decisively by Colombia, and it has not been necessary to violate International Humanitarian Law to intervene in international waters.” However, he reiterated that Bogotá “extends a hand” to Washington for “political and diplomatic dialogue to resolve any differences or differing opinions they may have regarding Colombia’s work in combating drug trafficking.”
In this regard, she expressed Colombia’s suspicions that “there may be some covert action against Venezuela” by the United States, although she noted that this possibility is “uncertain,” while insisting on the need for “respect for sovereignty, and for heeding the UN’s pronouncement, which has stated very clearly and warned that these extrajudicial killings cannot be permitted in an international community where all nations have accepted conventions and regulations that we must all respect.”
The Colombian Foreign Minister warned that choosing a path that deviates from respect for International Law to address this situation implies “barbarism” and “that each country does as it pleases because it has more power or because it practices unilateralism, which is no longer effective in resolving any problems, which are above all global and shared.”
She emphasized that Colombia hopes Washington “will truly consider this, since the impact on the region would be very negative.” “It is up to the United States to reconsider the appropriateness of continuing with this attitude,” Villavicencio pointed out, adding that Washington “is becoming somewhat isolated in terms of support and sympathy, which is also important for nations—to be respected and admired, not feared.”
Furthermore, he warned that “any covert action, any action that destabilizes Venezuela will produce a very large exodus (of people to Colombia)” and insisted that “it would also be very damaging economically.” “There would be a very large economic impact and a humanitarian crisis,” he reiterated.
COLOMBIA’S WORK AGAINST DRUG TRAFFICKING HIGHLIGHTS
Villavicencio also defended the work of Colombian authorities in the fight against drugs, arguing that “perhaps there isn’t enough information and knowledge, but the results of the fight against drug trafficking are coming from two directions: one by directly addressing the populations and the most immediate causes, which is the fact that farmers feel compelled by their abandonment to cultivate coca leaves in order to later process them into drugs.”
“To the extent that we have addressed and implemented the 2016 peace agreements—with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—we have made progress on more than 12,000 hectares in crop substitution programs,” he emphasized, before explaining that this implies that this segment of the farming population “transitions to a legal economy,” something that “must be done through public policies.”
Thus, he emphasized that Gustavo Petro’s government is working to address the “profound injustice of the dispossession of the peasantry and their exclusion from participation in society, especially in terms of equal opportunities between rural and urban areas,” with the goal of ensuring that these communities have “acceptable living conditions” and access to roads, connectivity, schools, healthcare, and legal means of production, among other things.
Villavicencio maintained that these plans have led to the cessation of coca leaf cultivation in some areas, where it has been replaced by “coffee, cacao, quinoa, and other industrial products.” He added that it is now necessary to “enter a new phase” in which the agri-food industry helps drive this process through the sale and export of these products.
“It’s important to note that in recent periods, the agricultural sector has been the fastest growing within the country’s economy, which means that the efforts made (…) have been having an effect,” he stated. “Logically, 200 years of injustice is a long time to rectify in three years of government, but qualitative leaps have been made in that regard,” she argued.
The US “disrupts the dynamic” of bilateral relations.
“Colombia’s economy is more realistic and less influenced by drug trafficking,” the minister emphasized, adding that the South American country, “despite all these uncertainties,” is growing “between 3 and 3.5 percent, something unusual in today’s economies.” “The figures demonstrate that there is a policy in place, both macroeconomic and in terms of providing support and redistributing wealth to the population,” she pointed out.
In this vein, he highlighted that Colombia has achieved “very clear results,” including the fact that it is currently experiencing “the period in which the most tons of cocaine have been seized, the most laboratories destroyed, and the most people linked to these crimes have been extradited.”
For all these reasons, he lamented that the United States “has broken the dynamic” of relations that, “with their ups and downs, have been cordial.” “We always ask them to return to political dialogue, with mutual respect and on equal terms, but so far, no,” he stated, before emphasizing that military cooperation with Washington “continues,” including the exchange of information related to the fight against drug trafficking.
Villavicencio has criticized the inclusion of Petro and his family on the “Clinton List”—which includes individuals and organizations accused of having ties to drug trafficking or organized crime—describing it as “quite unfair” and a step intended to “isolate” Colombia by implying that the president “won’t be able to travel as much on official visits.”
“There is no evidence to support the claims made to justify Petro’s inclusion on that list,” he explained, before confirming that Colombia has asked the United States “to explain the reasons for including the president there,” and has also openly requested that Washington “remove him from that list.”
