Warnings over new security structures made up of reservists, growing tensions during the presidential transition and a climate of greater political confrontation are reviving fears of regression in human rights and democratic guarantees.
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Ivette Fernández
In the New Granadian nation, victim for over six decades of internecine wars, excesses by paramilitary groups, abuses by the police and military, and also of terror unleashed by drug traffickers, there are many who fear the resurgence of old ghosts that until now they believed buried and who are reliving traumas still vivid in the memory.
That is the reading taken from the warning from the leader of the opposition, senator Iván Cepeda, who has asked international and domestic human rights organisations to supervise the situation in Colombia in the near future after cautioning that the incoming government has overtones of paramilitarism.
The ex-presidential candidate warned firstly about the administration’s intention to create urban search blocs and first lines of security, structures that would be made up not of public servants but of veterans and military reservists.
He recalled that Colombians know well the consequences of confusing legitimate authority with armed civilian organisations, and the consequences of the state giving up its monopoly of force and supporting the formation of parallel structures.
On top of this, he added, is the criminalisation of social protest: “Not a day passes without Mr Abelardo De la Espriella and his entourage, with the complicity of authoritarian mayors like Mr Fico Gutiérrez in Medellín and Alejandro Eder in Cali, spurred on by the despotism of their belligerent new boss, threatening to unleash brutal repression against those who go out onto the streets to protest peacefully”. The language and allegories used by some members of the next leader’s team fill those who disagree with the far-right representative’s ideas with worry. “Noah’s Ark” was the name given to the president-elect’s strategy of handover and transition, built previously alongside Carlos Alonso Lucio, a very controversial figure due to his passage through all the ideological currents ending with his position now among the most conservative.
According to the story in the book of Genesis, God ordered Noah to build a vessel to save his family and the animal species from a universal flood destined to destroy life on earth due to human wickedness.
This idea is interpreted by some as a purge that marginalises and condemns those who have not been chosen.
The lawyer and former National Electoral Council judge Luis Guillermo Pérez stated, for example, that the name constitutes “a symbol of exclusion and political violence”. But the most serious of Carlos Alonso Lucio’s pronouncements related to the figure of the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro. He asserted that the leader must submit himself to a political trial in front of Congress’s Commission for Investigation and Accusation, and he left open the possibility of Petro’s possible extradition to the United States.
Following his comments, the tense atmosphere already present in the handover process worsened, which led the government to suspend the meetings intended to effect the transition of power.
As a result, the treasury minister, who is also responsible for transition on the outgoing cabinet’s side, Germán Ávila, said that the sessions could not take place until De la Espirella’s team ceased using expressions and acting in ways incompatible with the institutional nature of the process.
In addition to denouncing threats against the president, he also issued a warning about the stigmatising narrative of the other party describing the exercise as “anti-corruption handover”. “Handover is not a criminal investigation. Handover is not a trial. Handover is not a political platform. Handover is a duty of the state, the only purpose of which is to guarantee an orderly, responsible and transparent transition between administrations”, he asserted. Faced with a scenario of animosity, President Gustavo Petro called on the population to organise itself and ensure its constitutional rights are respected. PL
(Translated by Philip Walker – Email: philipwalkertranslation@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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