Colombia Passport

President Barack Obama called Colombian elected president Juan Manuel Santos to congratulate his victory to the Nariño House. Obama manifested also his interest in strength the relations between both countries. At the same time, Santos is preparing what is going to be his government after August 7, meeting national personalities and reveling his perspectives over different issues of national concern. 

The dialog between former presidential candidate, Gustavo Petro and elected president Juan Manuel Santos, was interrupted by a call from Washington.  The results of the conversation between the two Colombian politicians were going to be published few hours later and they were rather optimistic, but the call of President Obama was also fundamental in what is going to be the next Colombian government.

Santos and Obama attended Harvard University, Santos for business and journalism, Obama in the Harvard Law School. Now as colleagues, they want to look for best cooperation among the two countries, at least is what the Obamas’ call to Santos was understood. The Secretary of States of Washington, Hilary Clinto, called Santos as well.

A National Dialog

In a more domestic event, the former presidential candidate of the Democratic Pole Party, Gustavo Petro said that elected president Juan Manuel Santos promised to call for a national dialog following his suggestions, in order to discuss what he considers essential: the problem of the victims of violence, the problem of land and its possession by mafias and the problem of water that Petro denominated of national security.

Gustavo Petro said also that there will be teams to study these problems looking that the society reaches points of agreement to be enforced by the government.

In dialog with Santos, Petro said that there will be the intention to improve the relations between government and opposition to avoid the high level of antagonism that both parts had during the last eight years. His model of opposition, he said, will be based in proposals to reach agreements with the government of Santos that starts on August 7.

Rafael Correa would attend the possession ceremony of Santos

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa has a good will to attend the possession ceremony of elected president Juan Manuel Santos according to the Ecuadorian Chancellor Ricardo Patiño. ‘He is waiting the invitation,’ said Patiño and ‘upon the invitation by the Colombian government, the President will take the decision.’

Juan Manuel Santos was the Minister of Defense of President Álvaro Uribe when the Colombian army and police attacked a Farc camp hidden in the Amazon jungle, just at the south of the Putumayo River that corresponds to Ecuadorian territory on March 1, 2008. The infamous event where strongest guerrilla leader Rafael Reyes died brought the wrath of Quito that declared a violation of the Ecuadorian sovereignty and an ‘attack to Ecuador.’ It crushed the diplomatic relations between the two Andean nations when the government of Correa looked for an international condemnation over Colombia, while the government of President Álvaro Uribe defended the right to fight terrorism.

The event was worsen on July 2009 when an Ecuadorian magistrate of the Sucumbios province ordered the arrest of Juan Manuel Santos.

However the debate, President Correa seems favorable to approach the new Colombian government since Santos won the elections to the Nariño House.

María Ángela Holguín, the Santos’ Foreign Relations Minister

Elected president Juan Manuel Santos appointed the political leader María Ángela Holguín as his Minister of Foreign Relations. Ms Holguín, who was ambassador of Colombia to the United Nations, was also Colombian diplomatic representative to Caracas and is currently the representative of the Andean Promotion Corporation (CFA in Spanish) before Argentina. She was also vice-minister of foreign relations. At the same time, Santos appointed Juan Meza as the senior advisor for communications with the role to work in the international image of Colombia. It is probably that in few days, the elected president will travel to Europe to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Primer Minister David Cameron.

Santos and the human rights

International Community has pressed Colombia for its human rights situations. The problem is of course in the agenda of elected president Juan Manuel Santos, who promised to assume all the international compromises in this issue in the development and respect for human rights.

Elected Vice-president, Angelino Garzón, met Christian Salazar, the Representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia. Salazar said that during the meeting, they agreed to continue in a permanent dialog to promote human rights in the country.

The government of Juan Manuel Santos will open a permanent dialog in this issue of human rights, said Garzón, and the involvement of the civil society.

Colombia leads the list of the most dangerous nations for activists of human rights and unionist killings. To this, elected vice-president Angelino Garzón said that the government of Santos will follow an institutional policy on ‘zero tolerance against crimes and violence.’ Garzón added that armed illegal groups are against democracy and the ‘worse enemies of the civil society and integral policies on human rights.’ The government of Santos will look for peace agreements, said his vice-president.

UNASUR and Santos

The executive secretary of UNASUR, the most important economical group of South America, Nésto Kirchner, said in Argentina that he is planning to visit President Álvaro Uribe and meet elected president Juan Manuel Santos. The purpose of his visit will be to ‘deep the frame of UNASUR’ and added that the group of South American nations should work in an integration since diversity, plurality and full democracy, although their different ideological and political conceptions.

‘The US-Colombia FTA delay is a  success for criminal groups’ said Garzón

Elected Vice-president Angelino Garzón said that the delay in approve the FTA between Colombia and US is a success only for criminal groups. The project is currently retained in the Congress of US due to objections by American groups on the problem of human rights in Colombia. Recently, the House of Commons of Canada, that delayed also the Canada-Colombia FTA for similar reasons, approved it.

The US-Colombia FTA was also one of the main purposes of the government of President Álvaro Uribe.

Garzón said that the Congress of US should not delay more the approval, because its delay ‘has bad consequences for the Colombian people, its democracy and a success for criminal groups.’

A symbolical possession in the Santa Marta Sierra Nevada

Elected president Juan Manuel Santos said that he wants to have a symbolical presidential possession in the Santa Marta Sierra Nevada with the indigenous. The mountain is the highest snow summit too near to the sea in the world with 5,775 meters over the sea level and just 40 kilometers far from the beach. Near one of the most ancient and beautiful cities of the Americas, Santa Marta, the Mountain is the home of an ancestral indigenous communities in what is known as Ciudad Pérdida (Lost City).

If such ceremony would be done, it will be the first time that a president of Colombia will receive the ‘blessings and powers’ from the ancestral American indigenous peoples. In the republican Colombian history, no Colombian president has been indigenous or Afro-Colombian. Curiously, one president was of Arab descendants: Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978 – 1982).