Madrid-. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro today lamented the historic violence sweeping his country and continuing elsewhere, and envisaged a peace and development agenda.
Speaking at the Nueva Economía Forum event in a hotel in this capital, Petro remarked that “the famous Pablo Escobar pales in comparison to the power of the current mafia organizations, which no longer only have farms or haciendas, but also territories”, regarding the problems that exist in Colombia,
“When a criminal group is in power, genocide is unleashed,” he said, noting that there are hard-to-distinguish elements with immense transnational power.
“If we want Colombia to break free from drug trafficking and violence, we have to hand over land to the farmers,” he said after assuring that mafia organizations have political power and control areas through the use of private armies in coffee-growing land.
In this sense, he stressed the need for an agrarian reform “like in Spain or Europe”, an antidote to drug trafficking and violence in Colombia, which “for several decades has become the main exporter of cocaine”.
“We have a very unequal land tenure structure, which is why it’s one of the most unequal countries, because it’s a kind of 21st-century feudalism,” he argued.
Regarding the relationship between Colombia and Venezuela, he assured that they are brother countries, that the common border has been restored and that he is helping Bogotá so that, hopefully, agreements can be reached between the opposition and the authorities.
In another assignment, he called for an alliance between politicians and the public with green capital to invest in decarbonizing the global economy and mitigating climate change.
The president wondered if capitalism could go green and that “entrepreneurs are seeing how they can invest to make commodities profitable by changing the energy matrix from fossil to clean.”
For her part, the second vice-president of the Spanish government, Yolanda Díaz, promised Petro that this European country will continue all its efforts to help consolidate peace in Colombia, within the framework of the mutual commitment of democratic multilateralism in the face of the ecological emergency and in the face of inequalities .
He particularly appreciated the peace flag of the Petro Administration and the alignment with Spain on this goal, as well as the transition to a clean and renewable energy model.
To conclude his intense schedule of his visit to Spain, this Friday Petro received the University of Salamanca Medal, the institution’s highest recognition, for the historical relationship between the Andean country and study, as well as for the new avenues of collaboration and research.