The military aircraft of the Colombian Air Force reaches cruising speed at 40,000 feet. A cloudy sky covers the horizon like a dirty sheet. “Where on earth are we?” asks Gustavo Petro, looking out the window. One of his advisors tells him that he is crossing Greece. “I’ve never been,” he says as he adjusts his glasses. And sure he won’t do it in time, he has a busy agenda. The President of Colombia celebrates 100 days of swindle in government. He has nearly completed a tax reform that cost his predecessor a popular uprising, he is pushing to force a transition in Venezuela with an ambiguous approach to Maduro, and he has managed to seat ELN guerrillas around a peace table. In the short term, however, there are economic difficulties and hard-to-reach agreements with groups of drug traffickers, to whom he has proposed some sort of amnesty. But none of that seems to worry him at the moment, having left Sharm el Sheikh where he attended COP27. He will then land in Paris, where he will join forces with President Emmanuel Macron to persuade Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro to set a date for the presidential election. With all of this simmering in his head, he eats a double McDonald’s hamburger for lunch, aided by a knife and fork.
Gustavo Petro during his trip to the COP27.Juan Diego Quesada
Questions. How do you rate your first 100 days? Is this how you imagined her?
Answer. It was smoother than I thought. I have achieved difficult things. The parliamentary majority, the approval of strong projects. The tax reform is about to be passed. There’s a defense in my government of citizenship, of the environment. The Peace Law, which legalizes negotiations – with guerrillas and drug dealers. And state acceptance remains high. Of course there are economic clouds. The fall of the peso should give us export expectations, which is logical, but we don’t have a manufacturing apparatus. We have a stagnant oil economy.
P What pacts did you make with Maduro?
R There are no secret deals. The border issue is progressing more slowly than I thought. In the years when we had no relations between Colombia and Venezuela, a period of state vacuum, a mafia power over commerce was created with an enormous ability to destroy the populations that had to travel from one side to the other. By opening it now, we must clash with this type of criminal structure.
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P And do you have sufficient military capacity to counter them?
R Yes, and more if we coordinate with Venezuela. What is happening is that it takes a long time before we have normality between countries. I proposed Venezuela’s accession, accepting – and this was the subject of my personal conversation with him – that liberal democracy is part of the progressive agenda in Latin America.
P Was it daring for Maduro to speak personally about liberal democracy during his visit to Caracas?
R Yes, if you look at the recent election victories, Borics, Lulas, mine, there is a shift in Latin America. It is the triumph of great democratic fronts, it is the left against fascism. The rejection of liberal democracy leads to dictatorships and authoritarianism, which are emerging in some Latin American countries.
P do you mean venezuela
R (Laugh). I am referring to authoritarian countries in Latin America in general. Defending liberal democracy seems to me important for all of Latin America and for Venezuela. It is difficult? It is very difficult. Because physical destruction is always in the air. Our rights are not democratic. Once the right takes power, they kill. This is the great fear in Venezuela.
Gustavo Petro arrives at the closing dinner of the Peace Forum at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, 11 November 2022. TERESA SUAREZ (EFE)
P Guaidó said in an interview with EL PAÍS that you are not at all naive. And that he was certainly aware that Maduro could buy time by making sure he returns to international organizations, but that in the end he won’t.
R. I sense in Maduro the decision to hold elections in 2024. He may be fooling me, but that’s the impression I have. This is your goal.
P Can free and verifiable elections be held in Venezuela?
R Yes, and it has to be a guarantee agreement for whoever loses, whatever it is. The loser must be respected within Venezuela. And there should be no interference in the free choice of the Venezuelan people.
P He has proposed issuing an amnesty.
R Yes totally.
P That means tabula rasa and start over.
R May be.
P Washington is watching your approach to Maduro closely, but it needs some gestures from the President of Venezuela and is pressuring you with decisions such as region without problems. . Do you feel this pressure from the USA?
R Our own government and companies, who do not want to face sanctions, fear that Conviasa will not fly between Bogotá and Caracas.
P Does that put pressure on your relationship with Venezuela?
R yes we say yes
P What is the status of the negotiations with the ELN?
R They appoint their negotiating team, their spokespersons. We’ve also defined ours, but I won’t publish the names just yet.
P Spain has offered to mediate in the process, but for now it doesn’t matter. Did Maduro veto Pedro Sánchez?
R No, I did not receive such a confirmation from Maduro. It is known that Spain arranged for the ELN to be included in the EU’s list of terrorists, and that complicates everything.
P A few weeks ago, a delegation of US congressmen warned him of the danger of financing himself with Chinese money. How do you react?
R China is present in Latin America, but not because of my government. Paradoxically, they have more alliances with right-wing politicians. China is now the main investor in infrastructure works. She has the contract for the Bogotá Metro, which is the largest, and she has contracts for trams and highways. China has strongly entered the Colombian market. I am in a negotiation phase with Chinese businessmen and with the Chinese Embassy we are trying to improve the Bogota subway project. The United States has made it clear that it is capable of competing with China. Let’s see… (laughs).
P Colombia’s director of taxes and customs said it was time to legalize cocaine to increase the state’s collection. Do you plan to legalize it?
R nope
P A resounding no?
R Not while it’s illegal in the world. I raised the discussion in the campaign, but it’s up to the US to make the move.
P At the world climate summit, he expressed himself very critical of the system. Why?
R I have the impression that political leadership in COPs has been abandoned over time. The presidents of the most important countries do not participate, leaving the negotiations in the hands of technical teams. Technocracy takes power. This leads to a very conservative problem view with no solution capacity.
P Venezuela is theoretically your partner in defending the Amazon, but it is allying itself with other oil-producing countries that you criticize so much.
R The hydrocarbon producing countries, several and very powerful in the region, have a position of lethargy of solution. You don’t want a quick transition. Even Venezuela has formed alliances with Saudi Arabia, the most conservative position. I have suggested swapping debt for climate action.
P Did anyone pay attention to him?
R It’s much more effective than proposing that countries take on more debt. This is possible because the IMF acts as a capital institution. The debt can be paid off that way and that would mean more liquidity in the world. Each country would have freed up budget space that would be used to finance adaptation to climate change. Unless this paradigm shift is made, we will not take the seriousness of approaching human extinction. This proposal of mine moves in the COP, but it will not be accepted because those who have to accept it are not even there.
P He said clearly that we need to end oil and fossil fuels. Will you take the radical step in Colombia?
R Talking about the transition to a decarbonized economy and setting some times and commitments from COP to COP is about stopping the consumption of oil and coal. Everything else is palliative.
P And what will you do?
R The first thing is not to make the politics of the ostrich, thinking that we can live like this for another 20 years. This is the vision of the Colombian and Venezuelan elites. If we don’t make our adjustment, we will crash in the near future. Norway, an oil country, has invested its financial surplus in a fund and invests in various activities that allow it to generate income. His idea is that this income will fund his pension system. The Arab world is doing the same. Colombia and Venezuela didn’t do that. In a way we wasted time. It’s irreversible. In the Colombian case, they have even upped the allocation of oil royalties to a myriad of small regional projects that are in fact mechanisms of corruption and theft. We will try to direct this investment into the transition.
P His finance minister, José Antonio Ocampo, worried about balancing the government bills, is going to have a heart attack…
R There is no discussion about that. You have to make the transition, it’s a consensus.
P But you and he disagree on how fast this transition to green energy needs to happen.
R We all have the will to embrace this transition. Colombia and Latin America have shown their incompetence. The presidents of Latin America have never met to discuss this issue, but we could aim to build a large power transmission grid from Patagonia to Alaska and thereby build a large clean energy grid. And North America would be the consumer. It would be a solution.
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