Juan Camilo Restrepo (Medellín, 76 years old) has given almost everything in Colombian politics. In addition to being a senator, ambassador to France and candidate for the Conservative Party for the presidency, the lawyer and economist from Antioquia was Minister of Mines in the government of César Gaviria, Minister of Finance in that of Andrés Pastrana and Minister of Agriculture in that of Juan Manuel Santos. From this department he managed the land restitution policy and, at the end of the Santos period, was the chief negotiator of the process with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), which President Gustavo Petro decided to resume. He was also commercial director of the emblematic National Federation of Coffee Growers. Few politicians can boast a journey quite like the one Restrepo recalled earlier this year in his memoir Four Crises in Colombia.
Questions. How would you describe the political moment Colombia is going through?
Answer. When Gustavo Petro was elected, many sectors thought this would be the apocalypse; it was not like that. However, there are big questions ahead, especially in the tax area, in the economic area. The government still has a relatively large majority in Congress, but not as strong as previously thought. So everything is in the process of being created. We are in what I would call an unstable equilibrium.
Q Closely affiliated with the National Federation of Coffee Farmers, you have described the government-forced resignation of its chief executive, Roberto Vélez, as “unfair mistreatment” of half a million coffee-growing families.
R Coffee policy in Colombia has always been handled jointly between the coffee union and the government. For this reason, there is representation of the government and of the coffee farmers in the major governing bodies of the association, such as the National Committee of Coffee Farmers. So when President Petro abruptly orders him to request the resignation of manager Roberto Vélez – who didn’t even ask for it – that agreement is broken, that tradition that big coffee decisions are made by consensus, not by induction, quite arrogantly, born of the Presidential Palace. It is a reckless and unfortunate way of influencing private unions and, in the case of coffee, breaking the tradition of concertation. The Federation and the National Coffee Fund are non-government, so the Casa de Nariño cannot dispose of the manager as if he were a ministry official.
Q How do you interpret the various resignations of union leaders in recent weeks?
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R Some of them are still shrouded in mystery, we don’t know where they came from. But all indications are that the government has stepped in to progressively create a list of unions that are affordable and executive-managed. This is not good for Colombian democracy or for economic activity. The unions are not there to applaud or praise the government every day, or to humiliate or criticize it just for that. They are here to fulfill their mission of defending members and working with the government as long as their interests are aligned with those of the government and the country.
Q The coffee farmers are not just any union in Colombia. What should be the profile of the association’s next manager?
R First, that it is not unilaterally imposed by the government. There have been attempts in the past by other presidents to do something similar and it hasn’t worked. So the new manager has to be the result of that consensus I mentioned. Second, that it’s a coffee-savvy person, that it’s not a government-mandated paratrooper. And third, the approval and support of the 550,000 coffee farming families.
Q You were also Minister of Finance at a difficult time. What do you think of the management of José Antonio Ocampo?
R He is one of the most prominent ministers in Petro’s cabinet. He handled the tax reform very well, which brought calm to the country’s economic leadership. Now he faces the great challenge of how the multiplication of the fish and the loaves will be like in the Bible. With the funds gained in the new tax reform, it will finance the already announced spending pressures, which are three to four times higher than what the tax will achieve. Now he must multiply the fishes and the loaves. The good results of the Colombian economy that the country and international banks are seeing would be diluted if vigilance were lowered in the very clear decision to keep the fiscal rule and not lose the course towards fiscal sustainability.
Q He managed to deal with the unstable balance we talked about…
R There, in the fiscal area, there are indeed unstable balances.
Q You were also Minister of Agriculture. The comprehensive rural reform addressed in the peace agreement is one of the country’s greatest challenges. Will the Petro administration succeed in carrying out the proposed agrarian reform?
R First of all I think it is well oriented. What is the rural reform announced by the Petro government? In point number one of the Havana Pacts, dealing with the rural reform negotiated during the government of Juan Manuel Santos. So what Petro is reasonably doing is saying, “I will honor the peace accords on agriculture,” as opposed to what the Duque government has done, which has turned its back on the search for peace on the one hand, and on the other hand, gave up there is very little support for these agricultural programs. Now comes how they will fulfill it. We return to the point of how to balance the necessary expenditure with the available resources.
Q He was not only a minister but also the ELN’s chief negotiator, one of the crises he describes in his memoirs. Why is this negotiation so difficult?
R In contrast to the FARC, the ELN is a tremendously ideological group with no pragmatic sense. Thus, the FARC unilaterally renounced the kidnapping and unilaterally declared their readiness for a bilateral ceasefire, which contributed to the conclusion of the Havana Accords. In contrast, the ELN has not yet been able to define what it wants. It has some very general, very vague wording. He claims to represent civil society, but fulfilling that postulate is difficult. Most importantly, the ELN is unaware that, as an armed group, it must respect international humanitarian law from the moment it sits down at a negotiating table.
Q You reached a truce at the table…
R In 2017 we had an experience that, although fleeting in time, lasted 101 days. That’s what was agreed. It was the first written document that the ELN signed with the Colombian state, a bilateral ceasefire that coincided with Pope Francis’ visit and that was well fulfilled by both sides, as confirmed by the United Nations. There are precedents that can be useful for these negotiations to move forward.
Q It is the first time that the opponent is a left-wing government. Does that change the prospects for negotiations?
R Should. In other words, the ELN should understand that this openness to peace that Petro has shown from the very beginning is perhaps the last chance for history’s train not to leave it. It’s a very difficult group, very complicated and very vicious. It is not right to spread the idea that peace with the ELN is at hand. This will take months, if not years. The ELN will not capitulate for seats in Congress, they argue otherwise. Hopefully we will achieve a peace scenario with the ELN, even if it takes months or years to arrive, because the keys to finding peace cannot be thrown to the bottom of the sea, as unfortunately the previous government did.
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