With no papers to rely on, in jeans and guayabera, Gustavo Petro beat at the XXVIII. Ibero-American Summit taking place in the Dominican Republic to deepen the Ibero-American Union with pacts against climate change. “Our vision of integration is more rhetorical than anything. Europe is concrete, ours is discursive. We talk a lot, but in practice we do little for real integration. We need to integrate through clean energy,” he said.
The President of Colombia addressed the 21 remaining countries shortly after the intervention of Gabriel Boric, President of Chile. His speeches were less corseted than the previous ones, those of Argentinian Alberto Fernández and Bolivian Luis Arce. Petro began his speech by stressing that among the 13 presidents present there was only one woman, Xiomara Castro, President of Guatemala: “Many gentlemen, few ladies.”
He started with one of his favorite topics, climate change, which he described as “an existential threat to humanity”. He is banking on scientists to ensure that by 2070 the continent will be a “disabled” area for human life and that the impact of people migrating north is already being felt. “This migration faces machine guns, walls and prisons. This is the destruction of the democratic project”. He announced that he had asked Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to hold a summit with other American countries on migration in Mexico City.
He did not forget Pedro Castillo, the former Peruvian president who was imprisoned for a failed coup d’état, whom he addressed in a televised message to the whole nation. In the hours that followed, he was arrested and released by Congress. Petro believes it was Castillo who actually took a hit. “Today it should be here, they took it out. He’s in jail,” he complained. At the horseshoe-shaped table at which the politicians sat sat the Peruvian foreign minister, who must not have particularly liked those words. Somehow he linked this problem to Venezuela and its reluctance to join regional oversight bodies.
Before him, Boric said that he called Volodymyr Zelenskyy to show his support for “the tragedy experienced by the Ukrainian people.” Petro acknowledged that Russia was an invasion, but that there have been other invasions that have not been condemned with the same severity. “Everything made by oil,” he added, in a clear reference to the United States.
Washington was not spared the president’s arrows, as is often the case when attending a summit. He accused the North American country of promoting a war on drugs that Nixon started 50 years ago and that has brought only pain and death to Latin America. “A disaster,” as he says himself. He said this is not a Colombian problem but a global one, making it urgent to hold an international drug conference to change the current approach, which has clearly not worked. “These illegal organizations (the cartels) are stronger than some states.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the Ibero-American Summit in the Dominican Republic FEDERICO PARRA (AFP)
He kept coming back to the climate crisis and his idea of cultivating the Amazon with money that comes from the richest countries, which also produce the most CO2. He stated that he would take the initiative himself by providing $150 million to pay local settler families to take care of the jungle and stop logging it. “Let’s rehearse,” he said.
He came back to one of the ideas he believes in the most, the American Convention, which is now gone. He believes the time to start promoting it is now that there is “a democratic spring” in the region, in terms of the victory of progressive presidents in several countries, or at least those who identify as left-wing. He went back 30 years to the coup against Salvador Allende, a dark moment in Latin America. “I took up arms during this time,” he recalled of his guerrilla past.
He later made some brief statements to the press. He assured that he had the idea of going to Haiti, where some Colombian mercenaries murdered Jovenel Mouse, the country’s president, almost two years ago. “Colombia has a responsibility,” he stressed. “We want to have a stake (in the court case). I have the idea of going to Haiti to constructively establish Colombia’s role.”
Petro arrived at the summit a day late. The presidents were still waiting for him on Friday as he personally negotiated health-care reform, one of the key changes he wants to make in the country. The meeting in the Dominican Republic lays the foundation for a rapprochement between Latin America and Europe in view of the Spanish EU presidency. Former Chilean Foreign Minister Andrés Allamand, who holds the Ibero-American Secretariat, said this is an opportunity to develop an agenda for the future so that the continents work together on issues like climate change, which he described as “an existential threat to humanity.” “
He urged the 22 countries that make up the community to look for concrete outcomes that have “a positive impact on the quality of life of Ibero-Americans”. However, the nations failed to agree on their proposal to reform the global financial market, a document intended to improve access to credit and incidentally serve as a guide for Brazil’s G-20 presidency in 2024.
Petro will hold several bilateral meetings throughout the day. He will meet Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell of Spain. A meeting with Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba, is on the air. What is confirmed is that he will be invited by Spanish President Pedro Sánchez to a forum of progressive governments where one of his favorite topics, the sustainable agenda, will be discussed.
When he finished his speech, he walked through the summit area smiling, confident that he had given a good speech. It looked like what he was delivering at the UN assembly in New York, but mostly it looked like him, the leftist, anti-imperialist Petro who never referred to Spain or his European presidency. The Petro of youth more than the President.
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