opinion | Colombia is absent from the OAS when Nicaragua needs it most

This absence leaves a very large gap to be ignored, and appears to shed some clues about Colombia’s new foreign policy and position on human rights.

Colombia is not just a country hidden inside the many flags of the Organization of American States. This country has a long history and has seen many highlights in the choir of countries of the Western Hemisphere. In 1948, during the Ninth International American Congress, held in Bogota, it was adopted Charter of the Organization of American States, American Treaty of Peaceful Settlement “Bogotá Charter” and the The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. This was the birth certificate of the Organization of American States, and as if that weren’t enough, Colombian journalist and former president Alberto Liras Camargo was first Secretary General of this organization.

Another important milestone occurred in 2001, in Lima, under the supervision of the General Secretariat of the Colombian Cesar Gaviria, when The Inter-American Democratic CharterIt is considered the highest instrument in democracy and human rights issues in the Americas. The letter states that “representative democracy is essential to stability, peace and development in the region and that one of the goals of the Organization of American States is the promotion and consolidation of democracy.” In its first article, the document states that “the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have a duty to promote and defend it.”

In recent events, on November 11, 2021, led by the Colombian delegation, agreed American Business Charter. The document seeks to promote the development of an enabling and inclusive environment to promote the growth of a competitive business sector, promoting formalization, investment, innovation, the orange economy, and the integration of firms in global and regional value and supply chains. Another of Colombia’s many achievements and initiatives in the Organization of American States.

The absence from the government session was the new President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro justification Noting that his appointed ambassador has not yet been officially sworn in. But whatever the reason, this absence is no small matter. It generates many doubts and fears, and shows that the new head of state is far from the democratic left in Chile and dangerously close to the ideological dementia of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico: a hard left, sectarian and radical, allied with a political project of the party. the last century. During the OAS session on Friday 12th, Mexico, along with El Salvador, Honduras and Bolivia, refrained from condemning the authoritarian drift of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, decapitation From nearly 1,500 NGOs persecution to the catholic church and to torture out of 190 political prisoners. Human rights have no ideology and this was evidenced by the vote of countries with left-wing governments such as Peru and Argentina, which joined in condemning Ortega’s abuses.

In this first foreign policy and human rights exercise, Petro failed the exam. Moreover, he did not attend. In his first week in office, the president has moved away from the OAS and closer to totalitarian governments Cuba s Venezuela. On that Friday, August 12, the major South American country did not have enough leadership to condemn the crimes against humanity of the Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua.

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However, there is still a second chance, if we consider Colombia’s absence from the session in Nicaragua as a bureaucratic calendar rather than a sign of a foreign policy complicit in the dictatorship. If so, President Petro can still correct and send a letter to the OAS Permanent Council to request, As has happened on other occasions, to add Colombia to the list of sponsors for the resolution on the Central American country and to request that their vote of support be recorded in the record of this important session. This measure does not remove the stumbling block to the new Colombian administration, but it represents a firm and clear political will in defense of human rights and democracy.

It is too early to judge Gustavo Petro’s foreign policy line as well as his principles, values, omissions and loyalties. This mission is a mission for the Colombian people. However, when it comes to Nicaragua and condemnation of the dictatorship it He carries Already after 16 years of collapse in power, I will have to declare myself, and in my case, I am not ready to leave the chair empty.