Néstor Laso
Lawyer and member of former president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe’s political team in Spain
One of the most forceful conclusions to be drawn from the well-known events taking place in Colombia is the power of social networks and fake news to publicize a biased and interested reality in favor of the promoters of the strikes, protests and acts of vandalism that are ravaging various cities and neuralgic points of my beloved adopted country.
One of the great merits of the democratic security policy of the governments of former President Alvaro Uribe is that it managed to overcome a much more serious situation than the current one, when most of Colombia’s territory was in the hands of the FARC and on the verge of being declared a failed state at the international level, achieving spaces of freedom that were about to disappear.
Such beneficial conquest of freedoms produced during the mandate of Alvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010, in a situation of identity crisis as a country without precedents, is now being taken advantage of in an extralimited way by some demonstrators and vandals, many of them in childhood in those opprobrious years or who were not even born and all to transfer a discourse of police violence absolutely nonexistent, in obedience to a clear manipulation by the left and its electoral purposes of 2022.
In certain international circles, there is only talk of police repression, but nothing is said about the more than 850 policemen injured or the members of these forces killed by the demonstrators, some of them at gunpoint in front of their wives and children, or the policemen burned inside their CAI, barracks, or dragged on the ground.
Nor is it seen or heard to raise the denunciation at international level for the almost 3,000 acts of vandalism, numerous cases of demonstrators who looted residential complexes, stores, banks, took vehicles at gunpoint, etc. in many of these cases without being able to exercise the constitutional right that exists both in Colombia and in any democratic country, of the legitimate use of force by the security forces, because the demonstrators, in the case of bringing order, appeal to the well-known and false saying, “they want to kill us!
It is curious, the Colombian Police have gone from being described by large sectors of the demonstrators as heroes of the Homeland, when they were a guarantee of freedom and fought against the FARC, to being stigmatized as common murderers, when they respond to the attacks of uncontrolled groups, defended by many of the members of the protests. In any country in the world, the police repel demonstrations and have special operations groups to combat vandalism, as is the case in Colombia, the ESMAD.
But some international media forget to reflect that many demonstrators go to the marches with bags full of weapons and artifacts, or with sharp instruments, when they do not want to overturn police vehicles in their path, in addition to the countless violent episodes already mentioned.
No one doubts that some members of the police may have been involved in some excesses, facts about which the Colombian authorities have initiated the corresponding investigation proceedings and I am sure that the corresponding responsibilities of the perpetrators, if any, will be clarified. I wish that the political promoters of the Colombian left, who encouraged these outrages mainly through social networks and who were careful not to show their faces in front of any demonstration, would also answer to justice.
But there are numerous audio and video evidence of these violent acts of the members of the protests, which have not transcended or have not been published in many international media, or even the UN Commission on Human Rights or the IACHR, have not given them the same value because they have not wanted to visualize them.
The exercise of authority and order, to preserve the life, patrimony and security of the citizens in general, is a universal value to be performed by the forces of law and order all over the world. It should not be forgotten that the demonstrators did not throw flowers or pebbles, as some would like to express, the evidence of the use of the most sophisticated firearms is massive. As well as the infiltration and intervention in the marches of terrorist elements of FARC, ELN dissidents or violent Venezuelan groups subordinated to the orders of the Maduro government.
The above being unquestionable, it must be recognized that in some countries and international organizations the media penetration of the spokespersons of the Colombian left has been more permeable, but what is not acceptable or admissible is the passive and indolent attitude in the interest of the defense of the Colombian institutionality that has been seen in most of the diplomatic offices of Colombia abroad.
At the time, from the governing party Centro Democrático and by various analysts in reflections in the media, President Iván Duque has been reproached at the time for his mistaken policy of appointments in the different State agencies, but especially in the diplomatic sphere.
Generically, Duque favored technocrats over politicians, possibly because that is his own profile, which in a situation of the country like the current one, where urgent measures must be taken to alleviate situations of need and poverty by prioritizing minimum solidarity income plans or the collection of social benefits, cannot be expected either to attend to brainy economic-financial analyses, nor to inopportune tax reforms that were the initial spark of the excesses, reforms that would not even enter into force in the current year, but it will be necessary to focus all the efforts of the Administration to urgently alleviate the subsistence and basic needs of our fellow countrymen, also severely hit by the pandemic.
But in the diplomatic field, President Duque went a step further and appointed in high diplomatic positions, together with career civil servants, which is logical, people with a great lack of suitability and adequate preparation in terms of relations with international institutional circles, some of them, or he only attended to the quotas of other political parties, in other cases, or proceeded in most cases to confirm and ratify appointments made by the previous government of Juan Manuel Santos, who remained in their posts until the present, all this together with isolated appointments of people linked to the governing party, the Democratic Center, the least.
As a consequence of this erroneous policy of appointments, of which the current president was warned, is that in an extreme situation like the current one, the Colombian institutionality has no one to defend it abroad in the face of the unjust attacks that its government is receiving from the media and international politicians.
It does not enjoy the necessary involvement that its diplomats should have with it and this, for only one reason, because in many cases, one, they are mere employees, very well paid by the way. Two, even ideologically they are far removed from the defense of a government that is alien to them and that wrongly ratified them and thirdly, because they exercise due obedience to their real boss, Juan Manuel Santos, to whom they are politically indebted, when the former president is currently closer to Gustavo Petro than to Iván Duque, let alone to Álvaro Uribe.
In view of this absence or, if there is any, very weak defense of the Colombian institutionality by diplomacy abroad, what is happening is that, in some cases, it is left in the hands of the unofficial, that is, by good Colombian citizens living abroad or by natives of these countries who want to highlight the virtues of a nation like Colombia, which has them in the face of so many unfair attacks it is receiving for electoral reasons from the political left and its supporters.
This is the case of Spain, until recently, where the group of people who are part of the team of former President Alvaro Uribe in the Iberian country, for mere reasons of our eternal loyalty to the charismatic leader paisa, for altruistic and disinterested reasons and demonstration of affection for a Colombia that we do not want to take the path of ruin and chaos of Venezuela, we are multiplying and achieving, I believe with great success, to make known the authentic reality of what is happening in Colombia and not the one that the Colombian left and its international allies want to give to understand, vilifying the institutionality of the coffee-growing country for exclusive electoral interest.
And so not in vain, to date, the most important parties of the Spanish democratic arc, Popular Party (PP), VOX, Ciudadanos and even the governing PSOE, have not supported the protests, not even an official statement has been published in this regard and only from the Secretary of State for Latin America and in response to a question at a press conference, In response to a question at a press conference, which dealt with other matters, the Secretary of State for Latin America appealed to harmony between the parties and acknowledged that the Colombian Government is investigating the existence or not of specific acts of overreach by the police of that country, in demonstrations more typical of vandals than of people who exercised a legitimate protest.
Only from United Podemos or from the Catalan independence movement has there been express support for the protests and their consequences, in clear harmony with their allies, Maduro’s allies in Colombia, Gustavo Petro and Iván Cepeda.
Even the European Union has not supported the demonstrations, nor has there been an official communiqué on the matter. Such lukewarmness of Spain and the EU has been strongly criticized by the manipulated groups of leftist promoters of the demonstrations of Colombian residents in Spain and the rest of Europe.
That is why, from Spain, the people who are with the institutionality of Colombia as a country, whether they are native Colombians, Spaniards or, as in my case, Spaniards,
Spanish or as in my case Spanish with Colombian nationality, we demand more interest, work and involvement of the diplomatic delegations in defense of the institutional Colombia, its legitimate Government, its Police and its Army, so unjustly mistreated these days, despite how much Democracy and FREEDOM AND ORDER of Colombia owe them, slogans and signs of identity of the coat of arms of our national flag.
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