Poster of Orinoco Tribune's interview with Colombian journalist and documentarian David Escobar. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.
The Total Peace project promoted by the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, is essential for the Colombian society, but it requires political will on all sides to be a reality, commented Colombian journalist and documentary filmmaker David Escobar in an interview with Orinoco Tribune.
“The goal that the government of Gustavo Petro has with Total Peace is something necessary for the Colombian society… but not all groups have political will,” which makes it a difficult goal to achieve, he said.
David Escobar is a Colombian journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Cali, in the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia. He graduated in journalism and communication from the Universidad del Valle. As a documentarian, he has produced and directed several documentaries, such as Colombia: Young Protesters Dead and Disappeared, Paren de Matarnos, and has worked as a researcher for another documentary, Bajo Fuego. He also covered in detail the 2021 National Strike of Colombia.
In an interview with Orinoco Tribune on Monday, March 4, Escobar discussed various recent developments in Colombia, including the current state of the Total Peace process and the attempts by the Colombian right wing to remove President Petro from power.
Total Peace
When asked what President Petro’s Total Peace program means, Escobar explained that Petro is trying to bring all armed groups in Colombia—both revolutionary movements and paramilitary gangs—under an umbrella of peace process in order to stabilize the Colombian state and society. “Here in Colombia, historically there have been many peace processes. You can see the latest one with ELN, the peace process with FARC before that, the process with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and Justice with paramilitary groups, the peace process that led to the 91 constitution, and so on,” he explained. “Nevertheless, after the armed groups give up their weapons, even if they are paramilitaries that are serving de facto right-wing power, they are killed, they are executed.”
Escobar went on to explain that the same happened with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that signed the 2016 Peace Accords with the government of Colombia. “Hundreds of former FARC members have been killed and the peace agreements have not been accomplished… because of the lack of political will, and the paramilitary groups that remain in the territory, and former guerrilla members who went back to the mountains to continue being an armed group.”
Moreover, the armed revolutionary movement National Liberation Army (ELN) was not part of any peace process before, and the ongoing peace process intends to find a solution between the organization and the Colombian government. The Petro administration also plans to disarm the paramilitary and narco-trafficking gangs and allow their members to reintegrate into society. “So, basically, what Petro means by Total Peace is to achieve a peace agreement with all these groups. That’s a huge purpose, very difficult to achieve,” Escobar explained.
Moreover, there are legitimate concerns of some guerrillas of being killed once they surrender their weapons, as has happened to ex-FARC members and all other former guerrilla organizations. “There is also the sabotage from the right wing groups, the paramilitary groups,” Escobar added. “And I think, as it has been the custom here, there is interference from foreign intelligence agencies” such as Mossad and CIA.
President Petro Criticizes Imposition of Interim Attorney General in Colombia
Judiciary against Petro
When consulted about the current crisis in the Colombian judiciary regarding the selection of the new attorney general, David Escobar explained that former Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, whose term ended recently, worked hard to block the selection of his successor in order to provide the right wing with time and opportunity to coup the Petro government. On February 12, the day Barbosa’s term ended, he imposed his Deputy Attorney General Martha Mancera as the “interim attorney general” until the Supreme Court elects the new attorney general from the shortlist of three names proposed by President Petro in August 2023.
Martha Mancera is accused of having ties with narco-trafficking gangs from Buenaventura, of the Valle del Cauca region. She has also faced criticism for not investigating the massacres and the murders of social leaders that continue in Colombia. “The point here is that many people close to former President Iván Duque and also senators and politicians from the right are related to drug trafficking, so they need an attorney general to protect them, to close all the investigations,” Escobar explained. “So these de facto powers don’t want the election of the general attorney that has been proposed according to law… by President Gustavo Petro.”
According to the journalist, the right wing wants to remove Petro from power because “the program and policies of President Petro are not aligned with neoliberalism. His democratic policies include the recovery of the public sphere, a state of social wellbeing that’s more like Keynesian state. And the right wing politics is fighting to preserve its power and privileges in these spheres.”
“Petro has been giving the properties seized from the drug capos to peasants, or to the victims of violence,” he continued. “Even if it is not at a percentage that we would like to see, still the right wing does not want to leave it in his hands, because they were enjoying these properties by paying very low taxes, or having the control of many state institutions through corrupt contracts.”
Future of progressive forces in Colombia
Regarding the future of the progressive movement led by Petro, Escobar stressed that the possibility of progressive forces being able to maintain power in Colombia “is not something that we can take for granted. As in many other countries here in Latin America, there is a possibility of the right wing to be back in power.”
Moreover, due to the existence of presidential term limits in Colombia, progressive forces must look for some alternative to Petro if the movement is to continue. The Colombian presidential race is expected to start next year, but at the moment neither the right nor the left has any potential candidate. According to Escobar, the Colombian left must aim for holding political power, but achieving it will be difficult. One of the major factors sabotaging the left is the continued murder of social leaders by paramilitary gangs, as it is a way of politically disconnecting the government from the bases.
The ongoing political changes in Colombia are also reflected in the media. Although Colombian mainstream media still holds considerable economic and political power and acts as an arm of the Colombian right and the de facto powers including organized crime, several alternative media projects are coming up throughout the country and reaching a considerable public. In this regard Escobar named the renowned journalist Hollman Morris who is now serving as the director of the public television channel RTVC.
“There is also mobile phone communication to fight this [media] warfare,” he added. “Are we winning this warfare? Are we losing this warfare?… The struggle in this camp is a symbolic fight and it needs to reach the public.”
Although there remains a lot of work to be done by the Colombian left in the media warfare, “I think we are winning as a society when we have this capability to inform ourselves,” Escobar concluded.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by Saheli Chowdhury
OT/SC/DZ
Saheli Chowdhury
Saheli Chowdhury is from West Bengal, India, studying physics for a profession, but with a passion for writing. She is interested in history and popular movements around the world, especially in the Global South. She is a co-editor and contributor for Orinoco Tribune.
