Colombian President Gustavo Petro made his first official visit to the United States and met with US President Joe Biden on Thursday April 20. At the White House, the presidents discussed the fight against climate change, the fight against drug trafficking, and the end of Washington’s sanctions, also known as unilateral coercive measures, against Venezuela.
In statements to the press after the meeting, Petro said he talked with Biden about the international conference he has called for April 25 in Bogotá to reactivate dialogues between the Venezuelan government and opposition.
“I proposed that in this process, the conversations next week and those that will follow in Mexico can gravitate around issues to build two proposals: one is the Venezuelan electoral timeline, with guarantee, and Venezuela’s entry into the Inter-American Human Rights System. The other is a progressive and gradual deactivation of sanctions, so that we can reach a goal that is for the people to decide freely, without sanctions, without pressure, their own social and political destiny,” he said.
Also according to the president, the US “did not condition” the elimination of sanctions on Venezuela. “A strategy has been put on the table that is first to hold elections and then to eliminate sanctions, or gradually, as an electoral agenda is carried out, to also eliminate sanctions,” he said.
Petro even refused the title of “mediator” between Caracas and Washington and said that his government “is simply providing a space that was being built in Mexico and, to push it forward, we offered Bogotá.”
“About 20 foreign ministers are going to meet, from Europe, from the US, from Latin America to, with the Venezuelan government and with the Venezuelan opposition, establish minimum points of a great agreement that guarantees not only the elimination of sanctions and the holding of elections, but also the normality of all political actors in Venezuela,” he said.
Since taking office in August last year, Petro has restored diplomatic relations with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government and has taken a leading diplomatic role in proposing solutions to the political conflicts in the neighboring country.
According to Bogota, the objective of the conference on April 25 is not to replace the dialogues that have been taking place in Mexico, but to reactivate the talks. The negotiations have been frozen since November of last year, after the opposition and Washington failed to comply with an agreement to release more than three billion dollars in resources belonging to the Venezuelan state that are blocked abroad.
The government’s main demand at the dialogue table is the suspension of all sanctions. The opposition delegation, on the other hand, demands the elaboration of an electoral schedule and guarantees for a balanced campaign.
Petro, Maduro, and the opposition
On Wednesday April 19, the Colombian president spoke at the Permanent Council of the OAS (Organization of American States) in Washington and proposed a reconstruction of the multilateral organism and that Venezuela should rejoin the body.
Caracas decided to withdraw from the OAS in 2017, but an opposition activist appointed by former deputy Juan Guaidó had unofficially been representing the country in the body, as the organization recognized its former “interim government.”
The proposal for Venezuela’s reincorporation to the IACHR and the OAS was already made by Petro directly to President Nicolás Maduro during one of his visits to Caracas last year. In response, the Venezuelan president said that the idea was promising and that he would be evaluating it together with ministers.
Maduro also spoke out in recent weeks about the April 25 international conference and expressed “full support” for the Colombian initiative. The opposition, on the other hand, said it felt underrepresented, since Petro had not yet met with any opposition leadership.
The demand made the Colombian president change his plans and decide to return from the US early. According to the presidential schedule, Petro is expected to return to Bogotá later this Thursday and no longer on Friday as planned. Also according to the presidential advisory, a meeting with leaders of the Venezuelan right-wing is expected to take place between Friday and Saturday.
Environment and the countryside
Petro also said that he talked with the US president about the fight against climate change and congratulated the US for the decision announced on Thursday to invest USD 500 million in the Amazon Fund.
“[We also] talked about the possibility of exchanging public debt for climate action around the world, from the IMF’s special rights of rotation. The US government and President Biden felt moved by the proposal. They said they are very interested in taking it to the IMF and making it a reality,” he said.
The president also said he mentioned his criticism of the so-called “war on drugs” policy that he considers hostile and said there was “no contradiction” between him and Biden.
“I think it was well understood that it is one thing to fumigate [glyphosate] in a forest and against human beings who are economically vulnerable and it is another thing to go after the owners of the drug trade,” he said.
This article first appeared in Portuguese at Brasil de Fato.
