As former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva had warned, the former President of the Republic Juan Manuel Santos sent a letter on Monday, June 3, 2024, to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, in which he expressed his disagreements with which would be the intention of the current Government to call for a constituent process through the peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla.
In one of the asides, Santos – who was president of Colombia between 2010 and 2018 – expressed that, regarding the peace process with the extinct guerrilla, which demobilized after the signing in September 2016, “nothing apart from the final agreement proposes or insinuates that the rules established in the current Constitution may be ignored in the future”.
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For Saints, The Constitutional Court reviewed the compatibility with the Constitution, not only of the laws that developed the agreement, but also of the constitutional reforms. “In accordance with the constitutional rules and doctrines commonly accepted on this matter in Colombia, a country that is proud of a more than century-old tradition of respect for the principle of constitutional supremacy,” he added.
Santos recalled in his letter that on March 29, 2017, in his capacity as Head of State, he shared with the UN the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace in Colombia, as the document was called. , signed between the national government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which became firm on November 24, 2016.
“I also requested that the new agreement be welcomed and will send it to the Security Council within the framework of Resolution 2261 and resolution 2307 of 2016, approved unanimously in said Council, so that an official document was generated that annexed to resolution 2261 (2016) the complete text of the Final Agreement. I am grateful that this has happened,” said Santos.
Santos did not hide his concern about what for him is a “principle of good faith” in the interpretation and application of the agreement. And he pointed out people close to the president, like Leyva. “I highlight this because officials and former officials have attributed to some paragraphs of the agreement a meaning that is contrary to its object, scope and purpose, which is possibly incompatible with the principle of good faith,” he highlighted.
And he stressed that the agreement, “far from providing for extra-institutional mechanisms or seeking to circumvent the procedures established in the Constitution”was ratified by the Senate on November 29, 2016 and by the House of Representatives on November 30, 2016, through the mechanism that was then known as the fast track.
“Besides, in those aspects whose implementation required constitutional changesthe procedure established in the Constitution for the adoption of amendments was followed in compliance with what was agreed,” Santos said.
In the same way, He indicated that “there has been an attempt to ignore the letter and spirit of the agreement”, as well as the independence of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), created – in his opinion – to avoid impunity.” With this, he stated, sectors of the State are trying to impose a way of proceeding, “through claims of applying the JEP’s universal and guaranteeing mandate of criminal favorability.”
In the former president’s opinion, nothing in the final agreement can be distorted to open the possibility of granting amnesties, pardons, exonerations or pardons, “for such crimes of international connotation, much less those most responsible”. And he confirmed that both Felipe González, former head of the Government of Spain, and José Mujica, former president of Uruguay, “are in total agreement with the spirit and content” of the communication.
“I ask you to communicate this letter to the UN Security Council and reiterate my infinite gratitude. for the support received through all these years. As I have told you so many times, without that support the peace with the FARC would not have been signed. At the July meeting we must insist – once again and hopefully more forcefully – on the need to implement the peace agreement,” Santos pointed out.
With this, Santos went ahead of President Petro, who had warned of the obstacles that, from his perspective, there were in the implementation of the Peace Agreement with the FARC. And for this reason, he would denounce before the United Nations (UN) the non-compliance with the Havana peace agreement. And when the Government’s documentation began on the points in which failures are occurring.
