The dispute between the president Gustavo Petro and the former president Andres Pastrana it itches and spreads. The two political leaders carried out a series of attacks that led them to appear before the Attorney General’s Office for a conciliation hearing this Tuesday, January 30, but there was no agreement, the process continues and the case will possibly go to trial. .
Former President Andrés Pastrana, after the hearing held this Tuesday, January 30, made public a statement that he uploaded to his social network of the opposition for publicly expressing their opinions. “Petro established the Crime of opinion in Colombia,” he emphasizes.
In that sense, it states that Petro’s complaint openly violates the Political Constitution of Colombia, the Democratic Charter of Lima, the American Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Today the accused is an opposition leader, tomorrow it will be journalists, academics or any citizen who has a different opinion than the government.”
He adds in the letter that Petro intends to “criminalize opinion.” He assures that what this criminal process is about is “whether or not in Colombia there is freedom of thought, freedom of expression or whether or not there is the right to oppose.”
He adds that “Petro wants to muzzle the opposition, violating the Constitution that he swore to uphold and all the international treaties that he used so much to make himself a victim.” He said Petro’s government increasingly resembles Venezuela’s “narco-dictatorship.”
In that sense, he proposed to Petro that instead of debating political opinions in court, he hold a public debate before the population on television “to debate his government’s favoring of criminal groups and the financing of his campaign by people outside the law.”
“It will be the citizens who consider whether Petro’s government gives perks to criminals or not, if this government favors drug traffickers, if his campaign was impregnated with money from drug trafficking.”
Finally, he said in the letter that open and tolerant political debate, facing citizens, is how political opinions are debated in a democracy. “It is before citizens and not before judges that politics is debated.” Pastrana emphasizes.
After the hearing, he expressed concern for his safety and that of his family after being summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office in response to the lawsuit filed by current president Gustavo Petro.
Background of the Petro-Pastrana conflict
The conflict began on November 26, 2023, when Pastrana, through his social network account X, formerly Twitter, accuses Petro of having links to drug trafficking. The former president points out that “his campaign and his Presidency are nothing other than the fusion of the Government with drug trafficking, under the veil of a farce called total peace.”
The accusation is based on a report from the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF)which points out that Petro’s eldest son, Nicolás, received money from people linked to drug trafficking to finance the president’s presidential campaign.
President Gustavo Petro denies the accusations and responds to Pastrana that he had to argue these complaints in court and that he was going to sue him for libel and slander.
Faced with this warning, former President Pastrana responded to Petro that he was also going to sue him, assuring that: “If you have no pants or arguments to defend your so-called “total peace” in public debate, hide from power in the courts…”
Petro reports to Pastrana
On the one hand, Gustavo Petro keeps his promise and denounces Andrés Pastrana before the attorney general’s office for libel and slander, on December 7, in the document presented the president assures that Pastrana’s accusations are completely false.
On the other hand, Pastrana made public a letter that he sent to the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, in which he warned that the complaint filed against him by President Gustavo Petro, whom he tacitly accused of having links with drug traffickers, only seeks to establish in the country “the crime of opinion.”
In the letter, dated December 15, Pastrana told Barbosa that Petro only seeks, in his opinion, to curtail the rights of freedom of expression that he has as a Colombian citizen..
“The president seeks to instruct in Colombia the ‘crime of opinion’ and, with his criminal complaint for expressing an opinion, he puts at risk the most fundamental rights on which democracy is based. Criminally attacking freedom of expression and thought is a clear violation of human rights by those who are obliged to protect them,” says the former president.
No white smoke comes out in the audience
The case was taken to the Prosecutor’s Office, which summoned both parties to a conciliation hearing this Tuesday, January 30, 2024. However, the hearing was unsuccessful and the case will go to trial.
After the meeting, President Petro said that he will demand compensation for the “moral damages” that, from his perspective, Pastrana caused, after having assured that his Government is merged with drug trafficking, which is equivalent to a symbolic economic reparation of 100 legal minimum wages. current, close to 130 million pesos.
It also requests that former president Pastrana must publish on his X account, formerly Twitter, a public retraction of the accusations he published on his social networks against Petro and his government.
He also requests that Pastrana must refrain from using social networks and other means of social communication to issue statements that link him to drug trafficking.
The process is expected to continue in court to resolve the controversy, possibly through the presentation of evidence to determine possible guilt. “It will dawn and we will see”, as the saying goes
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Source: Social Network X account before Twitter of former president Andrés Pastrana, Infobae, Semana, El Tiempo
