Recovering hope in peace, which is not only the silence of guns and the end of violence, but what comes after: progress and well-being for all, is something that is truly worth it.
José Félix Lafaurie Rivera, @jflafaurie
As I have repeated many times perhaps, this topic brings me back, without fail, to Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, a great Colombian who proposed to the country a “agreement on the fundamentals” and, as coherence was one of the traits of his character, he did not hesitate to sit in a triumvirate to preside over the Constituent Assembly that resulted in the 1991 Constitution, with his historical adversary, the Liberal Party, and with a member of the guerrilla group that had kidnapped him just three years earlier.
Three decades have passed and today, another member of that guerrilla, reintegrated with a pardon in 1990, occupies the Bolívar chair and brings up, once again, the topic of the National Agreement; he had done so during the campaign, but then it was inevitable to disconnect it from electoral calculations, just as now one might think that it is simply about gaining governability.
In any case, if you ask me, I believe that the country needs, now more than ever, a Great National Agreement, something that is not only being discussed in the Casa de Nariño.
Why is this great agreement needed among Colombians?
First, because we have been in a whirlwind of violence for more than two centuries, in the midst of which not so much some reforms or others have been postponed, but the very consolidation of a prosperous nation for all, which Colombia should be. We were at war throughout the 19th century; with a “great war” the 20th began, later marked by political violence, guerrilla violence, marijuana-related violence, paramilitary violence, coca-related violence; all today, in the 21st century, condensed into narcoterrorist violence.
Second, because the country, today more than ever, is threatened, from its foundations – its democracy – by violence and the corrupting power of drug trafficking.
Third, because the country has always been fragmented – hence the wars and violence – and it continues to be, between left and right; between the false narrative of friends and enemies of peace, between the poor and the rich, between rural Colombia and urban Colombia.
And finally, because this scenario, which is not one of circumstance, but structural, historical, has caused the country to lose faith, to not believe in institutions: in the Government, in Congress, in parties and in the political class; in justice! – very serious –; in control bodies..., in nothing. And with faith, the country has lost – they say – the last thing that is lost: hope.
The purpose of a national agreement is merely a conclusion of the obvious, to regain hope, in what?: in peace, which is not only the silence of the guns and the end of violence, but what comes after: progress and well-being for all, something worth being hopeful about.
A national agreement cannot be the result of a ‘council’ behind closed doors among politicians. The necessary ‘political peace’, which requires setting aside grievances, diatribes, and stigmatization, is the substrate and condition of an agreement that can include entrepreneurs, unions, politicians, churches, academia, youth, the entire country.
How to achieve a national agreement? If it is truly national, with great participation. And how to summon it? This is where great political leaders, in the Government and its coalition, in the opposition or in neutrality, all political leaders, will either “show their true colors” or reveal the carats of their greatness and the size of their leadership.
Yes, a national agreement cannot be the result of a “council” behind closed doors among politicians. That necessary “political peace”, which requires setting aside grievances, diatribes, and stigmatization, is the substrate and condition of an agreement that can include entrepreneurs, unions, politicians, churches, academia, youth, the entire country... A desirable agreement. I wish it were so.
Colombian Association of Oil and Gas