On the last day of the IX Summit of the Americas, the President Ivan Duque made a vehement call in defense of democracy and in the sense of not broadcasting speeches that divide the region between left and right.
The message caught the ears of Joe Bidenwho strongly supported his counterpart in this factor and in Colombia’s immigration policies with the 1.8 million Venezuelans who have been protected with the Temporary Statute of Protection.
To do this, Duque summoned other leaders of the region to “defend democracy at all times”, because otherwise there will be obstacles that will prevent citizen participation. In that order of ideas, it was that around noon on Friday, the Colombian entered clarifying that in spaces like the Summit it is not about ideological exclusion, but they are to talk about the dictatorships that affect democracy.
According to Duque, one should not fall into “false narratives that lead one to believe that the continent is about to be divided between progressives and conservatives”, since “here there is a clear differentiation between who are democrats and who are autocrats”.
At the end of that point, the Head of State alluded to the fact that democracy must be shielded from the famous “p” of populism, polarization and post-truth, a cocktail of speeches that lead to the formation of autocrats such as the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Russia. Not mentioning names Duke rejected the war that was launched in Ukraineof which he stressed that one cannot be indifferent, and therefore warned that in order not to fall into similar cases, the countries present in the place must have the Inter-American Democratic Charter as a beacon.
This mention had as a reference the difficult moments that the United States went through in September 2001, when a terrorist attack ended the Twin Towers from New York; but at the same time in Peru the charter was born that has been a guide for democracy.
migratory fraternity
As highlighted since his arrival at the Summit, Iván Duque mentioned the “migratory brotherhood” that must be had with citizens who cross borders in search of help in vulnerable conditions. Under this scenario, he brought out that in Colombia more than one million 36 thousand immigration cards that guarantee various human rights.
That welcome that the country has made was publicly recognized this Friday by President Joe Biden. After listening to Duque, the American thanked him for having led the reception of Venezuelans. “We are going to help, through the World Bank, countries that are assuming the bulk of the responsibility. For example, Colombia received 800 million dollars”, Biden signed.
This type of reception has also been received by close allies such as Ecuador. Even so, Duque made it known with the allusion to the immigration policy that his counterpart Guillermo Lasso has been implementing.
In his turn, that president thanked Duque for the comment, bringing up that in his government there are months of work in favor of democracy to be highlighted. While both praised each other, hundreds of kilometers away –on the United States border with Mexico– a caravan with about 15,000 Latin American migrants He was looking to cross North America.
regional emergency
Global warming does not wait. That is another of the conclusions of this week’s meeting in Los Angeles, in which the Colombian president insisted at all times.
The task to which he invited other governments is to realize that there is no planet B, so all those responsible for crimes that affect the environment must be stopped with all force. In this sense, he spoke about the protection of coral reefs and the Amazona region that has suffered deforestation in large proportions.
Another of the points on which Iván Duque placed special emphasis is on the reinforcements that the hemisphere must have in investment and foreign trade, since in the region the dynamics are very low compared to other continents. That is why he celebrated that Joe Biden has launched a strategy that seeks to remedy the ups and downs in this area.
Other quotes at the event
Within the framework of the Summit of the Americas, this week Iván Duque held several meetings with presidents and leaders of the region in which he touched on other issues such as employment and youth. In that field, on Thursday he told his interlocutors that in the country 400,000 young people found a job thanks to the 25% salary subsidy to companies that hire people between 28 and 28 years old.
On his Friday agenda, the head of state had meetings before and after the Plenary in which he spoke for 15 minutes. Indeed, prior to his speech, he met with Chan Santokhi, president of Suriname; and then he met the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro. It was with him that he promised to work for the Leticia Pact.
Before returning to Colombia, Duque also established cooperative ties with the presidents of the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, as well as with Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda. The last meeting was with representatives of youth and the private sector, with whom he had an agenda to promote democracy, which he advocated in his speech.