The Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs, Laura Gil, will soon leave her post. EL TIEMPO learned that her differences regarding the management of the Foreign Ministry headed by Minister Álvaro Leyva have made her stay there unsustainable. However, he would not leave the Government because they offered him the embassy in Vienna. For now, he says that he is not going to refer to the subject, but in dialogue with this newspaper he told details of his management.
(Also read: Roy breaks the silence and comes out to support Petro after Nicolás’s controversy)
We know that you will soon be leaving the Chancellery. What happened?
Every government has the right, after six months, to rearrange its chips or do without them. I will be as far as I can serve the change.
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Would you move away from the Government to return to analysis?
I would always go back. Sometimes I would like to talk a little more than I do, but there will be time. I will have many things to tell when I get out of what has been this step through the government function.
Are you going to the Chancellery in tennis? Because recently a dress code came out that raised controversy…
Yes, several times I have broken the code that was proposed. I also do strong makeup. I believe in the free development of the personality.
(Of interest: Case of Nicolás Petro: four responses from Minister Prada on alleged ‘quotas’).
You added the word ‘feminist’ to Colombia’s foreign policy. How’s that going?
This is not a personal bet, it belongs to President Petro, to Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva. In this sense, the detailed foreign policy program of the Petro campaign had a section on feminist foreign policy. I got to start it because, as the President says, the change is for and with women. We have gaps of structural inequalities. We believe that with a feminist foreign policy we can drag, encourage, motivate other ministries to put a gender focus on their public policies.
And has it been welcomed?
Yes. There is commitment and political will. We have given instructions to embassies and missions on the mainstreaming of a language that is under attack by anti-rights groups. There is an agreement on a certain language that we are going to defend in all multilateral settings, that is progress.
There is talk that the change is with women, but in the team of ambassadors women are not even half…
It is clear that this affects us. A feminist foreign policy has to set parity as its goal, but the issue is which comes first: the chicken or the egg? If to launch a feminist foreign policy we wait for parity in a Foreign Ministry where there is still a strong patriarchal culture, we do nothing. It is true that parity is a debt in the foreign service, but we are giving ourselves the tools to be stronger in the claim, more solid in the incidence and cause the changes we need.
There have been controversial appointments, such as that of the ambassador in Mexico. What do you think of that?
I do not find out about the appointments, much less who leaks. I believe in that maxim that each parrot in its stake.
(You can read: Aníbal Gaviria: ‘The strike of the ‘Gulf clan’ falsifies the social protest’).
When the Tienditas bridge was opened, President Maduro insinuated that the migration from his country has occurred as a consequence of the United States blockade. Does Colombia share that position?
I cannot answer for a bilateral relationship that is not in my portfolio, but what is in this portfolio is the issue of sanctions. Colombia’s position has been one in which it is known that there is an increasing consensus that generalized sanctions only prevent the development of towns. When it is necessary to sanction, it is done to specific people, but not in general to States so that later their people end up paying, this has already been practically agreed at the international level. But in terms of the blockade, for example, Colombia returned to its traditional position of condemning the economic blockade of Cuba.
And speaking of Cuba, why so close to them?
At the Celac meeting, the Foreign Minister gave a speech about Cuba and asked that this country be removed from the list of terrorist States because Colombia was the one that finally had some influence so that the island was introduced there. So this rapprochement, as Foreign Minister Leyva says, is a response to the enormous debt we have with them for their accompaniment on the issue of peace. There is some repair, that’s why from this Vice Ministry we have supported cultural exchanges. Now at the recent Book Fair in Cuba, Colombia had a very prominent presence. This government has made a commitment to a new relationship between Colombia and the Caribbean. It is an effort, in addition to the Chancellor, of Vice President Francia Márquez.
How do you see the fights that Petro has had with the president of El Salvador and Peru’s reaction to his statements?
Peru is a member with us of the Pacific Alliance and the Andean Community. In terms of our relationship, I would like to highlight the strength of these scenarios that continue to work beyond the difficulties that could exist at the bilateral level. We, from the Vice Ministry, have not been affected so much. When there are difficulties with the political dialogue, the trade continues and that is a very good sign.he. These bets are still going, alive and kicking.
(We suggest: Was the Caguan thing a humanitarian siege, as Prada says, or a kidnapping?).
Does this mean that these frictions between the President and some countries do not affect them on the foreign policy agenda?
The commitment to insertion in Latin America is not only that, it is about creating a bloc that can speak with a much more powerful voice towards the rest of the world. This can overcome the small inconveniences that exist at the bilateral level, but when there is a call for us to speak as a region, I think that the countries are accepting it. Three big summits are coming up: the migration summit in Mexico; the drug summit in Colombia, and the Amazon summit. After these we will be able to see how far we can go as a region on fundamental issues on the international agenda.
But don’t these crosses by President Petro alter the preamble of said summits?
I believe that this will not greatly affect the regional dialogue that Colombia is seeking.
There are sectors that criticize Colombia’s positions. Nicaragua is condemned, but it is seen to be a little less harsh with Venezuela, for example…
This is a government committed to human rights, I have no doubt
This is a government committed to human rights, I have no doubt. In Venezuela, the voice of President Gustavo Petro has always been in favor of human rights, but what is he doing in Venezuela? Asking them to return to the Inter-American System, asking them to strengthen the United Nations Human Rights Office in Venezuela, he is talking with them to achieve change for the benefit of the enjoyment of human rights. Conversation in Nicaragua is very difficult, because I remind you that Colombia tried a humanitarian dialogue and failed. But, in addition, Nicaragua is the country that has taken us to the International Court of Justice, so the type of dialogue that we can carry out there is different. That does not mean that we use a different rod. Colombia will always be in favor of the defense of human rights.
You have led the crusade to recover hundreds of pre-Columbian pieces. Where did that come from?
The country has several governments trying to recover them. With former president Juan Manuel Santos I remember a repatriation of 600 pieces. We, who have only been there for six months, put the accelerator to the recovery of the Colombian archaeological heritage and we have already been there for 531. President Petro is absolutely determined to bring the Quimbaya collection to Colombia. He has asked us to negotiate with Spain. We are talking about it in the best terms. Additionally, we have sent instructions to all embassies and missions to be attentive to the auctions, because many of the pieces that left here illegally are auctioned. An auction house has just delivered two to us in Madrid. They have also just delivered a huge piece of Chimil culture to Switzerland.
(Also read: Roy Barreras: “You can’t negotiate with drug traffickers and criminal groups”)
How do they get them back?
There are three mechanisms: the first is seizure. According to UNESCO, the illicit trafficking of heritage could be the third illicit business in the world after drug trafficking and arms trafficking. The second is the claims, that’s when we go and say that we want some piece of ours back. We can negotiate, as we are doing with Germany for the return of the Kogui masks from the Ethnographic Museum of Berlin or claims that reach a legal phase, as we are doing with the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires, where there are 400 of our pieces. We are hiring lawyers to make the claim. The third, and which is increasing more and more, is voluntary return. People come up to us and tell us: this belongs to them. There I have a wonderful anecdote. There is a divine face that I had to bring from London. It was from a pastor who approached the Colombian embassy in London saying: “I taught a boy and his parents paid me with this piece.” This is how we are recovering part of our heritage.
And what is the goal of this?
This is a global dynamic that heritage should be where it was born. Here we are letting ourselves be guided by the autochthonous peoples. This thing about the Kogui masks is a claim from the Kogui people, we will receive them and deliver them to them. It is a commitment to build national identity.
Migrants say that attention to them has deteriorated. What’s happening?
Our commitment to migrants remains just as strong: if in the previous government the challenge was how to regularize people, in ours the challenge is really how we integrate them. For that, it is necessary to move away from a welfare approach to one of development and see migration as an opportunity. We have agreed with the Migration team that it has to have a human rights approach. It is particularly important for us to know how we are going to deal with the issue of irregular migration, especially movement north through the Darién Gap. They have asked us to stop this step and it is practically impossible for us to take repressive measures there, but having said that, we have to do things. We have to try to prevent people from risking their lives. We are discussing with Migration what measures are going to be taken there.
Is the ‘Vice Ministry of Borders and Migration’ going to be created?
That is a bet of Chancellor Leyva. He raised it at a meeting in Nariño and wants this vice ministry to cover both migration issues and the comprehensive development of the Colombian border. There is a work table in the Chancellery for the discussion of a reform to accommodate the Vice Ministry, a debt for years.
AURA MARIA SAAVEDRA
POLITICAL WRITING
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