Roy Barreras, first statements as president of the Senate – Congress – Politics

With a clear message to the congressmen of the government coalition and to his caucus, that of the Historical Pact, the new president of the Senate, Roy Barreras, and who reaches that dignity for the second time, insisted this Wednesday on the need to process the reforms that the country needs and said that this Congress will go down in history for being the protagonist of change.

In addition, he announced that Congress will provide tools for the submission of illegal armed groups to ordinary justice. He also noted that, in some cases, changes could be made to the transitional justice system.

(Know how the inauguration of the new Congress of the Republic was experienced)

“This will be the Congress of change. Here the great reforms that the country has waited for decades will be carried out. That change is not made just to mention it and repeat it, we must be a guarantee seal for this to happen (…). Colombians expect a lot from us, we have a unique opportunity to show that change is possible”, said Barreras in his inaugural speech.

The Valle del Cauca politician, one of the main bishops in the campaign that brought Gustavo Petro to the Presidency of the Republic, began his speech by thanking the trust of the elected president and the Historical Pact bench, of which described as “beautiful, almost unusual, made up of human rights defenders, environmentalists, animal activists, peasants, Afros, indigenoushalf of us women”.

Barreras also thanked the youth, the peasants and the excluded population of Colombia, but he especially remembered the more than nine million victims of violence who, he said, “they taught us that it is possible to come out from below, advance against the circumstances and even succeed”.

(Also read: Iván Duque: phrases for which he received boos and applause in Congress)

Guarantees and trust

Immediately afterwards, Barreras went into the matter of what the work of the new Congress will be and for this he used the word guarantee on several occasions. In this sense, first of all, he assured that “We must be a guarantee of results, so that the popular mandate of change for which more than 11 million Colombians voted becomes a reality. in the laws”.

You, he told the congressmen, will be the agents of change that “will guarantee full peace, social justice and environmental justice in the structure of the State that the president-elect has proclaimed as a path for Colombia in the coming years.
Second, he stated: “We must also be an institutional guarantee”, that is, he explained, “so that the thesis of checks and balances operates again in this room, in order to respect the division of powers, democratic discussion, legislative independence and political control”.

(We recommend you read: The ‘pullas’ that Iván Duque launched in his last speech before Congress)

He also referred to the opposition, noting that As president of Congress “we must be a guarantee for the opposition, so that the voices that disagree here have the respect and dignity they deserveso that their positions are listened to with a reflective attitude and taken into account to build from the difference”.

Likewise, he spoke to those who did not vote for Gustavo Petro and invited them to build a single Colombia, while sending a message guaranteeing stability and respect for the Constitution. “We must be a guarantee of stability, to speak to those two Colombias: the one that won with us by demanding profound changes and the one that did not vote with us out of fear. This corporation will be the guarantor of respect for the Constitution so that it remains firm our democratic vocation in the face of the slightest sign or wind that wants to boycott it, wherever it comes from”.

We must be a guarantee of stability, to speak to those two Colombias: the one that won with us by demanding profound changes and the one that did not vote with us out of fear

Barreras, aware of the negative image that Congress has, told his colleagues that “they must be a guarantee of work” and recalled that the institution has a negative image of 75 percent. “I intend, rather than reverse this bitter perception, that we begin to recover citizen trust with gestures of commitment and work.”

(You may be interested: Duque’s harsh phrase: there can be justice in the countryside without expropriations)

In this regard, he announced that they will support a bill to make Congress more efficient and more committed to its task. “The power belongs to the citizens, we must obey and set an example“, said.

And he added: “Here are the faces of the excluded, faces that represent the millions that out there wait and demand answers; faces that have the hope that the first stone of a long period of collective construction will be felt”. Those faces, she affirmed, are the ones that await the educational reform, the comprehensive rural reform, the Police reform and the tax reform.

He also called on the armed groups to lay down their weapons, to respect the lives of civilians and social leaders, and said that this Congress “will give them an opportunity, in some cases, through the necessary adjustments in the transitional justice system and, in others, through normative provisions that facilitate their submission to ordinary justice.”

“Today we take the first step in a route where citizens feel proud and represented by this institution. We are the ones called to materialize the change. Let’s not waste any more time, let’s make history and get to work,” Roy Barreras told Congress.

Just hours before the message about the gangs in the speech of the new president of Congress, the heads of the ‘Clan del golfo’ and other criminal organizations they sent a letter to the elected president, Gustavo Petro, the elected vice president Francia Márquez and the chancellor Álvaro Leyva in which they offered to disarm, ask for forgiveness and other actions in exchange for guarantees similar to those of other armed groups in the past to submit to justice.

(Also: Fajardo’s strong attack against Petro: ‘The art of swallowing frogs’)

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POLICY

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