The presidential candidate of the Oxygen Green Party, Ingrid Betancourt, just needed to set the record straight with progressive candidate Gustavo Petro of Colombia Humana, during a televised debate on Monday organized by two of Colombia’s largest media companies: Semana and El Tiempo. The winner of the center-right coalition Equipo Colombia, Federico Gutiérrez also participated in the debate.
With the focus of the Q and A segment on Colombia’s role in international affairs, the Franco-Colombian politician challenged the left-wing leader on why he has not denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The question was deflected by Petro with another question. “Where were you (Ingrid) in 2002 when the U.S invaded Iraq?”
To which she replied: “I was in the jungle. Held hostage by your friends.”
The former prisoner of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla, who spent six years in captivity (2002 – 2008) with rare moments in which Colombians received proof-of-life pictures from her hostage-takers, made a direct association between Petro and “friends” that include ex-FARC Senators of the Comunes party, and former peace negotiators-turned-dissidents: aliases “Iván Marquéz” and “Jesús Santrich.” Santich, whose real name was Seuxis Hernández Solarte, was killed last May during an ambush in Venezuela by a rival criminal organization.
For many Colombians, the association of Petro with FARC was a direct assault by Betancourt on the militant of the former Marxist M-19 member, as well as his pro-Putin /pro-Maduro narrative by refusing to out-right condemn Russia during the opening stage of the invasion.
Petro’s world appeasement came through in the debate when he referred to “the double standard” shown to Ukraine by the U.S. “Therefore, I condemn Iraq, Libya, Syria, and…Ukraine,” he said, encompassing some of the world’s most devastating conflicts.
In another bizarre affirmation, Petro passed on the blame for road blockades that crippled the country and resulted in food shortages during three months of the National Strike last year to “truckers,” and blockades supported by a “representative of the Centro Democrático party.”
Petro openly supported the Paro Nacional and its road blockades.
Colombia’s teamsters leaped at Petro’s affirmation as “irresponsible” after more than 1,100 roadblocks armed by protestors and First Line (Primera Linea) vandals attacked medical missions and food convoys. “Don’t you remember all the chickens that died inside the trucks?” added Gutiérrez to a debate. “You guys ordered the road blockades,” stated the right-wing candidate categorically.
From a litany of revisionist statements that prey to fake news and susceptible audiences, both Betancourt and Gutiérrez raised the issue of how a candidate who presents himself as an anti-corruption standard-bearer could include in his congressional list Piedad Córdoba. “How can you say that you do not accept any corrupt persons on the list, if you have Piedad Córdoba when she negotiated with the lives of so many kidnapped people?” stated Gutiérrez, agreeing with Betancourt that the Senator, who allegedly went by the alias “Teodora Bolívar” within FARC was one of the persons who prolonged her captivity by “trading in kidnapping.”
For Gutierréz, Colombia’s populist leaders have perverted core values. “How can it be that those who attacked people, kidnapped, extorted and murdered are the owners of peace, and we, who never picked up a weapon or did harm to anyone, are supposedly the masters of war?, he said. “As I have never wielded a weapon in my life – unlike you (Petro) – I have the moral authority to speak of peace, and I will comply with the agreements made with FARC,” he added. “Petro, you are Chávez and Maduro, but I am not Uribe or Duque.”
Betancourt, who stood several feet away from “Fico” and in the middle of the stage, appeared throughout the debate to be ideologically inching toward Gutiérrez, when she remarked to Petro that: “the evidence is out there that Piedad Cordoba is “Teodora Bolívar,” and who conditioned releases based on her political interest (…), the problem, however, isn’t Piedad, it’s being associated with her, Gustavo” stated Betancourt, “and even worse, when there are people within your campaign who were the kidnappers of all of us.”
Betancourt was rescued during the second term of President Álvaro Uribe in a high-stakes operation which deluded FARC’s Secretariat as a “humanitarian mission” to check on the health status of dozens of other hostages. Betancourt’s liberation marked a high point in Uribe’s popularity, and ex-President who Petro claims is “the boss of Gutiérrez.” To which the former Mayor of Medellín responded: “I have no boss. The people are my boss.”
