Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, in which he assures that the peace agreement signed in 2016 with the then FARC guerrillas does not contemplate a Constituent Assembly, as the current Government defends.
“No one apart from the Final Agreement proposes or insinuates that the rules established in the current Constitution may be unknown in the future,” Santos (2010-2018) said in the letter dated May 31.
Ten days ago, in a public event in Popayán, capital of the department of Cauca (southwest), the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, said that the peace agreement with the FARC has the strength to convene a Constituent Assembly that would allow him to make the social reforms that Congress has not approved.
Petro also said on May 14 that he will denounce to the UN that the Colombian State, which he represents, does not comply with the peace agreement with the FARC and predicted that this may lead to “bloodsheds.”
In his letter to Guterres, Santos reminds him that on March 29, 2017, he sent the full text of the peace agreement to the UN in which he referred “expressly to the principle of good faith, of enormous importance in the interpretation and application” of the agreement.
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“I emphasize this because Colombian officials and former officials have attributed to some paragraphs of the agreement a meaning that is contrary to its object, scope and purpose, which is possibly incompatible with the principle of good faith,” adds the former president.
According to Santos, the peace agreement, “far from providing for extra-institutional mechanisms or seeking to circumvent the procedures established in the Constitution of Colombia,” was ratified by the Senate and the House of Representatives on November 29 and 30, 2016, respectively.
“The Constitutional Court reviewed the compatibility with the Constitution not only of the laws that developed the agreement, but also of the constitutional reforms, in accordance with the constitutional rules and doctrines commonly accepted in that matter in Colombia, a country that prides itself on a more than a century-old tradition of respect for the principle of constitutional supremacy,” Santos adds in the letter.
After pointing out that “the letter and spirit of the agreement have been attempted to be unknown,” Santos recalls that the former president of the Spanish Government Felipe González and the former Uruguayan president Pepe Mujica, who exercised the function of “notable verifiers” of the peace agreement, “are totally in agreement with the spirit and content of this communication.”
Therefore, it concludes with the request to Guterres to communicate the content of the letter to the UN Security Council and to insist, “once again and hopefully more forcefully, on the need to implement the peace agreement.”
Trump criticizes Panama Canal fees and demands U.S. control over strategic waterway
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump criticized what he described as unfair fees imposed on American ships passing through the Panama Canal and threatened to demand that Washington take back control of the strategic waterway.
“Our Navy and commerce have been threatened in a very unjust and reckless way. The rates that Panama charges are ridiculous,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The president-elect also denounced the growing influence of China in the canal, a situation he called concerning as U.S. businesses depend on the waterway to transport goods between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
“This complete scam against our country will end immediately,” he stated.
The Panama Canal, completed by the United States in 1914, was handed over to Panama under the 1977 treaty signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Panama took full control of the commercial passage in 1999.
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“It was exclusively for Panama to manage, not China or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would never allow it to fall into the wrong hands!”
“If Panama cannot guarantee a ‘safe, efficient, and reliable’ operation of the canal, we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us in its entirety, without a doubt,” the Republican added.
Panamanian authorities did not immediately respond to Trump’s statements. While he will assume office on January 20, Trump has been exerting his political influence in the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Five percent of global maritime trade passes through the Panama Canal, which allows vessels traveling from Asia to the U.S. East Coast to avoid the long and dangerous route around the southern tip of South America.
The countries that use the Panama Canal the most are the United States, China, Japan, and South Korea.
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In October, the Panama Canal Authority reported earnings of nearly $5 billion in the last fiscal year.
Putin vows retaliation following drone attack on luxury building in Kazan
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised more “destruction” in Ukraine on Sunday, in response to a drone strike that hit a residential building in the city of Kazan, located in central Russia, on Saturday.
Russia accused Ukraine of launching a “massive” drone attack, which struck a luxury apartment block in Kazan, about 1,000 kilometers from the border.
Videos shared on Russian social media show drones hitting a high-rise glass building. No casualties have been reported as a result of the attack.
In his statements, Putin addressed the local leader of Tatarstan, the region where Kazan is located, during a virtual ceremony marking the opening of a road.
The attack in Kazan is the latest in a series of increasingly frequent bombings in this nearly three-year-old conflict. Ukraine has not commented on the attack.
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Putin had previously threatened to strike the center of Kyiv with a hypersonic ballistic missile in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.
The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the recent Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities were retaliation for Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied missiles to target Russian territory.
Small plane crashes in Gramado, Brazil, killing nine people
At least nine people were killed on Sunday after a small aircraft crashed in a commercial area of the tourist city of Gramado, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, authorities confirmed.
“There are nine confirmed deaths according to Civil Defense services, and there are no survivors from the plane,” said Cléber dos Santos Lima, director of the Interior Police Department of the Civil Police of the state, in a statement to AFP.
Authorities have not yet confirmed the exact number of passengers and crew aboard the aircraft, a turbo-prop Piper Cheyenne 400. However, Civil Defense had previously stated that “preliminarily, the plane was carrying ten people.”
The plane crashed on Sunday morning “into the chimney of a building, then onto the second floor of a house, and finally fell onto a furniture store,” according to a statement from the Rio Grande do Sul Public Security Secretariat.
