By Hernán Ouviña on August 12, 2022
Hours before the official inauguration of the government of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez after the triumph achieved last June 19, social organizations, peasant movements, Afro communities and indigenous peoples held, during the morning of August 6, a Popular and Spiritual Possession in the Tercer Milenio Park, located in the center of the capital of the country. “We have come together in this important scenario with the objective of fertilizing the ground for the construction and constitution of the Popular Power, which allows the practical exercise of a political, economic and cultural sovereignty within the reach of all”, expressed the joint organization of the event.
With the presence of the president and vice-president elect, in the act they were given an eight-point Mandate that includes the demand for the guarantee of dignified living conditions, total peace and a radical change in the policy against drugs in Colombia, with the firm conviction that “the only possible path for true transformations in the country will be through the articulated and respectful work between the governmental powers, the forms of government themselves, from the autonomy and self-determination of the indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant peoples and communities that we have built to achieve the conditions of tasty living in our territories”.
“We are demanding what we know is a clear commitment of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez in their government program for the defense of life, the integral fulfillment of the Peace Agreements, the protection of cultures, the ordering of the territory around water and the removal of business from the National Constitution”, stated Oscar Salazar, leader of the Process of Popular Unity of the Southwest of Colombia, in the previous press conference.
Johana Pinzón, spokesperson for the Peoples’ Congress, added that it is necessary that the new government assume the structural problems of the country, such as the right to life, the social and community work carried out by social organizations, the defense of territories and natural resources, as well as the fulfillment of the agreements proposed by the popular movements, warning that they will continue “in this exercise of social mobilization depending on the conditions for the communities in the territories”.
Javier Peña, from the Black Communities Process, stressed the importance of resuming the peace dialogue with the armed groups while taking human rights into account: “We do not want one more leader to lose his or her life for continuing to demand rights. We want there to be a change so that illicit crops do not increase, because this is causing more and more leaders to be murdered every day in our territories, since we are the ethnic and peasant groups who are always exposed to danger”.
The Popular and Spiritual Possession, which was attended by organizational processes and communities from different regions of Colombia, began with a harmonization ceremony coordinated by different elders and authorities. María Jesús, from the Pastos people, explained: “we united energies and strength, but above all we united word and that great fabric we left from the original peoples inside the mandala as a mandate”. María Eugenia Solís, from Tumaco, an Afro-Colombian Santera belonging to the Yoruba religion, agreed that “it was the people who got tired and elected the president and vice-president, and it is they who should be recognized. Our ancestors are also fighting the battle from the spiritual point of view. We have forces that accompany us, and that force is the same one that raised the people”. When asked about living tasty, a slogan strongly installed by Francia during the campaign, María Eugenia shared with us that “it is to be calm in our territories that have been scourged by violence, to be able to sow and not be harmed by glyphosate, to be able to cultivate and feed ourselves with what we sow. It is playing in the rain, enjoying the moonlit nights, running through the ravines, climbing the rivers, walking the trails and country roads we have grown up on”.
The new Vice President Francia Márquez received the Mandate amidst songs of joy from the indigenous, peasant and Maroon guards, who brandished their batons to the rhythm of the hymn of the Indigenous Guard. Also present were some members of the First Lines, who shouted “Freedom, freedom, to the prisoners for fighting!” and demanded the immediate release of the hundreds of prisoners who are still behind bars. Sotu, identified with the First Line of the Portal of Resistance in Bogota, denounced the persistence of persecution against those who “went out to fight and protect the population or to defend their territories. Our position today is to demand their release and to make it clear that we will continue fighting until all the prisoners are free. We are not part of the government but of the people. Direct action has to continue, that was not born with the First Line, which is not a movement but an expression of struggle and resistance. We are going to continue to act because real change is not achieved through complacency or by submitting to the State”.
After listening attentively to the reading of the Mandate by Andrea Echeverri, singer of the band Aterciopelados, Francia Márquez received the document and saluted “all the social movements in their diversity”, as well as “all the elders present, Afro-Colombians, indigenous, palenqueras, raizales and rom” for putting spirituality at the center of the exercise of government. “I want to salute the memory of so many men and women, leaders, young men and women, in their diversity, who sowed the seed”. This path, she acknowledged, “did not begin in an election campaign, but in the resistance of the peoples, resistance that has been maintained for more than 500 years, that has cost many their lives, exile, the silencing of their voices, and that for many women has cost us almost everything. Hope is not Gustavo Petro or Francia Márquez: it is and continues to be in the Colombian people”.
Francia also clarified that, as vice-president, she does not have a constitutional mandate of government, so the tasks she may carry out will depend on the initiative or delegation of functions made by President Gustavo Petro. However, she reiterated that she owes “to the people and to the struggle we have made as social movements”. Reaching the presidency and vice presidency is not the end, it is only a means to continue betting on the transformations required by the country”. “The government will not be easy if it is not accompanied by the social movements, the people, women, youth, the diverse LGTBIQ+ community, the Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, the Roma, the indigenous peoples, the peasantry that has suffered the dispossession of the land. An Agrarian Reform, which you well know has been the reason why thousands of Colombians have been murdered, will not be achieved if we are not holding hands”. “Here we have the most dangerous elite in the region. An elite that has been in charge of keeping us in violence and exclusion.” “We are going from resistance to power until dignity becomes customary,” concluded Francia before the crowd that listened to her attentively in the Tercer Milenio Park.
Source: Alai, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US