Ricardo Maldonado Rozo
Turbaco (Colombia), Sep 16 (EFE).- More than 3,000 people gathered this Friday at a school in Turbaco, in the department of Bolívar (north), to raise their most urgent needs in the first binding regional dialogue, a Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s strategy to advance towards “total peace”.
This listening exercise, which has the direct participation of the high government and will take place in 50 regions of the country, began with songs played on guitar by the mayor of Turbaco, Guillermo Torres, a former FARC guerrilla and one of the few demobilized combatants who has won an elected position.
The conclusions of these dialogues will be included in the National Development Plan (PND), “the roadmap that will guide the action of the State” in the next four years, whose “final objective will be the construction of an environment of total peace”, Petro said last Wednesday in his first address to the country.
This Friday’s conversation was led by the Minister of Transport, Guillermo Reyes, and the center of the talk was the Canal del Dique, the infrastructure work that the region demands to mitigate the ravages of the rains that flood thousands of hectares every year. of Earth.
Reyes indicated that the head of state has stressed to his cabinet that the consensus achieved in this initiative must “be an order for us” the ministers.
EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED
The high councilor for the regions, Luis Fernando Velasco, said that this first dialogue was an “explosion of democracy”, and recognized that “it exceeded his expectations” because according to him some 400 people were waiting but more than 3,000 arrived.
Velasco stressed that mayors, presidents of Community Action Boards, political representatives of the ruling Historical Pact, leaders of traditional parties, peasants, ethnic and social representatives arrived at the site.
He appreciated that what is interesting is that people are in a place “convened by government officials who do not come to give a line (regarding what to do) but rather come to listen.”
“That is very important because it means that (as a government) we believe in the people and that for me is the construction of democracy,” he added.
HONEST DIALOGUE
Velasco explained that in the regional dialogues, the Petro government “has to be very honest” with the people and tell them what can be fulfilled and what cannot.
“We cannot go out and believe that because a different political option won, there is a magic wand with which all problems are going to be solved,” he explained.
He said, as an example, that if there are 100 problems and there are limited resources to solve 15, “we will have to prioritize which are those 15 problems that we have to solve first.”
He considered that if economic resources are distributed well, problems that afflict communities throughout the country can be solved.
He also assured that some very powerful sectors of society “are afraid of democracy because when people speak up they know how to find their problems and help us solve them.”
“And of course, those who live from the big state businesses don’t want people to talk because if people talk, some of those businesses don’t happen,” he added.
For her part, the Minister of Labor, Gloria Inés Ramírez, explained that there is dialogue “to agree, we agree to comply and we comply to transform.”
“This time the government’s political decision is not to do more of the same, meetings where everyone says what they want and in the end what I think is done,” he added. EFE
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