Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Thursday that he will speak with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro Moros, to deepen the proposal of the Caracas government to build a Special Binational Economic Zone on the border between the two countries:
«I am going to talk to Maduro to see if we build the special economic zone,» said the Colombian president during a speech in Tibú, a municipality bordering Venezuela that is part of the Catatumbo region, where armed violence has left at least 70 dead and more than 55,000 displaced since January 16.
The Venezuelan proposal:
Last February, President Maduro proposed the creation of «a large binational economic zone» with Colombia to provide alternatives to the inhabitants of the Catatumbo border region: “Colombia’s pain and violence are also our pains. We want Colombia to heal its pain, its wounds (…). Colombia counts on us beyond the differences,” said the Venezuelan head of state.
In that area near the border, Petro said, “it is the Mexican cartels that are giving the instructions for Catatumbo and surely Venezuelans and Colombians (too).” That is called losing national sovereignty. The violence of the past, even at the time of the peace agreement with the FARC (in 2016), did not have that reality, that is why history flows and changes. The ELN was transformed from a revolutionary movement to a ‘traqueto’ (drug trafficker),” added the Colombian president.
Petro mentioned this proposal when referring to the decrees of internal unrest in Catatumbo, which were issued by his government on January 24 to deal with the violence caused by the clashes between the guerrilla group of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the 33rd Front of the FARC dissidents.
