Ivan Duque: Colombia 'has managed to have the lowest homicide rate in more than 40 years'

Colombian President Ivan Duque during a summit at the Malaga naval base, near the port of Buenaventura, Colombia, January 26, 2022. AFP - LUIS ROBAYO

Text by: RFI Follow

6 mins

On March 13, Colombia begins its electoral calendar with legislative elections, but also the primaries of the main parties to designate their presidential candidate on May 29.

Ivan Duque, who cannot stand for a second term, answers questions from RFI on the situation in which he leaves the country.

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Interview conducted by

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RFI: The Covid has caused a massacre for Latin America.

Last month, Colombia reached 136,000 dead.

Beyond the terrible figures, what conclusions can we draw from all this?

Why is Latin America still the most affected continent?

What must be done so that this tragedy does not repeat itself? 

Ivan Duque 

: When the pandemic started, one of the things that worried us the most was how Latin America was going to respond to this challenge.

Above all, taking into account the fact that the pandemic had increased the response capacity of the health system in Europe.

We have managed to go from 5,300 intensive care units to more than 13,000. Knowing that our country has a very high urban density, and that families of several generations share small spaces, which has added additional pressure to

.

And today, what we can say with pride is that we have managed to manage all of this, to pass the peaks without having to continue to restrict economic and social development.

We have also launched a vaccination program which today obtains better results than those of many rich countries.

We managed to reach 80% of people to have received one dose of vaccine, to be close to 70% for two doses, and also to apply the booster doses.

Latin America has shown that it has the pedagogical capacity to behave better.

And if we continue to suffer from the death of millions of Latin Americans, in other regions it is important to show that we have accomplished a lot: countries like Colombia or Chile have managed to show humanity that we had a better behavior in all our health policy, which remained foreign to political, ideological or demagogic manipulation.  

This year in your country, there will be several elections: in March the legislative elections, in May possibly the first round of the presidential election.

In what situation do you leave Colombia? 

What we want to leave, as a great legacy of our government, is the government of equity, of greater social investment.

We leave free registration for public higher education to the country;

social programs more focused on solidarity income, with an increase in the number of beneficiaries of these programs.

We have provided the largest number of housing allowances in the country's history, and enabled the most vulnerable families to become owners.

Colombia has never received so many rural properties.

Never before has Colombia invested so much in its infrastructure.

We leave behind an economy recovering from the pandemic, a strengthened public health system, and the lowest homicide rate in 40 years. 

These elections take place almost six years after the signing of the peace agreements with the Farc guerrillas.

Since then there have been 1,308 murders.

More than 270 ex-FARC combatants were killed.

How do you explain it? 

Colombia already had a sad and deplorable history of assassinations during reintegration processes, after the signing of peace agreements with the State.

And that, people forget.

In fact, with the Farc, we had fewer assassinations compared to the number of demobilized people.

And yet, when I arrived, the country had fewer soldiers and police than in 2010, all because of court decisions that facilitated the departure of police.

But we rebuilt these forces, we deployed them throughout the country, we hit the leaders of both the Farc dissidents and the ELN.

Knowing that many of these groups operate in Venezuelan territory with the protection and support of the dictatorial regime of Nicolas Maduro. 

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You say that your government has reinforced the armed forces and the police, how do you explain that these assassinations continue? 

We sold the whole world that the

was synonymous with absolute peace in Colombia.

This has never been the case.

In Colombia, the ELN still exists, the

still exists, and many others who practice drug trafficking.

So there, I have the impression that there was an error.

Because we, of course, continue to apply the process of disarmament and reintegration of the FARC.

So much so that when UN Secretary General Guterres visited the country last year, he said that Colombia was an example for the world.

It is a fact.

And beyond that, what Colombia shows is that by facing all these phenomena, including a pandemic and the worst migration crisis, the government has managed to have the highest homicide rate lowest in more than forty years, and the lowest kidnapping rate in these figures.  

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On January 27, the Supreme Court of Colombia ruled that there was a "

 ", and affirmed that there was an "

I respect that decision, and obviously we're going to take into account what the Supreme Court says.

What is strange is that Colombia often has to face these kinds of problems.

But sometimes it seems that, while court rulings always say that these groups who assassinate these fighters make a living from drug trafficking, each time, bad court rulings get in the way of the fight against drug trafficking.

So it would be nice to look at those two things the same way.

If we want to get rid of these groups that assassinate these human rights defenders and these fighters, justice must allow us to act more forcefully against drug trafficking. 

And to prevent more deaths among the ex-guerrillas and social leaders, what are you going to do? 

We have launched, and this is a first, a public policy to protect social leaders and human rights defenders.

And we have also launched a program to strengthen the National Protection Unit, which today benefits from the highest budget in its history.

In 2021, compared to 2020, there was a significant reduction in these killings.

I think this reinforcement policy is starting to give ever better results.  

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