Americas press review
Headline: Bogotá and Caracas restore diplomatic ties
Former Colombian senator Armando Benedetti (left) has been appointed as ambassador to Venezuela while former Venezuelan foreign minister Felix Plasencia (right) has been chosen to be ambassador to Colombia.
© CRISTIAN HERNANDEZ, GUILLERMO LEGARIA/AFP
Text by: Marie Normand Follow
4 mins
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This is the front page of the press in Colombia and Venezuela: the arrival of two ambassadors in Caracas and Bogotá marks the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between the two neighboring countries.
El Espectador
recalls the reasons for this break, “
the culmination of clashes that lasted two decades between the chavismo in power in Venezuela and the right of former presidents Uribe and Duque
” in Colombia.
A break consummated when former President Duque chose in 2019, like a good part of the international community, not to recognize Nicolás Maduro as president, but rather the opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Today, it is a left-wing Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who is to meet Nicolás Maduro by the end of the year.
Félix Plasencia, the new Venezuelan representative in Bogotá, sees in it “
a second chance given by history
”.
He believes, reports
El Periodiquito
,
that the two countries are "
brothers
" and "
cannot be separated by politics
".
The diplomat had already been ambassador to Russia and China, before being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The urgency
: restore trade
After having restored the seat of Venezuelan diplomacy north of Bogotá, which is “
virtually destroyed
” according to
El Tiempo,
he intends to restore trade relations.
Same thing for his Colombian counterpart, in Caracas, Armando Benedetti.
Upon his arrival in Caracas, the latter notably raised the idea of a special economic zone on the border, which would guarantee exceptional conditions for trade and investment on both sides.
An excerpt from the interview is published by
El Universal
.
The former journalist, who must present his credentials to President Maduro on Monday afternoon, assures that more than 8 million Colombians live from binational trade with Venezuela.
Colombia
: the end of the Truth Commission
This weekend, the Truth Commission officially ended its work.
El Espectador
wonders, in its editorial, about the legacy of this Commission which is tiptoeing “
after having delivered to the country 23 volumes, some
10,000 pages of report
”.
A “
titanic account of what happened during the armed conflict in Colombia
” spanning half a century.
The Commission was created during the 2016 peace agreements between the Colombian government and the ex-guerrilla Farc.
Despite the controversies, the newspaper sees in its long investigation, an "
essential contribution to reconciliation
" and even a model for the world.
“
Now that the truth exists
”, concludes
El Espectador
,
“
it is up to us to build the future
”.
Brazil
: the Bolsonaro-Lula duel becomes clearer
First televised debate, Sunday evening, between the presidential candidates of October 2.
This debate was marked, according to
O Globo,
by “
the polarization between former President Lula and current President Jair Bolsonaro, far from the other competitors in the polls
”.
For
Folha de São Paolo
,
the meeting “
exposed their weaknesses
” without changing the situation.
The two candidates accused each other of all the evils.
According to a poll carried out in the process, it is another candidate who has managed to pull out of the game: the centrist Simone Tebet.
Haiti
: terror, how far
?
In Haiti,
Le Nouvelliste
returns to the funeral, Saturday, of Josette Desanclos and her two daughters, killed then burned in Croix-des-Bouquets, a week earlier.
No coffin, but funeral urns and photos of the three murdered women, writes the journalist who reports the words of Me Desanclos, husband and father of the victims.
“
Death lurks in every nook and cranny
,” he said.
"
It looks like the Haitians are definitely walking arm in arm with their coffin and everyone is peacefully waiting to be the next victim
."
A family friend adds: “
The capital is besieged by gangs with or without diplomas
”.
"
They abduct us peacefully, rape us and kill us in cold blood, without any fear of being prosecuted, arrested, tried and sentenced
,” he lamented.
How to get out of the terror established by these "
legal bandits
"?
This is the question posed on the front page of
Alterpresse,
by Jhon Picard Biron, research professor at the State University of Haiti.
This terror is "
one of the direct consequences, one of the results, of the instrumentalization of thugs playing the caïd (...) by certain leaders, movements and political parties
".
"
The political actors who have not made use of it are not legion
" and the situation "
has amplified enormously during this last decade of exercise of state power by the PHTK (Michel Martelly, Jovenel Moïse and Ariel Henry)
”, specifies the researcher.
According to him, by “
investing the state apparatus, organized crime, organized crime, offered the shield of legality
”.
For him, an “
effective response can only be political with an absolute priority
: freeing the state apparatus from the grip of serious crime.
This requires a broad socio-political consensus which implies a clear commitment of political actors around this priority.
It is also up to the business sector to no longer feign ignorance or innocence
”.
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Colombia
Venezuela
Newspaper
Haiti
Brazil