Denunciante Dorado
 |  The ‘Lawful’ Political Killing of Bogotá’s Mayor: Gustavo Petro
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by Ricardo Sanín Restrepo • 7 March 2014
Colombia must not an*ni*hilate what may be the last chance of peace. Quite simply, it must take law seriously
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Gustavo Petro (holding mic) at a recent rally
One of the longest living myths in Latin America is that Colombia is one of its most stable demo*cra*cies. Of course, form*ally, the country has not suffered a mil*itary dic*tat*or*ship in the last fifty some years and all the in*ternal clock*work of a re*pub*lican system seems to work har*mo*ni*ously: a con*sti*tu*tion packed with rights and guar*an*tees; reg*ular, open elec*tions; a neat and clean di*vi*sion of powers; and the list goes on.
Yet this ap*parent in*sti*tu*tional sturdi*ness con*ceals a civil war that has been on*going for more than sixty years. This war has al*most bled rural Colombia to death and has made urban areas a bizarre col*lage of wealth and poverty. It is a tale of two coun*tries: on one side Colombia has now sur*passed Argentina as the third biggest eco*nomy in Latin America, heavy for*eign in*vest*ment is lured daily to the country, factories rise, banks flourish. On the other side, Colombia has the world’s fourth worst GINI index with only Haiti worse off in its hemi*sphere. It is a country split at its base, Arcadia and dystopia col*liding in every corner of life.
The ex*plan*a*tions for these abysmal con*tra*dic*tions vary, but it is no co*in*cid*ence that in*sti*tu*tional sta*bility is con*nected with the fact that Colombia has been a stra*tegic post for con*tinuous US in*ter*ven*tion in the re*gion. The Condor never flew so high and vo*ra*ciously, and a her*metic and re*duced elite has ruled the country mer*ci*lessly since co*lo*nial times.
It is in this com*plex frame that a peace pro*cess between the Colombian gov*ern*ment and the Farc (the longest living in*sur*gency in the world) is now taking place in Havana. A pro*cess to heal a deep wound at the heart of a com*munity in agony, to re*con*cile cen*turies of in*justice, to bring about a chance of true so*cial transformation.
The path to peace is a treach*erous one. In the early eighties Farc, along with other minor left-wing move*ments, de*mo*bil*ized and formed a polit*ical party called UP (Unión Patriótica). The elect*oral suc*cess of UP prompted the powerful to cook up a gun powder cake that ex*ploded tra*gic*ally. The UP was bru*tally and al*most en*tirely ex*term*in*ated. Although stats vary, more than 3000 active mem*bers of the group where murdered between 1985 and 1994, in*cluding two pres*id*en*tial can*did*ates and 13 mem*bers of Congress.1
Few of the cul*prits have been brought to justice. A mix between tra*di*tional and powerful landowners and mem*bers of the polit*ical elite joined forces to create ex*term*in*a*tion armies (paramilitares) — one more un*ful*filled promise of con*ven*tional politics in Colombia. This is why the peace pro*cess of Havana treads a thin red line, while the far right is now re*or*gan*ized stra*tegic*ally after the eight-year gov*ern*ment of Alvaro Uribe who, among other things, leg*al*ized these para*mil*itary groups.
The left in Colombia has al*ways been and con*tinues to be sub*ject to bul*lets, chain*saws and the vi*ol*ence of law it*self. What can the left do when it comes into power? One very plaus*ible an*swer is to push law to its limits, make it ac*count*able for its basic prin*ciples; in other words, ma*ter*i*alize it beyond its formal and hollow con*tent. If in*sti*tu*tions (rights, pro*ced*ures, prin*ciples) func*tion as a sim*u*la*tion of demo*cracy that mask the at*ro*cities of a bloated and ir*re*spons*ible use of private prop*erty, as is the case in Colombia, and if law sur*vives be*cause it is per*ceived as le*git*imate while con*cealing its func*tion of ac*cu*mu*la*tion and dis*pos*ses*sion, what hap*pens when law is taken seriously?
This is what Gustavo Petro was doing, a de*mo*bil*ized member of the M-19 guer*rilla move*ment and the in*cum*bent Mayor of Bogota. He was taking law at face value and pushing its en*velope to ful*fill its most rad*ical prom*ises. The re*sponse by the far right: a ‘lawful’ polit*ical killing.
The story of Petro’s van*quishing is an in*tricate, mul*ti*fa*ceted legal pro*cess that few are able to master (as every legal pro*cess is, isn’t that pre*cisely their reason for being?). However, the bottom-line is this: as Mayor of Bogota, he took the trash col*lec*tion and pro*cessing busi*ness, a multimillion-dollar en*ter*prise, away from the hands of a close-knit, private and mono*pol*izing con*glom*erate (which lined the pockets of, among others, former pres*ident Uribe’s sons) and put it in the hands of the poor, the in*formal re*cyclers, the wretched of the city. This saved roughly 100 mil*lion dol*lars a year for the city.
It was the Procurador General (a sort of gen*eral at*torney with a wide range of legal tentacles to im*pose ad*min*is*trative pen*al*ties) who, ar*guing that Petro had in*fringed ad*min*is*trative Acts, re*moved Petro from of*fice while ban*ning him from politics for 15 years. As I write this, I learn from the Colombian press that the ju*di*ciary has up*held, once again, the Procurador General ’s de*cision, and Petro is now one step closer to being of*fi*cially, polit*ic*ally dead.
The Procurador General’s pro*file is quite rel*evant. Alejandro Ordoñez is a Lefebvrist, people who con*sider Ratzinger and Wojtyla raving left-wing lib*erals, the same people who re*jected the Second Vatican Council, and still say mass in Latin with their backs to the con*greg*a*tion. This char*acter is not a product of anyone’s de*ranged ima*gin*a*tion or an ap*par*i*tion from the Inquisition; he has the last word in tran*scend*ental is*sues in a so-called demo*cracy where state and church are separate.
Ordoñez has be*come the moral beacon of Colombia’s ultra-powerful right; a thick wall of Colombia’s elite pro*tect him with earth, wind, fire, law and cru*ci*fixes; and of course he mo*bil*izes part of a greedy middle class — the class that, al*ways lacking everything, sur*vive on the de*sire for what will never come to them.
Petro was a real front-runner from the left; he had a real chance of be*coming President in 2018; but the Left that em*braced peace and law*ful*ness has again been shattered, one more time.
So, what were Petro’s sins? Taking law ser*i*ously. Achieving so*cial justice through legal paths and re*noun*cing war. But, of course when you take law (lib*eral law) at its face value you shatter its co*her*ence, you burst what lies be*neath it as an al*ways in*com*plete promise, you de*nounce its obscenity.
Taking law to the limit of its uni*versal bound*aries makes you un*der*stand that rampant neo*lib*er*alism bat*ters the Welfare state, that the Washington Consensus rides on the back of civil liber*ties, and that the plethora of rights are built to guar*antee rich people’s privileges.
Picture Bogota with me, part of the city has the living stand*ards of Switzerland or Norway, the other part, not shown in tourist bro*chures, has the living stand*ards of the Central African Republic. On one side lush shop*ping cen*ters jammed with top de*signer brands, a rich bazaar of in*ter*na*tional cuisine, wine pouring and music flowing, parades of lux*urious cars, lu*minous green parks with soft sun*light, shiny happy people having fun, all the time. The other city is a com*bin*a*tion of drug wars, dis*place*ment, famine, and sur*vival; al*ways ex*cluded and for*gotten by the elite that rules in a grim walled para*dise. This reality began to change drastic*ally in Petro’s tenure as Mayor.
Petro made real what was for*bidden to be*come real, justice. Among other ac*com*plish*ments, we can list the following:
He shifted air and water from a com*modity to a right, as simple as that. In three years, 681,801 homes were sup*plied with run*ning and clean water under his ad*min*is*tra*tion, while im*proving the quality of air in the city to levels not re*corded in this cen*tury.
In 2013, for the first time in re*corded his*tory no chil*dren under five died of mal*nu*tri*tion in the city. His system of school kit*chens achieved the highest stand*ards of nu*tri*tional quality in Latin America. While the in*tegral at*ten*tion to in*fants went from 59,090 in 2011 to 117,689 in 2013.
Through in*nov*ative so*cial pro*grams that in*clude em*power*ment of the poorest com*munities, in*equality in the dis*tri*bu*tion of wealth is now way below na*tional stand*ards, which is im*pressive if you con*sider that Bogota ac*counts for 24.8% of Colombia’s GDP.
The rates of hom*icides is the lowest in 30 years.
In edu*ca*tion his achieve*ments are co*lossal and un*pre*ced*ented. Aggressive in*vest*ment in public schools threatens even to close the gap between public and private edu*ca*tion, some*thing un*heard of in Colombia. This, as you might ima*gine, is one of Petro’s cap*ital sins.
Revolution through law, as it should be… right? Wrong. Not for the Colombian establishment.
What is to be done? Colombia’s gov*ern*ment must realize that Petro’s des*ti*tu*tion is not proof of a just rule of law but proof that neut*rality is the new form of fan*at*icism. It is solely the Government’s re*spons*ib*ility to pre*vent an*other wave of cata*strophic vi*ol*ence. The mes*sage to the Colombian es*tab*lish*ment is: do not an*ni*hilate what may be the last chance of peace in this country, quite simply: take law seriously.
Ricardo Sanín is a pro*fessor of legal and polit*ical theory and teaches in sev*eral in*sti*tu*tions across Latin America.
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