Tiempos Violentos

EL NACIMIENTO DE LA CONSTITUCIÓN. LA SÉPTIMA PAPELETA, EL ESTADO DE SITIO Y EL PAPEL DE LA JUVENTUD

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
The presentation in the village. Weproclaim the new Constitution and the promise made
earlier in the face of the problemsof public order. It was enough to
decree the state of the site andimmediately bring in the security forces. And

(00:25):
here with the social protest. Ithink you have to put it as a
little bit of history to understand whathappened It was a scenario with some similarities
to what we are living today,thirty years later. What has happened in
this last protest, which unfortunately hashit the Colombian society as a whole very

(00:46):
hard, is that the peaceful protest, well- intentioned, called by thousands
of people, especially young people,has been mistreated and distorted by vandalism,
by violence, in the midst ofprotest by the infiltrators, and that distorts
that great achievement of the Constitution ninety- one, which was the right to

(01:11):
peaceful protest, which is precisely whatgives strength and entity to a democracy,
is that it is possible for membersof society to go out and protest,
to express their discontent with this orthat situation. It was a very complicated
context from the political point of view, very complicated from the point of view

(01:34):
of public tranquility, public order.Complicated constitutionally, speaking of the various frustrations
that had occurred in the course ofthe last decades of constitutional reform projects that
people believed necessary. People wanted tosee a reform of Congress, they wanted
to see a reform of the administrationof justice. I wanted to see a

(01:57):
claim of rights that seemed to havegone into the background. I wanted to
dream in great measure, with adifferent country, a lack of credibility of
many of the institutions of the Stateat that time, particularly Congress, had

(02:19):
sincerely a very great rejection of publicopinion and, of course, collaterally also
the Executive, that is, thePresidency of the time, because it had
had to face all this problem ofterrorism, of drug trafficking, and also
the Courts were very weakened, becausethree constitutional reforms that had been attempted,

(02:46):
both in the seventy- four andtwo years of seventy- eight and two
years of eighty- nine, hadbeen, for different reasons collapsed. So,
I knew the idea that the systemwouldn' t let itself be reformed.
From the eighties with the government ofBelisario de Tankourt. Start a change.

(03:12):
It would now be said with avery common word today in the narratives
of what was happening in Colombia.This change is mainly due to the origin
of the conflict up to those years. In the seventies, still under Turballa
Yala, it was considered to bethe communist threat. They were foreign nations
that were giving us this risk.Since the eighties, a different diagnosis has

(03:38):
emerged. One begins to speak andone can remember the politics and literature also
academic on the matter that began totalk about the objective causes and subjective causes
of violence. The objective causes,I mean, look not here? It
is not so much that Russia isgetting in here, but rather that there

(03:59):
are objective material conditions of human indignity, of poverty, material conditions that prevent
a dignified life and, on theother hand, subjective causes that made references
rather to the political system, tothe impossibility of becoming part of the political
system and being able to enter openly. One had to do with historical discrimination,

(04:24):
with inequalities that we still maintain today, despite the advances and, on
the other hand, also in politicalexclusions and sectarianism. We had overcome the
wars between liberals and conservatives, butthe other political groups still left out a
pact of political exclusion that achieved peaceamong the traditional parties, but that excluded

(04:46):
new protagonists of political life in Colombiathe repertoire of the instruments of the State
of siege to deal with the socialcrises, the mobilizations that had displaced the
powers of the legislature, the growingdiscredit of Congress, which had an attitude

(05:11):
of back to the new dynamics thatarose in the mid- eighties social movements
civic strike of the year seventy-seven, in some circumstances similar to what
we are experiencing today. All ofthis brought together at a special moment,

(05:41):
a crisis of exhaustion of the politicalmodel, of the National Front, of
the Constitution of eighty- six andan institutional crisis of State that had no
capacity to respond to the challenges posedby the country at that time. And
that made all those factors together withalmost four presidential candidates killed in two years,

(06:08):
Galán, Pardo Leal, Jaramillo andPizarro, because the climate was calling
for a different Assembly to Congress toreform the Constitution. That was like the
context the expression of the Constitution ofthe ninety- one Constituent Assembly. Previously.
There were a number of events thatare important to highlight One of them

(06:30):
could be, for example, theMarch of Silence, which was a march
that happened after the murder of LuisCarlos Galán. The beginning of the 1990s
is a very convulsed beginning for thiscountry and it must be remembered that at
that time the Government, the ColombianState, was besieged by drug cartels.

(06:55):
It was a time when security threatshad ceased to be the classic threats related
to the armed conflict and had arrivedin the cities on account of the actions
of the cartels. It is amoment when it begins to occur, begins
to occur or consolidates. Perhaps Iwould say this very pernicious relationship between the
political class and drug trafficking, andthat led us to try to find an

(07:21):
extra- institutional way out, becausethe Constitution could not be reformed. And
clearly, what we need in thiscountry was a new pact of passage,
a new agreement where we could allfit well Colombia' s political Constitution was
issued in a very difficult context forColombia. It was a context where there

(07:43):
was really deep and very complex violence. When one looks at what happened,
for example, since one thousand ninehundred and eighty- six, when President
Virgilio Barco stood. Over the nextthree years, one can count four murdered
presidential candidates, nineteen car bombs,three hundred murdered journalists judges. Daily,

(08:13):
then the violence was really profound.Obviously, we had the violence typical of
the armed conflict, because there wereguerrilla groups in that context, but perhaps
the greatest violence of the time wasdefinitely the violence of the war we faced
with drug trafficking. How do youdesign a country, how long does it

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take until we realize that the designdoesn' t work? What if the
design itself ensures that the faults remainthere, that there is no change possible.
How to fix a machine that hasfaults that can be traced back to
its very origin in the 1980s,those failures that tormented Colombia for decades,

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the different solutions, the vices oforigin and the omissions of those who throughout
history had shared power were making wateror good more than water, blood and
fire. Pablo Escobar creates a viseralaudio against Luis Carlos Galán. He was
killed through a plot between drug traffickers, politicians and state agents. Bernardo Jaramillo

(09:20):
was murdered in Bogotá on March 22, 1990. That was a crime of
being. He is killed with fourteenescorts and clearly seen in the video as
they open the field for the dryingto enter. Carlos Pizarro León Gómez,
political and ideological leader of the Guerrillerom nineteen was a candidate for the Presidency

(09:41):
of the Republic. Shot- killedon 26 April on a flight to Barranquilla.
After years of more or less successfulconstitutional reform attempts. The narco-
terrorist violence in Colombia flooded the streets, the news, the state entities.
The whole country didn' t work. What could be done, how can

(10:03):
we understand it in the light ofthese days. Other solutions that do not
solve constitutional reforms and counter- reforms. What a difference there is between then
and time, When we felt thatColombia did not work, How were the
times in which the National Constituent Assemblyof nine hundred and ninety- one was
created. What had happened for severalyears. The drug traffickers started fighting the

(10:31):
state to get them knocked down.The extradition treaty sounds a lot back.
During the government of Julius Caesar Urbaythe law was passed twenty- two out
of seventy- nine which was theextradition treaty. At first there were no
reactions when the first traditions began topresent requests for drug traffickers. Then came

(10:58):
the network of drug traffickers. Whatwas the first thing they tried to overthrow
the extradition treaty and filed several lawsuitswith the Supreme Court of Justice. The
Supreme Court of Justice spoke of theSupreme Court which was sacrificed on November 6.

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Drug traffickers were not given the extraditiontreaty. Interestingly, the judges who
replaced them a year later struck downthe extradition treaty with a rather delectable argument
that the approving law was affirmed Germánas Minister and not Turbay as titular.

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There begins a stage why, becausethe ship government is left without instruments of
international law and then for administrative lifeand by decree of State of siege.
Considering that there is a relationship betweenlaw and order and the issue of narco
- terrorism, it then re-establishes extradition. There I had to issue,

(12:11):
as Attorney General in eighty- nine, the favourable concept for such extraditions
and everyone who went through it killedhim. You had been killed by Carlos
Mauro Hollos, Rodrigo was killed byRodrigo Lara, Guillermo Cano was killed,

(12:33):
Enrique Laumurtra was killed. All thatto knock down extradition. Remember Pablo Escobar
and the Medellin Poster said we preferreda tomb in Colombia that are extradited.
Let' s say that fight ofextradition, because with a fight that also
brought a lot of violence, thenthere was a context of violence that I

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tell my students they can' timagine. I tell you an anecdote that
' s true. I taught atthe University of the Andes had a class
of seven and had sometimes to godown because there they left the dead in
the morning. Then it was analmost daily violence, very, very painful.

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And other than that, the contextwas also institutional blocking. Let'
s say it was understood that theinstitutional design contained in the Constitution of eighty
- six was no longer able torespond to those serious challenges that we lived
in Colombia. It was all theright to live, and it was the

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right to live not generically, interchangeablefor anyone. What we' re talking
about was not our right to live. Bogotá. In Bogotá, the bombs
exploded, in Cali, in Medellín, in Pereira, in many cities,
armed men, drug trafficking, thepower of drug trafficking, the power of
arms, the rise of the militarywar, of self- defense, selective

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murder of the Patriotic Union, apolitical party that was systematically murdered each of
its leaders. I was finishing schooljust when the Seventh Paperlet couldn' t

(14:26):
vote. But I was part ofthat student movement and we distributed the Seventh
ballot. Those who did not yethave a card, but because we were
aware and we were participating in thefirst Assembly was held at the Universidad Externa
de Colombia. I think that wasthe first time we met, because we

(14:48):
were all in processes at our ownuniversities, public universities are in processes that
are primarily related to the peace processthat was then with the 19th fifth lamp
challenge of hope, with the EPof hope easy freedom. It' s
just that I think the seventh pauretathing is a little oversized, clear for

(15:09):
us to predict that historically. Idon' t think this is against guardianship
or anything. But, but Ithink people have to know reality, history.
As a journalist, do the exerciseof asking him what the seventh ballot
was today. It is simply thatsome students said that in the 1990s there
were elections in March, that therewere six selections. Then let' s

(15:35):
raise a seventh so that people willsay whether or not they want a continuous
reform. That was, that wasand was done, but he didn'
t enjoy the youth influenced much,especially the universities all over the country by
the project. We can still saveColombia and in that we have to recognize
Fernando Carrillo for real, because hewas a professor at that time of the

(15:58):
rosary, of n usantes and ofthe Javeriana, who played a very important
role alongside the national and the universitiesof the rest of the country in the
call for the March of Silence,which was a few days after Galan'
s death. From the March ofSilence arose the student movement that had a

(16:21):
slogan that was called We can stillsave Colombia And basically, that movement began
to consolidate as a movement that senta clear message of the need for institutional
change and to leave violence when onelooks at what they wrote in the march
of silence. What they wanted wasan end to all forms of violence,

(16:45):
regardless of where they arose, theobservance of human rights, the institutionalization or
the strengthening of institutionality. I believethat the Government of Barco at that time,
because it also understood that the studentswere allies ships, had already made
proposals to try to have constitutional reformsoutside of Congress. Let us remember that

(17:11):
he had failed even his reform project. And then, so the government also
supported the student movement in a veryinteresting initiative that was held at that time,
which was the so- called Seventhballot. The so- called Seventh
ballot was a ballot that became symbolicthat people, that is, invited people

(17:33):
to deposit in the March elections ofnineteen hundred and ninety. In those elections

there were six elections (17:38):
one had to vote for congressmen, one had to
vote for mayors, one had tovote for governors. I remember there was
the liberal consultation. There were sixelections and symbolically, an urn was put
in for people to deposit if theyagreed yes or no with a Constituent Assembly.

(18:00):
Those votes of the Assembly of theCeptira ballot could not be counted because
formally it was not an election,but it is estimated that it was a
massive vote in favour of the Assembly. On March 11, 1990, he
won the Seventh ballot driven by astudent moment in an informal count. For
us we also achieved and there arestill minutes of the voting jurors of the

(18:25):
registry, who recorded a clandestine paperthere, who entered the polls and entered
so many of those papers because obviouslythere was no table or recorded any of
the Seventh ballot, because all thatwas informal and that same day a congress
was elected. That' s themost paradoxical thing. So the government,
let' s say, heard thatcall and the student movement say that it

(18:51):
had had a big win and somethinginteresting happened, and that the government declared
the state of siege as a wayto count or call an election to ask
if people agree with the Constituent Assemblyor not. It is a little ironic,

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because one of the things that theConstitution of the 1990s will want to
do is to limit states of exception. And our Constitution of the ninety-
one, in fact, through aconstituent Assembly, was possible through a state
of emergency. By the way,I was the Attorney General and I issued
a concept as an anti- procurator, not because I don' t agree

(19:32):
with the change, but because itmeant a kind of institutional coup d'
état to jump into the current Constitution, which had the norm, the pleiscito,
which said that Congress, that theissue could only be reformed by Congress.
Then the mechanism of the Seventh Papreitewas invented, which, by the
way, was never scrutinized according toconstancy, the recorder of the time and

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the concept was against. The AcorteCourt' s decision upheld this by a
fairly divided decision. I think therewere just about two different votes. The
chamber specializing in constitutional matters, whichwas the Constitutional Chamber of the Court,
had its concept that the Constitution couldnot be changed in this way, which

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was an institutional rupture. The Courtdeclared constitutional the declaration of a state of
emergency. Also, on a verypowerful argument and is that the primary constituent
is speaking. The primary constituent issaying that he wants one to change the
Constitution. The primary constituent wants tohear it and we have to let him

(20:45):
hear it and he allowed himself towonder whether or not a constituent assembly was
convened. And, as everyone knows, when the Constituent Assembly was voted on,
most people asked that there should bea Constituent Assembly. In the convocation
of the Constituent Assembly, the politicalparties agreed on an agenda and that agenda

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was also declared unconstitutional on the basisthat the primary constituent is not limited,
that the primary constituent is free togive himself a constitution as a hostec We
are the citizen of the politician,of the parties, is institutional of the

(21:32):
Jesuit institution. There alone, especiallythe end of the operation with the delegitimized
Presidency passed to a machado death.It is doubtless the environment. He started
to cesion. Enclosure of one thousandnine hundred and ninety- one, the
National Assembly constituted the idea of makinga new Constitution. That Constitution of nine

(21:56):
hundred and ninety- one responded toa popular yearning for one of society,
the State and its institutions. Wecame from the whole issue of the war
against drug trafficking, an internal armedconflict, a Constitution of 1, 80,
806, which did not really respondto Colombian society at that time.
So, it was really a popularstudent movement, of transformation, of getting

(22:22):
out of the traditional channels that theprevious Constitution had for us. So,
what' s coming? That Congressis coming, it' s coming from
the presidential election. Gaviria is thePresident and that Congress is determined that this
is very important. That Congress washeld from July 20, 1990 to December
15, 1990, and a numberof reforms were made there. With the

(22:45):
sword of Amorcles that came the Constitution. On December 9, 1990, the
Constituent Assembly was elected, and rumorbegan that the Constituent Assembly was a sovereign
entity, because the Supreme Court ofJustice had said so. At that silly
time there was no Constitutional Court.It was the Constitutional Chamber of the Court.
The Court said that is not simplya constitutional Assembly. In other words,

(23:07):
the Constitution is not just going tobe reformed here. A new Constitution
will be issued here. You haveno limits. The Court told us that
we were elected as constituents and clearof the first acts of the Constitution was
to think of repealing Congress because theywere going to function simultaneously the Constituent Assembly

(23:29):
and Congress elected a little saying thatthat Congress had made a number of reforms.
The most fruitful legislative balance of aCongress in Colombia' s recent history
was the Congress that was struck bythe Constituent' s MC sword in nine
hundred and ninety. But it turnsout that we reached the Constituent Assembly and

(23:53):
the theory grew. The theory wasgeneralized that the term of office of Congress
should be revoked because it was incompatiblewith the Constituent Assembly and former President López,
who was the head of the LiberalParty in the negotiation. I didn
' t participate in that negotiation.There are many who say they didn'
t either. That was a thingof the party leaders and in an agreement
in June of one thousand nine hundredand ninety- one, in the House

(24:17):
of Nariño, they resolved that theydid accept the traditional parties. It was
never accepted by the Conservative Party andit was up to it to accept the
National Salvation movement. But if allthe constituents were disqualified, that was like
cutting off the political renewal in Colombia, because then those who had been or
had put it in the first personof the plural, protagonists of the constituent,

(24:41):
could not continue in politics, becauseit was up to us to disable
ourselves and that was accepted. Ionly voted against, for example, because
they seemed to me not because ofmy personal situation, but because it seemed
to me that it was the wayto put the handbrake on all the political
renewal that was taking place in Colombia. And they did it, and already
with the threat of compliance with theConstitution of ninety- one. And I

(25:02):
speak, for example, of aninstitution that later weakened the loss of investiture
of congressmen, for example, byacts of corruption, which was one of
the great tools of the Constitution ofthe ninety- one, which has sadly
weakened. Of course, they alreadysaw what was coming up the leg if
the whole Constitution was put in placeand began to put the counter- reform

(25:22):
for the Constitution of the 1990s,especially in social matters. A President later
said that he could not govern withthe Constitution of the 1990s and, on
the other hand, he was strengtheningthe Constitutional Court, that I think the
only thing we said intelligently at thelevel of transitional norms, was to say
we must approve the reform of justiceand we must get the new institutions of

(25:44):
justice out of the way. Thattouched us later, in the second half
of a thousand nine hundred and ninety- one, and the Constitutional Court that
was brought out by the Congress wassuccessfully removed. That is why this analysis
is so important, because the majorreforms, for example, of justice,
of the creation of the Constitutional Court, of the Prosecutor' s Office,
of the Ombudsman' s Office,of the Higher Council, of the Judiciary,

(26:07):
which were the four institutions that createdthe Constitution of the ninety- one,
were made with the Congress, oncethe Constituent Assembly ended and until the
fifteenth of December of one thousand ninehundred and ninety- one. I think
that would never have happened if Ihad left it to the new Congress.
And in fact, there are anumber of new institutions of the Constitution,
all the tools of participatory democracy thatwere frozen for lack of development of the

(26:30):
Constitution and, of course, thepolitical class. So he said that interval,
let' s say of that government, was lived here because almost the
constituent came to rule. This isevident, because where the constituent power is
acting, because it is difficult tolive with other instances of secondary constituent power
or representation, and the political classdecided to give the start of returning to

(26:53):
the above and achieved it. Notethat a very important thing happened that needs
to be highlighted. It should beemphasized when the National Constituent Assembly was installed
on the ninety- one and duringthat five- month period a very important
fact happens in the history of Colombia, and is that the Constituent Presidency was

(27:17):
a conservative, a liberal and amember who came from the guerrillas. Who
were the presidents Antonio Navarro, whois the newest by then, but had
already been Minister. Yes, HoracioZerpa, a very important political leader,
but who has already been through alot, andÁlvaro Gómez Hurtado, who
had been, well, already presidentialcandidate several times, because it is also

(27:40):
said, for example, that thiswas not a It was the consensus of
the forces for God, of thecountry. No. That was a great
opportunity to show the country that wewere going to move forward on the path
of greater agreement, greater convergence,greater understanding, rather than beginning to work
on economic development, social development,to overcome violence, to overcome drug trafficking.

(28:07):
Unfortunately, the Constituent National Assembly endedand new elections were called. I
say that because I was elected senatoron that ninetieth year call. He was
elected senator and we arrived in Congressand, unfortunately, the politicking was reimposed

(28:29):
if they were who were the politicalforces that dominated the right wing, the
Liberal Party, by the way,quite diminished at that time. Already national
salvation, national salvation? What wasnational salvation? For the new generations to
know, the conservative is divided intotwo towers, always laureanism and ospinism,
national salvation, the lauranist sector thatat that time ledÁlvaro Gómez and gave

(28:53):
him the name of national salvation.But who were the ones who were chosen
by Mrs. No, what werethe new forces that already appeared. And
the 19th m, which sclm nineteenbroke in, but two years later practically
no longer existed. That vision,that criterion of understanding, was not prolonged,

(29:17):
and Congress pushed for counter- reforminitiatives in the 1990s Constitution. At
the same time. It should berecalled that even the sectors of the judiciary
requested or did not request to orderthe revocation of the pardon granted to em

(29:41):
nineteen after it had contributed to theformation and structuring of a new Constitution.
They called for the revocation of therecall and the imprisonment of the members of
the 19th M, that is,the opposite of the will that had emerged
understanding to strengthen democracy among the differentsectors that, for, they had not

(30:07):
been understood throughout history and Congress particularlyand politics say, revived again. I
believe that has been a major brakeon the development of the Constitution. At
least the 19th M already disappeared atthat time as a political party I mean

(30:29):
National Salvation. It disappeared because thatwas an acronymÁlvaro Gómez used at that
time to bring votes of marra que. I think this, what there is
now, is a different thing.What exists now is the product of a
social explosion that stems from the factthat this establishment has been postponing the solution

(30:53):
and one way to postpone solutions isto change the Constitution. Let us not
fall again into another deception, Ibelieve, in another constitutional illusionism. I
believe that this movement now, wherethere is good a country in which there
are twenty- one million people whostand with less than five, zero pesos

(31:14):
a month, then, it hasto produce and I believe that the way
to change the country is to changethe mentality, changing the political class,
incorporating the youth. But not justtaking them to not make a new one.
Anyone claims what is important is tomake reforms that are truly implemented.

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I believe that the generational mark ofmy generation in the Constitution of nine hundred
and ninety- one. First becausefrom the beginning everything had to do with
the Constitution a reform process frustrated bymany attempts when we began to study Law,
it is even from school. Andreally what our generation did was figure
the change around those rules of play, that outdated anachronistic rules of play that

(32:02):
had plunged the country into a completelyclosed political system, captured by two political
parties that had brought a transitional peace, as was the national front, but
that faced with the events, forexample, of one thousand eighty- nine,
particularly the murder of Luis Carlos Galán, the assassination of the Carlos Galán
and the assassinations of two more presidentialcandidates and the inability of the government to

(32:28):
be the reform that I believe wasgreat anguish to President Barco in his last
year of government, led us toraise the seventh ballot. And here he
comes let' s say the happydays of all this, which were the
presentation of the idea, the way. As the idea became a wave of
snow, as the whole country enteredthe wave of the constituent. Agreements came,

(32:50):
there came the choice of constituents andthe building of an impossible consensus.
I would almost define it in thisway a consensus that thirty years ago,
even already about to finish the constituent, many people said nothing will come out
and came out of Colombia' smost important political consensus, much more important
than the National Front, because somethingvery important. The idea is born in

(33:13):
addition to civil society, which isvery important to take into account. This
was one, it was not aparty proposal, I even, because I
have been active in the new liberalism. But when Galán is murdered, we
are practically orphaned and we decide itis with the students and with the young
people of that moment to start ata working table to propose alternatives to the

(33:34):
crisis. And within those alternatives appearedwhen he fell from the reform to Barco
on December 15, nineteen hundred andeighty- nine, in the episode of
the introduction of extradition by the narcos. To that reform we were left without
proposals and came the year thousand ninehundred and ninety and I wrote an article
for the Journal of the time atthat time by insinuation of who was the

(33:59):
dean of law of the rosary toscan in peace at this time, Dr
Marcela Monroy, at that time ofinn, her husband was one of the
most important political columnists of the timeand Gachino told me to write that idea
and I will publish it in thetime and time published it on February 6,
1990, nine hundred and ninety.This also coincided with the whole movement
where the newspaper El perspectante came,for example, which must be recognized by

(34:19):
the spectator, who was also thefundamental protagonist of this whole idea, because
the Agreement of the House of Nariñode Barco had fallen down, the constituent
of López, the Constitutional Reform ofTurbay, had fallen back, and this
appeared as the light at the endof the tunnel. And it was indisputably
a snowball, because the idea assuch of the Seventh Paperlet was born the

(34:43):
first week of February, the ninetyand the elections were the 11th of March
of one thousand nine hundred and ninety, to say, we had only five
weeks to do the ballot campaign.And, of course, it always happens
with ideas that are called emotion.And it' s a strong idea that
I think that' s a teachingin politics, that what matters in politics,
in politics with capital faith, ofcourse, not cheap electoral politics is

(35:06):
to summon interpretation of what was happeningat the time, to read what'
s happening on the street, toread what' s going on in the
country and people saw that it's going to be the way out.
And there they all went with ussupporting the Seventh ballot. And so,
what was achieved in that period ofone thousand nine hundred and ninety- nine

(35:27):
hundred and one, when finally,the first great conclusion of this entire historical
cycle is the new Colombian Constitution ofJuly four, ninety- one, Agreement
consensus. They are words that aresaid to be easy and, however,
an authoritarian, retardary, racist,sexist and exclusionary constitution, designed for war,

(35:50):
remains our road map for many years, more than should be the urgency
of the violent times that drowned usin fear, pushed us to find rope,
to generate a mobilization. It couldnot be the political class in which
he began to join the pieces.As so many times he was the student
who came to the call to returnhim to a cry. It is not

(36:13):
far from the times we live in, at least not in that sense.
Or yes, I believe that theseed that we planted in the 1990s was
a seed of what is now calleddeliberative democracy, that is, that it
is not only enough to participate,but to reflect to participate, to intervene
in the proposals, to intervene inthe design of the proposals. All of

(36:37):
this, of course, has beenan evolutionary process. We, at that
time, convened working tables in allthe universities of the country, which were
six months of deliberation, while therewas the fall of the arch reform.
Because we all thought ship reform couldbe a solution. I think something similar
is happening right now. I believethat we are capable, if this country

(36:58):
has demonstrated this under the worst circumstances, of reaching basic consensus. For example,
Álvaro Gómez said, after the Constitutionof ninety- one, that his
so- called agreement on the fundamentalwas the Constitution of ninety- one,
and he, therefore, was soactive and so enthusiastic in relation to the
Constitution of ninety- one, andhe, being a representative of the Conservative
Party, contributed to the drafting ofthe most progressive norms that have a Constitution

(37:22):
in America. Latin. So Ido not disparage the country' s capacity
for reform in circumstances such as thecurrent ones. Obviously, the problem of
representativeness, as you have pointed out, and legitimacy. Today there is the
variety of civil society organisations, whichis sometimes very difficult to say is the
representative of this sector or the other. But those problems solve democracy at the

(37:45):
polls. And I say it withmanid not voting for a candidate with a
surname, but voting for ideas thatare strong. Galan said that what matters
is the strength of ideas, andI believe that here, in the face
of an idea such as the possibility, for example, of developing the Constitution
of the 1990s and one, onecan achieve these concepts precisely when we come

(38:06):
to that point where there seems tobe no other way out, that this
is the dramatic thing of going backto extremes, or of an authoritarian system
that is going to try to solvesocial problems with laws of public order,
or of a populist system that isgoing to only try to create empty illusions
for citizens, for example, theabsurd, fiscally unsustainable cost of a number

(38:30):
of reforms that are not viable.And that' s what it' s
good for in college. I believethat the university of balance, the University
serves as a vehicle of dialogue Andif we look at the platforms of social
dialogue that has been experienced in Colombia, there is a lot of consensus that
can be consolidated and that decides towhom the citizenry in the polls. So
I think those possibilities exist for thesample what happened in the' 90s.

(38:52):
We are not talking about the factthat this has not happened in the history
of Colombia, even at the meetingof Messrs Buriano Gómez and Alberto Lleras on
the Spanish coast, when the NationalFront threw itself. That was what liberals
and conservatives were killing. We weregetting out of a dictatorship and someone said
stop on the way. Let's sit down and talk Let' s

(39:12):
hear each other out. Let's understand the other, let' s
get to one agreement and everyone wastalking about agreements, but the key to
knowing procedurally how we' re goingto remove that. The frozen promise is

(39:34):
a production of capital. Sound forcapital, public communication system. Today,
with the voices of ever Bustamante andGarcía, Alejandro Ramele, aquiles Arrieta Gómez
Cabo Zafra, Rol Damos Chís,Antonio Navarro, Fernando Carrillo Flores, Armando
Novoa, García, Alejandra Barris Cabrera, Sandra Borda Guzmán, NataliaÁngel Cao,

(40:00):
Alfonso Gómez Méndez, Juan Carlos EsGuerra Portocarrero, research and interviews by
Viviana Bello and Pablo Compers. Theinterviews were coordinated by Jorge Martínez and Fernanda
Rojas and conducted by Christian Hernández,María Alejandra Cuestas in the production, Hician
González in the edition, narration byMaría Alejandra Cuestas and Santiago Rivas. Our

(40:22):
image is the work of Laura costineNetworks and production and production assistance thanks to
the digital team led by Jaime Barbosaand made up of Camila Velandia, Felipe
Laverde, Nicolás Peña, Nicolás Rodríguez, Sebastián Figueroa, Stefan Jaramillo, Laura
Pava, Mavi Torres and Manuel Borna, Dirección General de Santiago Rivas. This

(40:46):
special was made for television in alliancewith the viewer, whom we released some
audios for some episodes, so thankyou if you liked this episode. Please
share it capital public communication system