(Bogotá) The President of the Colombian Senate has announced that he has sheltered his family abroad after death threats against his family, in the midst of a national debate on the ongoing negotiations with drug traffickers.
“At the airport, I say goodbye to the last of my children who is leaving the country with all his brothers and sisters for security reasons”, explained Friday on Twitter, photo in support, the center left senator Roy Barrera.
“All my family is out of the country, […]they are wasting their time with death threats”, he commented, thanking the justice system for having “identified and acted opportunely” against one of the authors of these threats.
And to underline: “I now feel calmer to be able to assert my position against the narcos of this country: […] they must be brought before ordinary justice”, and not before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), underlined Mr. Barrera.
Influential personality of the new left power, Roy Barrera is a veteran of Colombian politics who played a key role in forming the current parliamentary majority supporting President Gustavo Petro.
In recent days, he had hinted at his opposition to overly generous negotiations with drug traffickers, while President Petro, as part of his ambitious “total peace” plan for the country, is negotiating with armed groups and intends to obtain the submission of drug traffickers to justice in exchange for legal benefits.
A bill to frame these negotiations is currently being prepared.
One of the demands of the drug traffickers involved in these discussions would be to answer for their actions before the JEP, a special institution born of the peace agreement which in 2016 ended the conflict with the Marxist guerrillas of the FARC. The JEP provides alternative sentences to prison for those who confess their crimes and pay reparations to victims and their families.
“With drug traffickers, we do not negotiate laws, we do not make a peace agreement”, reaffirms Sunday Mr. Barrera, in an interview with the weekly weekcastigating in passing the “intermediaries” and “swarms of lawyers” who exploit “the noble intentions of President” Petro.
The subject has also been at the center of several skirmishes in recent weeks between President Petro and the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa, who has publicly expressed his opposition to too much leniency towards drug traffickers, and to certain modalities of the ceasefire announced by the government in the regions where the Clan del Golfo, the largest criminal gang in the country, operates.
Sunday, in an interview with the daily The SpectatorMr. Barbosa reaffirms that “without the prosecution, it will not be possible to set up this process of submission” of drug traffickers.
“Peace and transitional justice for the guerrillas. Peace and submission, with prison, for actors such as paramilitaries and drug traffickers”, underlines the Attorney General.