Fourth chapter of the political romance between Nicolás Maduro and Gustavo Petro under the principles of “mutual respect, self-determination and complementarity”. The Colombian president has traveled to Caracas for the third time today to meet with the leader of the Bolivarian revolution, the fourth summit between the two, also counting the one that took place in February on the binational border.
An “emotional meeting” without an official agenda but with pending issues, such as the negotiations for “total peace” with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the constant oiling of diplomatic and commercial relations, stuck since 2015 with the expulsion of thousands of Colombians accused by Maduro of being “narcos, prostitutes and paracos (paramilitaries)” and broken since 2019 with the international challenge against the “son of Chávez”, led by the then Colombian president Iván Duque.
The Agreement for the Protection of Investments was once again on the table, as well as the state of the border between the two countries, wild territory on which irregular groups, such as the ELN, and state mafias have an impact. Maduro dreams of creating an economic zone between the Venezuelan Táchira and the Colombian Norte de Santander “to guarantee the greatest amount of happiness to both countries.”
It so happens that the ELN maintains its sanctuary in Venezuela thanks to its alliance with Chavismo. The Elenos have come to patrol with the Venezuelan military forces and have also participated in social control operations of the Bolivarian regime.
The first thing that Petro did after leaving the Aquiles Nazoa Cultural House, the venue for the meeting, was to send a message through his networks to verify that the IMF “supports” his reforms and his economic policy. Presidential advisers know that Maduro is one of the most hated political figures in his country.
And the second was even more picturesque: the coffee president’s security team, after the first push from his boss, loaded up with the bust of Simón Bolívar to take it to Bogotá. The agents loaded it into the trunk of one of the vehicles in the entourage and from there they went to the airport.
The meeting was delayed 72 hours from the scheduled day due to the political storm unleashed in Chavismo, which has cost the oil czar, the powerful Tareck El Aissami, his job. The presence at the meeting of Vice President Delcy and the head of the legislative body, Jorge, confirmed that the Rodríguez brothers are the great winners of the internal war unleashed in the Chavista elite, since they have got rid of their great enemy in the court of Ripe.
And all this in just seven months since the arrival of the ex-guerrilla at the Casa de Nariño. So far this month, Maduro has received his main allies in Caracas. On March 5, the tenth anniversary of the death of Hugo Chávez, the Cuban Raúl Castro, the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega and the Bolivian Luis Arce did it, the three revolutions of America. And now the return of Petro, who also owed his friend a political favor with the interested deportation of former congresswoman Aida Merlano. The former conservative leader was sent to Colombia in the midst of the great scandal unleashed by the president’s eldest son, Nicolás Petro.
A scandal that also has a Venezuelan component, since in the chats published by Petro Jr’s ex-girlfriend, the young man assured that he was behind a big deal with the fertilizer giant, Monómeros, a Venezuelan company in Colombia.
The Colombian press has also reported alleged links between a brother-in-law of Petro and magnate Alex Saab, prosecuted in the US for money laundering and bribery. Saab, a Colombian national, is considered the main financial operator of the Bolivarian revolution, as well as a figurehead for the Venezuelan president.
Petro does not hesitate for a single moment to show his closeness to Maduro, when in parallel he fights hard on the networks with the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, due to his strong hand in security matters, in addition to the various diplomatic scuffles with the president of Peru, Dina Boluarte. The leftist president also did not hesitate last week to meet with the lawyer of the coup leader Pedro Castillo.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
