TEÓDULO LÓPEZ MELÉNDEZ, Escritor y Periodista - Caracas, Venezuela
It is false that the defeat places the human being in front of the most difficult decisions. Equal privilege, if can call this way himself, has the victory. In both cases everything has been preceded of a deep waste. The action should have thought, to be planned, to go by the taking of a crucial decision and to order the one executes you pressing the teeth. What differentiates a politician common of a statesman is that this last one is avizorando the effects of their decision for a long space of time, while the first one doesn't see another thing that the immediate thing.
A statesman is as a ruminant one, one that passes the alternatives of a stomach to other that see many possibilities where the common politician sees an alone one. In the first place the options and here I should remember a lesson that gave me Luis Herrera Campins when I told him that that that more was criticized it was their lack of decision, to obtain as answer that an intelligent man saw 14 possibilities where the other ones saw an alone one and in consequence he took more time to decide.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez should have been subjected to a big pressure when, in his statesman condition, it was in front of the decision of ordering or not the liberation of the hostages in front of a Secretary of the Defense and in front of a High Military Control that assured him that until the last detail it was foreseen, but that, anyway, and I eat ghosts, they were about the alternatives of the failure. Although they had other phases that would be implemented immediately in the event of flaws, in the mind of Uribe they went as lightnings the universal condemnation by an Ingrid hurt Betancourt or dead, the wounds or the North Americans' deaths and, of course, of the soldiers and policemen, the loss of helicopters and of the daring commands that would play the chancy operation. He should have seen to the Court nailing him the teeth for the case of the supposedly bribed deputy. It should have been gone by the tragic end of their presidency and for the loss of all that had made until the moment.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez put into practice what has become one of my leit motiv: “The democracy is risk”. AND ran him. For their mind they passed all the alternatives, also those of the success. He should have looked at their generals that have given him abundant victories in the last times, it should have been looked itself in both alternatives and with the necessary courage-another characteristic of a statesman - it loosed the “Ahead.”
Álvaro Uribe Vélez won, and with him Colombia, the democracy, the human rights, his presidency and he gave to the world one of the best news of those that we can remember in decades. He won to face the most difficult decision, to a more complicated one that the one of ordering the “Operation Check”, to an absolutely momentous one that won't take in the immediate thing, but that it will begin to meditate from now on like fights with a ghost. I refer to go or not to go to the new reelection.
Gustavo Petro, their opponent, has made elegance of a chivalry that few times see in politics, but that we see in Colombia. He has told him that will choose between to go to the history by their actions against the FARC or to offer eternizarse in the power. The alternative is not exactly as Petro it described it, but what wanted to tell him is that if wants the third presidency nobody will be able to him to impede. The president from Colombia doesn't have opponent that is possible to oppose. The true alternative is to exercise a new presidency, non eternizarse, because it would be meridianly undoubtedly it would be the last one.
I am enemy of the presidential reelection. In Latin America it has never worked for well, but all rule has its exception. An admirable Ingrid Betancourt-admirable for their serenity, temper, intelligence and domain of the political thing - said reason in their country it had been convenient to reelect Uribe. This outlines us, in the first place, the problem from a theoretical point of view. Is it convenient to choose a president for third time? Without going to the lateral ones the answer it is a firm one “No”. now then, the circumstances enter in game, the battles that get rid-and when we speak of battles we don't make it figuratively, in Colombia the State liberates a war -, a process to half on the way, the trust and the solidarity of a town-not deceived by a dictator, not manipulated by a Fascist régime, but in a full democracy - that go as that democratic road of stability it allows him to breathe with relief and to offer the growth and the launching of its homeland toward a definitive destination.
This way, the theoretical question placed in an ascetic room, gets complicated in a firm way. The theoretical questions, you concludes, they don't admit disinfection, they are contaminated by the historical changes, for the circumstances of a fight. When Churchill wanted to lengthen in the power England he said goodbye to him. It had already been he useful, had already given him what England expected from him. In Venezuela Rómulo Betancourt knew, from its statesman condition that never look for the presidency again, since in one period it had won the battle against the military dictatorships and against the guerilla insurgencia and had settled down the democracy, this is, a new period had more than enough, it would be only a sample of personal ambition.
The victory has placed the president Álvaro Uribe Vélez in front of the decision more difficult of its life. He should decide, seemingly nobody more than him, if it accepts to look for the third presidency or if it gives the alternative to somebody that the politics of democratic security represents. It is not anything easy the decision. He won't take it in the immediate thing, but from already has it in mind. Everything will depend on what advances in what he has left of this period. A military victory or an agreement of peace would decide it to retire, there is no doubt. But, is it possible or will it simply happen? The sensible thing is to assure that it will continue advancing, but that it is unlikely that has the final victory in year and half. This way the alternative will continue latent.
Uribe will be presented in front of these alternatives: is the most convenient thing that the country chooses somebody that continues ahead with this purpose, but and if the successor fails? And if all that has made collapses? Will it be guilty before the history for not having been maintained? Will it be guilty before the history to have won a new reelection? A democratic statesman doesn't act for personal interests and Uribe he is a democratic statesman. It acts moved by the best interests in their country. So that it is not necessary to fear that Uribe makes decisions inserted in the ego. However, here I should say clearly that a man in the power is entitled full to think what the history will say of him. He is entitled full to wonder if their task is fulfilled.
Uribe knows about the theoretical unsuitability of the reelection. Was the first one positive, will it be it the second? Uribe will maintain the temperate nerves for a process that step should go to step not hurrying inconveniently. To accelerate it would facilitate him the decision that would be the one of leaving, but could bring it bad to the politics of democratic security. To stay could open step to the failures and to steam up that achieved. It is not easy from the theoretical point of view. Much less it is it from the political practice. In the theory the reelection could outline in the future to a populist demagogue seeking the same thing. Will the maturity of Colombia have arrived to such an extent of preventing that this situation thinks about? From the tranquility that perspires toward out the head of the president from Colombia is a volcano.
To let that the waters run that their partisans insist in the possibility, to be reserved in silence the final decision, this will be the attitude of now of the president Uribe. But the now has always one tomorrow. We cannot know which will be the conditions of Colombia when the president Uribe has to decide. We cannot know what events they wait for us, but the president will also have in the head that his announcement will be traumatic. If decides that the opposition will go you alebrestará and will receive accusations from wanting eternizarse, as which the senator throws Petro inside his gracefulness of admitting him that he doesn't have rival. If decides that not, will be able to cause similar effects in the population.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez is a man of State. He will decide the less harmful thing, the best thing for Colombia. It will check it with the decision more difficult of their life. Who from outside of their frontiers we love Colombia we attend confident to the mental process that is developed in this man, for the simple reason that it will be pending of the humors of their town, to the one that will hear in each instant. That the circumstances help to make the wise decision, it is what we want the men and women of good will that today is happy for this “Operation Check”, the best news that we have received in many years and that we take place happily like an eloquent victory of the democracy, of the freedom and of the human rights.
