The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has reiterated his indictment against Spanish colonialism this Thursday in Madrid, and he has done in front of the country's current prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. In the press conference following the meeting held by the two leaders at the Moncloa palace, Petro stated that Colombia had been, in the past, a victim of the "feudal" heritage of European culture. Days after being criticized for characterising that period as a time when his country was under a "Spanish yoke", Petro again had no hesitation in repeated his characterisation of how Spain's imperial expansion affected those in its path and he did so with Pedro Sánchez at his side.
The Colombian president did not see fit to make any reference to another more recent episode when Spain played a role of which he was also highly critical at the time: that is, when he himself was present as an international observer of Catalonia's independence referendum of 1st October 2017. Nevertheless, Gustavo Petro spoke in a relaxed way in Madrid about the "feudal yoke" which his own country was under in the more distant past. "I don't think it's problematic to say it", said Petro from the podium at the Spanish government palace. He praised the revolutions that "liberated" the peoples of South America, as well as those of other uprisings both "here and there" - referring to both in Europe and beyond - that enabled societies to get over "the kind of relationship that was brought to America". "Thank goodness that people, thoughts, revolutions freed us from the feudal yoke. I don't think that today there are defenders of that type of yoke to return to being serfs or slaves. The search of every human being is to overcome the yokes."
Gustavo Petro, observer at Catalonia's independence vote
Gustavo Petro has been president of Colombia since last August, and is the first left-wing politician to hold this position in the country. Previously, however, he had been a guerrilla in the April 19th Movement (M-19), which claimed the ideas of Simón Bolívar, the nineteenth century liberator who brought to an end the Spanish colonial era in much of Latin America. Much later, in 2017, he travelled to Europe to see Catalonia's 1st October self-determination referendum as an international observer. "I am in Catalonia as a witness to its referendum for independence; arrests... the Spanish government is repressing the referendum", he wrote on September 30th, 2017, hours before the polling stations opened.
When it was proposed to Petro to visit Catalonia to act as an international observer, he did not hesitate at all and quickly headed for Barcelona. Previously he had visited the Catalan capital to learn about urban and environmental projects, but in 2017, the objective was quite different. The current Colombian president visited schools being used as polling stations in Barcelona and Badalona, and saw with his own eyes the violence of the Spanish police. "700 wounded, the traditional Spanish left and right both reject them; but here there is a citizen democracy, Catalonia", wrote the current president of Colombia on October 1st 2017 in a Tweet.
At that time, when he did not hold any institutional position, he even compared the Spain governed by Mariano Rajoy to that of Francisco Franco: “Spain has become a dictatorship in Catalonia. At this moment helicopters are flying over us; will 1936 repeat itself?” he wrote on his social media accounts. He was also surprised by the contrast between the "hate" of Spanish television's "private channels", and the attitude of the Catalans: "The people come out to sing".
In fact, Petro continued to denounce the authoritarianism of the Mariano Rajoy government, reacting to the application of Spanish direct rule over Catalonia with an ironic comment: "And they say it's a democracy", he wrote on Twitter. And once independence was declared in Catalonia, the current Colombian president encouraged "the ex-Spanish Latin American republics" to take a position in favour of the Catalans.
Vox, against Gustavo Petro
On the other hand, Spain's far-right Vox party has mounted a protest against Petro this week. Party leader Santiago Abascal compared the Colombian with the general coordinator of the Basque left-wing party EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, and claimed that Petro is an "unrepentant terrorist". The Colombian president was invited this Wednesday to deliver a speech to the Congress of Deputies, and the extreme-right group left the chamber at the moment he was about to start his speech. With regard to Petro's historical comments, Abascal asserted that the Colombian left-wing leader "insulted" Spain. The Vox leader also denounced Petro's statement of a few days ago, just before heading to Europe. On May 1st, Labour Day, he encouraged people to mobilize and praised those who, during South America's era under colonial control, fought for independence to get rid of "the Spanish yoke of the Crown".