President Petro responded to criticism from Juan Manuel Santos: "You are partly to blame for this violence."

During the delivery of agricultural machinery to boost agribusiness and marketing in Catatumbo, in Ocaña, Norte de Santander, President Gustavo Petro responded to recent criticism from former President Juan Manuel Santos , who questioned the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement with the defunct FARC and the promotion of a constituent assembly.

"I have to tell you from here: you are partly to blame for this violence, Santos, because you decided to build a highway from Ocaña to Gamarra alone. They say it was to make a pittance; I don't know about him, but his friends do. That's not how you make peace," the head of state affirmed.

The president added that "that highway should have started in Tibú or the border, and if it had been built all the way to the Magdalena River, passing through the Carretera al Mar (Highway to the Sea), I believe the conditions in Catatumbo today would be completely different."

“I have never been hostile to this government. That's a fabrication by some. I didn't support Petro, I didn't vote for him; the only thing I asked of him was that he implement the Peace Agreement, which he hasn't done ,” Santos said in a statement to the media on Wednesday.

These statements provoked a reaction from former Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo, one of Santos's former ministers and a key figure in forging the agreements that ended the conflict with the FARC.

“I regret that pressure from some people and their discomfort with the government and its Total Peace policy have led you to make erroneous and unfair statements about the implementation of the agreement. You have certainly been misinformed. (...) Despite the institutional difficulties and the fact that progress is still insufficient, it is flippant to say that nothing has been done,” Cristo said.

Speaking with EL TIEMPO at the forum "Infrastructure that Drives Regional Competitiveness," former President Juan Manuel Santos harshly criticized the promotion of a constituent assembly, the referendum, and the repealed decree, calling them distractions that keep the country in a state of dispute.

"What we've seen with the referendum and then the famous decree is that they're distractions. They're balloons that distract and force the country into further polemics and polarization, knowing full well that that's not possible. From the beginning, it was known that the referendum wouldn't succeed, and it didn't. The decree, knowing full well that it wouldn't succeed, was signed, and today it's been repealed. The same thing will happen with the constituent ballot, but that's not going to happen," he maintained.

He also noted that the Constitution should not be reformed but rather developed, and that any changes should be made through the means established in the Magna Carta. "Generally, the Constitution does not need to be reformed. Laws must be passed that develop the Constitution, which is one of the most ambitious in the world in terms of guarantees for citizens. There's no reason to change it, and if it needs to be changed, there are procedures," commented Santos, who cited as an example the emergence of the concept of fiscal responsibility during his administration.

Juan Pablo Penagos Ramirez