Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 118

Colombia and Cuba
within the “Tropical Peace” setting
Mitchel J. Ovalle R.
Colombian attorney and political scientist
Buenos Aires, Argentina

“W

e cannot be indifferent to a
process of change in Cuba’s
interior… for the good of the
Cuban people, it is time to overcome a paralysis that has led to stubbornness...” spoke Colombia’s reelected president, Juan Manuel Santos
during his inaugural address at the Summit of the
Americas celebrated in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), in April 2012.
For decades, Colombia’s different leaders have
made many efforts to maintain good relations
within a complex international context, to compensate somehow because of the armed conflict
that has been bleeding the country internally for
more than 50 years. Little or nothing that has been
done on behalf of peace has had any positive result.
The attitude of various Colombian governments
in facing a great number of internal problems is
obvious: “If we are on good terms with the outside, perhaps that can help a bit on the inside.”
This is how one might popularly interpret this
country’s hope of international cooperation, its
previous collaborator being the United States.
The struggle for peace continues, and there is
unanimous corroboration that the fusion of external support with goodwill within the nation’s institutions is fundamental for an expeditious end to
the nightmare of armed conflict.

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Santos’s affirmation of solidarity - which, at the
time, revealed a particular rapprochement between Colombia and Cuba - came just months after the creation of a dialogue between the
Colombian government and the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla
group in opposition to the government that has
waged a nasty war for more than half a century.
This dialogue is intended to achieve peace for the
country. Talks began at the end of 2012 in Oslo,
Norway, and the process continues today in Havana, Cuba. In the negotiations, Cuba and Norway function as guarantors, while Chile and
Venezuela serve as seconds.
When considering the relationship between Colombia and Cuba, one must reference the statement by President Santos’s, which, despite its
brevity, encompasses profound connotations.
Prior to analyzing the proclamation - which in itself boasts of the nation’s political folklore - we
must first briefly define the context in which the
concept Tropical Peace was formulated; the definition of the concept follows. It should be noted
that the conceptual framework is that of the author’s, as derived from an analysis of reality.
This concept has an empirical basis: the result of
the varying behaviors of different Heads of State
and government leaders, all of whom have debated the subject of peace - under the magical