Two days after telling Latin American leaders that the United States should support continued aid to Colombia’s peace process, Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted Thursday that he has never “backed” the controversial Colombian peace deal, which has divided residents of that South America country – and apparently South Florida.
“Puzzled by this article. Speech never said I ‘backed’ the #Colombia peace deal. Said continued aid with conditions,” Rubio tweeted.
Rubio declined an interview request to clarify his tweet. The Florida Republican was responding to an article published in McClatchy’s Miami Herald and Nuevo Herald that detailed a speech he gave Tuesday at the U.S. State Department on the importance of U.S. engagement in the Western Hemisphere.
“For far too long we have neglected our partners in the region,” Rubio said then. “We need to build on deepening the ties we have with countries like Canada, Mexico, and Colombia.”
He went on to urge the United States to maintain its commitment to peace and prosperity in Colombia “by reassuring the Colombian people that the United States supports the implementation of Peace Colombia, but that it will be conditioned on full compliance of the agreement by the FARC.”
The speech couldn’t have come at a more sensitive time for Colombia. President Juan Manuel Santos is due to arrive in Washington next week to meet with President Donald Trump about the agreement, which is major issue as potential presidential candidates jockey for position among Colombians in both South America and Miami.
The Cuban-American Rubio, whose wife is of Colombian-descent, has come under heat for his seeming support for aid to the peace deal, which many saw as a rejection of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who opposes the peace agreement.
“Rubio’s endorsement made it clear he rejects the objections made by Uribe and his political allies, who had earlier been ignored by the UN Security Council while visiting Colombia,” Jack Norman wrote for the Medellin-based Colombia Reports website.
All of that is a result of U.S. engagement. Not U.S. disengagement.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Peace Colombia is the multimillion dollar U.S. aid package to help implement Colombia’s peace agreement that ended more than a half-century of bloody conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC. Nearly every Colombian knows someone who has been personally affected by the war, which has killed thousands and displaced millions.
The agreement the Colombian government struck with the leftist rebels – with strong support from former President Barack Obama – however, is fraught with controversy.
Millions of Colombians can’t bear the idea of providing any concessions to a guerrilla group known for drug trafficking and kidnappings. A Colombian referendum on the agreement failed to win the support of the majority of Colombians, but Santos pushed a revised version through the Colombian Congress anyway.