President of the Colombia-Morocco Friendship Group in the Colombian Senate, Senator Germán Alcides Blanco Álvarez, issued a heartfelt appeal to safeguard the historic relations that have united Morocco and Colombia for over 50 years, and which the current government in Bogotá is “jeopardizing”.
German Blanco, who is also President of the Colombian Senate’s Constitutional Commission, had read out a new motion in plenary session, supported by 65 Senators out of 105, which gave unequivocal support to Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over its Sahara, reiterating the categorical rejection of the “legitimate representatives of the Colombian people” to “the ill-advised decision” of the current government in Colombia to establish relations with the pseudo-rasd.
In his incisive and reproving speech, the Colombian senator asserted that through this motion, an overwhelming majority of Colombian senators believe that “relations with Morocco, one of Colombia’s most important trading partners in Africa and the Arab world, are under threat”, deploring that these “very important relations of over 50 years are being jeopardized”.
The Colombian Senator added that “the present members of Congress, who represent the Colombian people and belong to different political parties, are drawing attention to this situation and expressing their discontent, following constant failed requests for a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” to address this issue, recalling that the motion bears the signatures of senators from across the political spectrum (majority, opposition, and independent).
German Blanco also pointed out that the 65 signatories represent “well over half” of the members of this legislative institution (two more than the signatories of the previous motion adopted in October 2022) who “reject the national government’s treatment of relations with Morocco”.
The Colombian Senator further added that “this time, we are doing it again because we want the national government, led by President Gustavo Petro, to recognize these dangerous relations with the Polisario, a group that is not recognized by the United Nations (UN) and considered a separatist and terrorist group”.
“President Gustavo Petro, dissatisfied with this, had decided to accept the credentials of a person representing this group as if it were a state under international law,” recalled the Colombian Senator, adding that “President Petro overlooks the fact that states are bound by the United Nations and not by the will of a president.”
German Blanco also criticized the Colombian Foreign Minister for refusing to receive the senators, despite their repeated requests, calling on the head of the diplomacy to maintain “appropriate relations with states around the world such as Morocco”.
“The Minister of Foreign Affairs (…) takes little interest in the diplomatic relations of the Colombian state because he forgets that governments come and go and institutions remain and that he is going to leave us with a very serious problem that the next government will have to deal with,” concludes Senator German Blanco.
In this new motion, which was adopted on November 28 during the Senate’s plenary session and which will be addressed to the Colombian Head of State and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the signatories affirm their “categorical rejection of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the separatist movement (Polisario) and the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and even more so of the presence of its so-called ambassador in Colombia.”