The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has explained that the United States has asked Colombia to build a wall in the Darién Gap, a border region with Panama that serves as a route for migration to North America.
“They have asked us from here, from the political power of this country, to plug the plug, as if that were easy (…), to build a kind of wall so that people do not cross to the United States,” he declared. Petro from New York, where he is to attend the UN General Assembly.
Petro has recognized that the Darién Gap has become a “neural axis of the human exodus”, which is why he has asked to “work together” to “order” the migration, according to the Colombian newspaper ‘El Tiempo’.
The Colombian leader believes that the United States should also intervene to put an end to the “human tragedy” that involves the passage through the dangerous Darien jungle of 3,000 migrants every day, mainly Venezuelans, Haitians and Cubans. “Those who study these phenomena say that there could easily be 6,000,” Petro warned.
“Ordering migration is fundamental and must be an agreement with the United States. Established quotas of migrants, to put (labor) here legally and that the two needs come together: wanting to work here and the need for there to be work here,” he argued.
In addition, Petro has asked to “unblock” the economy of Venezuela, the origin of the majority of migrants, and to work on the issue within a framework of all of Latin America and also with Washington. “It has to be a space for dialogue with the political power of the United States in all its versions. It is not with a horse, it is not with a whip or a dog that migration is stopped,” he noted.