“The Colombian government is incapable, we can talk”: San Andrés fishermen's representative in the face of the Hague ruling

After the reading of the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, regarding the respect granted to the 2012 judgment on the jurisdiction and territorial dispute of the San Andrés Archipelago, Colombia and Nicaragua are watching the future, as they could bring about forceful changes. On the subject, there is also disagreement on the part of some sectors, since the fishermen in this island area of the country have rejected the event presented and require timely action.

On the subject, the representative of the Fishermen's Federation of the San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina Archipelago, Edgar Jay Stephensn said that the Raizal community wants to command a dialogue commission between Colombia and Nicaragua, even with the two governments involved, since he considers that the Colombian diligence has been null and void. inefficient for the benefits of this social niche.

In film material known to W Radio, according to Stephensn, an agreement would be sought with the government of Daniel Ortega, since it considers the Colombian leadership “incapable” and emphasizes that the 2012 ruling and the various resolutions of this kind have been unfruitful for its population, because they are left to derives fishing rights from the raizales. In turn, he noted that if such a dialogue was achieved, there would be complete readiness to establish a conversation with the rest of the countries that border the territory of the world biosphere reserve.

The Raizal leader mentioned: “We fishermen are perfectly capable of entering into a process of international discussion, even seeking to build an agreement with Nicaragua, since the Colombian government has been unable after the failure of The Hague, it has been unable to generate agreements with Nicaragua that guarantee the fishing rights of the raizales”.

It is also important to note that in the resolution of the judgment in The Hague, Colombia had as its representative Carlos Gustavo Arrieta Padilla, who at the end of the conference gave a part on all the details that stood out in the process. In contrast, he would have emphasized that reading the document was a success, despite the fact that the Court International noted that the country had violated international rights.

With regard to national representation, Edgar Jay Sthephensn assured that the native community of the island did not need representation, because the one established so far was “useless”, stressing that specific things could be agreed from the raizales, on the subject, he explained: “On representation, we perfectly agree on the subject we can do, we can meet with governments that border the world biosphere reserve and talk to them, to build agreements; for our fisheries rights to be respected, we don't need representatives, for that we don't need Colombian agents, because they haven't shown us their absolute uselessness”.

The world biosphere reserve has important maritime limits, these constitute a wide spectrum of space that surrounds the San Andrés Archipelago, in addition, much of the world biosphere reserve corresponds to Nicaragua because of its proximity, taking into account these details, it is representative of the communities said:” we must recognize and expand the biosphere, half of it belongs to Nicaragua, we must recognize the realities and propose a model of governance for that cross-border world reserve, which will cover several countries and that management plan is the government plan.”

The communities of this region are highly dependent on their fishing activities, since it is one of the main livelihoods of the families living on the island of San Andrés.

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