00:00Does this phrase sound familiar to you?
00:10And this other one?
00:11I believe there are things that cannot be hidden.
00:13If an elephant gets into your house, well, you have to see it.
00:16Or this other one?
00:17Dr. Ernesto Samper Pizano should resign, what a load of rubbish, as Jorge Elías Elgaitán used to say.
00:24And this other one?
00:24I will not resign from my constitutional responsibilities as President of the Republic.
00:33Colombian politics is full of controversial, shameful, and therefore unforgettable statements.
00:39The ones we just saw correspond to a political and judicial scandal from 30 years ago, known as the Process
00:458000.
00:46They inspired covers, columns, cartoons, books and now even series on streaming platforms.
00:51But few people managed to capture that reality with the ingenuity of Antonio Caballero,
00:56The writer, journalist, and cartoonist died on September 10, 2021, five years ago.
01:02Caballero wrote with such musicality and literary structure that, as Renzón Zahid says,
01:07He managed to elevate the newspaper column to the category of a work of art.
01:11And his columns from the 1980s, in El Espectador, are proof of that.
01:15Renzón himself maintains that a column by Antonio Caballero can be read 30 or 40 years later and it
01:21keeps fresh,
01:22because the secret lies in their language.
01:24The fleeting anecdote that gave rise to the column doesn't matter, says Renzón,
01:29It is language that gives it universality, that keeps it relevant against the ravages of time.
01:34Let's do the exercise today, 30 years after the end of the investigation against Ernesto Samper.
01:40because of the entry of money from the Cali cartel into his presidential campaign.
01:42Let's take as an example the exact day that process ends,
01:46described by Caballero in his weekly column with the following terms.
01:49And finally the Speaker of the House announced, amidst laughter, whistles, boos, and shouts of "bravo,"
01:54The kicking, the burping, the snoring, the yawning, the majesty of Parliament.
01:59The investigation is closed.
02:02Arithmetic, if not ethics, had given its verdict.
02:06By a vote of 111 to 43, the charges against the President of the Republic, Ernesto Samper, were dismissed.
02:11Neither guilty nor innocent.
02:14Closed.
02:15Preclude.
02:16Ugly word.
02:17It does not appear in the dictionary of the Academy, nor in the dictionary of Spanish usage by María Moliner,
02:21neither in the ideological one of Don Julio Cazares, nor in the etymological critical one of Corominas,
02:26that records conclude, exclude, include, interclude, occlude, seclude, shut up.
02:30Preclusion.
02:31It sounds like an internal stomach problem.
02:33Perhaps not exactly serious, but certainly a little embarrassing.
02:36At that time the country was divided, as before and as after, between politicians
02:41from both sides.
02:43Pastranistas versus Samperistas were the most well-known labels at the time.
02:47Caballero, true to form, lashed out at everyone.
02:51In this long, tiring, and costly affair of the trial of President Samper, everything stinks.
02:56Its causes, its effects, its development, its protagonists.
03:00Yeden, the vulgar conversations between journalist Giraldo and the drug traffickers Rodríguez Orejuela.
03:05Yede's recording was made by the American DEA.
03:08Yede the disclosure by Andrés Pastrana.
03:10And Caballero kept hammering on about the seriousness of the alliances between the mafia and politics.
03:15Yede, the shameless piñata of banknotes sent by drug traffickers wrapped in gift paper and distributed
03:19by the treasurer of the Samper campaign among the liberal leaders of the entire country.
03:24Yede, the betrayal of treasurer Medina to his boss Botero.
03:26And Botero's betrayal of his boss Samper.
03:29And Samper's betrayal of his subordinates Botero and Medina.
03:32Yede, the investigation by the investigating representative Mogollón.
03:35Yede the House of Representatives vote precluding the investigation.
03:39Yeden held the elections that elected those representatives.
03:42And Yeden, more than anything else, the dirty laundry with which, a priori and a posteriori
03:48They tried to cover up the stench.
03:50A priori, the ethics committee of the Samper campaign.
03:53In hindsight, the farce in the congressional trial.
03:56Caballero died five years ago.
03:58But the evils he rightly denounced continued in Colombia.
04:01Although with other protagonists.
04:03Not long after, for example, came the parapolitics scandal.
04:07Which he also narrated in books and opinion columns.
04:18Thank you!
04:18Thank you!
04:19Thank you!
04:20Thank you!
04:20Thank you!
04:20Thank you!
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