According to the president, the situation should be taken advantage of as an opportunity to develop a peasant productive program.
“We have located, and you will discuss it, when we have more concrete results, a place of very fertile lands”, to relocate the victims, President Petro said this Thursday, January 12, during a visit to the site of the emergency caused by a landslide of land in the Cauca municipality of Rosas.
He added that this site could be “the beginning of a large peasant area that we would like to develop, which would even help alleviate the social pressures in northern Cauca.”
In the Santa Teresita educational center, where the victims of the landslide that occurred last weekend and destroyed seven villages were located, the president affirmed that the State buys the land covered by Law 1523 of 2012 and that it allows the Unit National for Disaster Risk Management (Ungrd) “buy, in less than 15 days, the land we need.”
This peasant area, he explained, will have an urban infrastructure that will include a school, a health center and will be close to the markets for the products that are produced and, in this way, he added, “these circumstances and the relocation should generate a better life for all of you”.
Regarding the communication problems caused by the landslide, which blocked the Pan-American highway between Popayán and Pasto, in the department of Nariño, President Petro indicated that his government implemented a provisional solution, through a series of emergency measures, which They will include an air and sea bridge between Tumaco and Buenaventura, as well as other possibilities to facilitate the transport of cargo using variants and local roads.
These measures, he indicated, will allow a month of margin to maintain communication between the south and the center and north of the country. However, he stressed that the emergency can serve to generate opportunities and have a civil and merchant maritime navigation project.
In this regard, he said that the important thing is that it does not start from scratch, since there are already studies and projects underway.
Regarding the rehabilitation of the road, the Head of State stated that the Government has a project that is the dual carriageway Popayán – Santander de Quilichao-, which was unlocked after seven years of studies. This highway could be extended to the municipality of Chachagüí, in the department of Nariño, tied to the works that are being carried out on the stretch to Pasto and it is expected to continue it to Ipiales.