Colombian Ambassador’s Private Conversation Released to the Public

Colombian Ambassador to the US, Francisco Santos, on billboard announcing his former radio channel. (Flickr)

A private conversation between the Colombian ambassador to the United States, Francisco Santos, and Colombia’s former minister-designate, Claudia Blum, was leaked on November 20. The recording features the Santos’ harsh critique of the US State Department’s lack of power as well as the current Colombian Secretary of Defense, Carlos Holmes Trujillo.  

In the conversation, Santos complains that the United States Department of State is no longer the same entity it once was.  The ambassador made reference to his years as the Colombian Vice President and stated, “I used to come to the U.S. because I was responsible for human rights ... So you would arrive to the State Department and you knew how things worked.” Santos claims that now, on the contrary, decisions are primarily made by the National Security Council’s director for the Western Hemisphere, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and that the role of the State Department has been drastically reduced.  

“The State Department, which used to be really important, is destroyed. It’s non-existent, non-existent,” he continued. Although there has been no immediate comment from the US State Department, according to El Tiempo, Santos’ reflections are likely to have repercussions within the diplomatic community. 

Santos also criticized Carlos Holmes Trujillo, current Secretary of Defense and former Ministe of Foreign Affairs for Columbia. He claimed that Trujillo did nothing as Minister of Foreign Affairs and that he lacked strategy. Santosalso added that former Secretary of Defense, Fernando Botero, didn’t work, particularly due to his lack of English fluency. 

The Colombian newspaper Publimetro posted the 24-minute conversation on Wednesday without revealing the name of the source. The recording took place in the private Garden Room, a room in the exclusive Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington D.C, which is often used for small events. Besides the pair, there were two more people in the room on the day of the incident, both dismounting audiovisual technology likely used in a previous event. However, the ambassador has stated that the two individuals entered and exited the room several times but were never at a close enough distance to have heard or even recorded the conversation. Hence, there is great uncertainty and confusion surrounding the methods with which the conversation managed to become public. 

According to El Tiempo, the Colombian government plans to ask the US government--both the State Department and the Department of Justice-- for support in investigating the source of the leak. Likewise, the government has reached out to the Mandarin Oriental to analyze the camera footage of the day of the meeting. The newspaper also claims that the Colombian government is seeking help from criminal lawyers to understand the legal implications of the recording and whether this incident counts as espionage of a foreign officer, an action which is taken very seriously in the US. 

Santos has been summoned by the Colombian president, Ivan Duque, to explain the statements made in the recording. The diplomat’s future remains uncertain.