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The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, asserted that he could "take up arms" again if necessary to defend the country's sovereignty in the face of what he called “illegitimate” threats from the U.S. president Donald Trump, in an extensive post made on the social media platform X early Monday morning.
"I swore never to touch a weapon again since the peace pact of 1989, but for my country, I will take up arms once more, which I do not want to," wrote Petro, a former guerrilla of the M-19 movement, in a message that mixed political warnings, historical references, and direct criticisms of Washington.
The statements come after Trump stated on Sunday that Colombia, like Venezuela, is “very sick,” and accused Petro of governing a country dedicated to the production and sale of cocaine to the United States. The Colombian president responded by calling those words an “illegitimate threat” and defended the legitimacy of his mandate and the country’s institutions.
Petro also rejected statements from Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
In that context, he announced that he had ordered the removal of several intelligence colonels from the Police for allegedly providing false information against the Colombian State.
In his message, the president recalled that, according to the 1991 Constitution—born out of the peace process in which M-19 participated—he is the supreme commander of the Armed Forces and the Police, and he asserted that he has personally directed key operations against drug trafficking.
Among them, she mentioned the largest cocaine seizure in history, the halt in the growth of coca leaf crops, and a voluntary substitution plan that, she said, already covers 30,000 hectares.
Petro also defended the bombings ordered during his government, asserting that they were carried out in accordance with humanitarian international law, and warned that criminal groups recruit minors as shields to evade attacks. "If they bomb without sufficient intelligence, they will kill children; if they bomb farmers, they will become guerrillas," he stated.
In one of the most tense passages of the message, Petro issued a direct warning: “If they arrest the president whom much of my people want and respect, they will unleash the popular jaguar.”
The president affirmed that he has instructed the public force to defend national sovereignty and warned that any commander who “prefers the flag of the United States over that of Colombia” must resign from the institution. He also called on the people to “defend the president” and stated that the way to do so is by “taking power in all municipalities,” ordering the public force not to shoot at the people “but against the invader.”
Petro rejected the accusations of drug trafficking, claimed he is neither illegitimate nor corrupt, and stated that his only asset is his family home, which he has paid for with his salary as president. “I am not greedy,” he wrote, indicating that his bank statements have been made public.
The statements by the president of the South American nation escalate diplomatic tensions with the United States in a regional context already defined by the recent U.S. actions in Venezuela to capture the dictator Nicolás Maduro and Trump’s stern warnings to several countries in Latin America, including Mexico and Colombia.
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