In a speech given on the night of this Saturday the 20th at the Cadet School, where the new military high command took office, the president of Colombia said that “it would not make sense to be so if it were not to try to obtain the fundamental pillars of a peace that come back permanently in the future. He also raised the need for the military sector to help the industrialization of Colombia and for military schools to provide professional training for troop personnel, so that when they finish their service they have prosperous employment options and not just enroll in irregular armed groups.
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, affirmed this Saturday in a nightly speech at the ceremony for the transmission of command of the new military leadership, that the mandate of the majority of Colombians who voted on June 19 was for it to take place in the country a change towards peace and cited experiences of many countries in the world that had wars and even holocausts, but none has lived “from civil war to civil war without finding the time for a definitive solution”, as has happened in his country .
In a 46-minute speech at the General José María Córdova Military Cadet School in Bogotá, Petro addressed, in front of the troops formed in the courtyard, not only the political aspect of the internal conflict that has been going on for decades in Colombia, but also the projections that In the future, if you are “in transition” towards peace, you should consider the Armed Forces of Colombia to help the industrialization of the country.
“The internet is a military invention, made for defense purposes, but look at everything it has done, it changed the course of industrialization. It was a military course that changed the patterns of capitalism around the world.” He specifically mentioned the possibilities of the military sector helping the expansion of businesses such as that of the state airline Satena, which flies only within the national territory. “Why can’t Satena take me to Miami or Paris?” he asked.
Petro commented that “due to private interests” the business possibilities of the components of the armed forces have been “deteriorated” and that if it is demonstrated that they can “make irrigation districts, bridges, local roads, rural houses”, all of this must be put into question. practice together with the peasantry. “Since when building peace here is a conflict between soldiers and peasants, that cannot continue to happen.”
Likewise, Gustavo Petro asked to think about new budget priorities that make room for the professionalization of soldiers, so that when they finish their military service they are prepared to productively join civilian life.
“Being a soldier should guarantee the possibility of having a university degree, that when he comes out as a professional in society, he has the options to be able to live and does not have to become a mercenary for an illegal army or an illegal gang just because he knows how to handle a rifle.”
Hours before this speech, Petro announced during a tour of the interior that he had signed a decree that annulled the arrest and extradition orders that weighed on the leaders of the National Liberation Army (ELN) who remain in Cuba, as a first step to resume the peace talks.
“In some way we have defeated ourselves,” Petro described the perpetuation of the armed conflict that began in 1948. Hence, he insisted that for a true transformation to take place “it is not about changing one general for another, no, It is about changing the very conception, the very existence (…) it is an Army that begins to prepare for peace, that ends, hopefully, if we succeed, as a Peace Army».
Accompanied by his Defense Minister Iván Velásquez Gómez, the Colombian president spoke of the constitutional mandate to defend sovereignty and something that may affect it is “the empowerment of foreign drug cartels that increasingly dominate our territory. It wasn’t like that 20 or 40 years ago.”
He lamented that transnational crime has reached “a scale that we could not imagine” and “it can bring here more powerful weapons than those we can buy, it can recruit people, bring mercenaries, take away seas, inlets, beaches, use gulfs without our permission.”
«There is an international American map of drug trafficking routes that are no longer marked out from Colombia but from abroad. It is up to us to integrate multinational actions at this point in order to determine how we can lower those homicide rates ». He added that what is done from Colombia will impact Haiti, Guatemala, Mexico or New Orleans.
«Preparing ourselves for peace implies not falling into naivety. Sometimes poetry of peace is made, but we all know the circumstances that cause violence in Colombia, as long as a wrong policy against drugs is maintained, Colombians will continue to kill each other. He called for becoming “more effective” in stopping the problem “of all the richer societies.”
He insisted that “what achieves peace is the union of the military forces and its people” and said that in his dialogues with Bolívar, Santander “did not dare to take the step” that the Liberator proposed of an army of peasants. “It is that alliance that allows the legitimacy of a nation.”
Without saying it explicitly, Petro spoke of the elite management that has been made in Colombia of the higher military classes and insisted that a soldier must have the possibility of becoming a general and for this the economic obstacles to study in the respective academies must be eliminated.
He questioned that “people who do not pass for being a soldier can become a general” and advocated that “every soldier who can, due to his merits, become a general” so that “the son of a peasant can become a general, and that it’s called peace.” In this sentence was the only time that Petro was applauded. “I would invite you to study this type of reform if it takes away a social differentiation in the military force,” the left-wing president abounded.
? #Live | Presentation ceremony and recognition of troops and the new Military Dome to the Minister of National Defense, @Ivan_Velasquez_. #StartYourGovernment https://t.co/pgTdrtJ99o
– Colombia Presidency ?? (@infopresidencia) August 20, 2022
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