“Today has been a day of death in many regions of the country,” said Colombian president Gustavo Petro after a truck exploded on the outskirts of a military headquarters in Cali, causing the death of six people, all civilians, and 64 wounded. At the same time, a drone knocked down a police helicopter and at least eight crew members in the Northeast of Antioquia died. Petro has no doubts: behind the episodes are drug trafficking and one of the so -called “Dissidencies” of the FARC that did not sign the peace agreement in 2016 and are dedicated to hosting the state and the drug trafficking business.
From the city of Cali, the president spread the photograph of one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack perpetrated in the vicinity of the air base. Its author would belong to the so -called Central General Staff. “This is one of the alleged responsible for the attack in Cali with truck/bomb, captured by the community at the scene. It is Alias Sebastián and belongs to the EMC structures, directed by Alias Marlon, subordinated to the ‘Drug Trafficking Board.”
The other attack, he said, is a “reaction” to two blows that the column led by Carlos Patiño, a former described as “narcoterrorist” by the mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder.
Petro’s dismay was evident, not only because of the deaths but because of the enormous difficulties that his “total peace” plan is going through. The president asked “the Colombian State and in general to the world, the national states, that the Board of Drug Trafficking and its bands, dissidents of Iván Bite, second marquetalia and clan of the Gulf, are considered terrorist organizations, persecutable anywhere on planet Earth, including Bogotá.”
He also announced that he will ask the State Legal Defense Agency that, “in parallel, it begins, according to the Rome Statute” initiates “a process against the armed leaders of these bands and the members of the Drug Trafficking Board worldwide.” They must be accused of “crimes against humanity committed in Colombia systematically.”
The Minister of Defense, Pedro Sánchez, later confirmed that behind the two lucuitous events are the “dissidents” of the FARC that commands bite. The attack, Sánchez added, “will never justification.”
Mayor Eder ordered Cali to militarize and reinforced the presence of the police in the entrances and departures of the city. “All state security agencies are deployed to protect the life of the caleños.”
