Before he becomes a politician and wins the presidency of the country

Colombian President Joins Rebel Group Following Robin Hood Traditions

  • The new president mediates a group of his supporters during his election campaign.

    Getty

  • Gustavo Petro turned leftist revolutionary into state leader.

    Getty

  • The leftist leader Gustavo Petroe awaits him difficult tasks.

    AFP

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Leftist leader Gustavo Petro becomes Colombia's new president after defeating real estate millionaire Rodolfo Hernandez in the 2022 presidential election. He is the first progressive to hold that position in the country's history, representing a fundamental shift in Colombia's political game.

What is this guy's background?

At the age of 17, long before he emerged as a victorious leftist candidate, Petro was an active member of M-19, an urban guerrilla group seeking power and kidnappings modeled on drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar. and often used violence in order to seize power in the country.

For some Colombian voters, his past was a concern after decades of armed conflict.

For others, it has given them hope in one of the most imbalanced countries in Latin America.

The group was founded in 1970 in reaction to the alleged fraud in that year's presidential election.

It was much smaller than the country's main guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the so-called Marxist FARC, which sought refuge in Colombia's jungles and rural areas.

It was an urban military group formed by university students, activists, and artists, who wanted to overthrow a regime they believed had failed to address the chronic divide between rich and poor.

This group originally attempted to promote the concept of Robin Hood, stealing milk from supermarket trucks for distribution in slums, and in an act of symbolic rebellion.

Later, M-19 turned into a democratic alliance.

The theft of the famous Bolivar sword

In 1974, these rebels stole from the House of Bolivar a sword belonging to the distinguished liberator of South America, Simon Bolivar, when the country launched a national campaign to recover the sword, which symbolizes national sovereignty.

And Simon Bolivar used this sword in his battle to liberate Colombia from Spanish colonialism.

Bolivar, who liberated much of South America from Spanish rule, died in Colombia in 1830. The rebels promised to return the sword by December 18, 1990, the 160th anniversary of Bolivar's death.

However, the rebels found themselves in the midst of a political storm, when they could not deliver on their pledge.

It was also rumored that the sword had passed into the possession of the notorious drug smuggler, Pablo Escobar, in exchange for concessions granted to the rebels, and that it was in the possession of Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.

While M-19 was less brutal than other rebel groups, it orchestrated what is considered one of the bloodiest acts in the country's modern history in 1985, storming the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, killing more than 100 people, including... Nearly half of the nation's Supreme Court justices.

Members of the group seized the palace and occupied the Supreme Court, with the intention of trying the then president, Belisario Betancourt.

In phone calls from a radio station in Bogota, Chief Justice Alfonso Reyes Echandia, who died in the siege, appealed to the government for a ceasefire and dialogue with the rebels, but Betancourt rejected the rebels' demands.

In 1980, M-19 stormed the Dominican Republic's embassy in Bogota and took 52 hostages, including 15 ambassadors.

These rebels were demobilized in 1990 after a peace agreement with the government.

In the same year, the sword was returned to Bolivar's home in a ceremony organized by members of the rebel group.

"I crossed the mountains, I entered the homes of the patriots, I crossed the border," the group's leader, Antonio Navarro Wolf, said at the ceremony, addressing the sword.

After the 2006 Colombian parliamentary elections with the second largest vote, Petro served as a senator representing the Alternative Democratic Party.

In 2009, he resigned to run in the 2010 Colombian presidential election, coming in fourth in the race.

After ideological disagreements with the leaders of the Alternative Democratic Party, he founded the Human Colombian Movement to compete for mayor of Bogotá.

On October 30, 2011, he was elected mayor of Bogotá in the local elections, a position he held on January 1, 2012. He came second in the first round of the presidential election that took place on May 27, 2018, gaining more than 25% of the vote but losing In the run-off on 17 June.

Entering the world of politics

Pietro believes that his political awakening came when he witnessed his father weeping over the death of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara.

The 62-year-old senator and former mayor of Bogota also attributes his entry into politics to the 1973 military coup that overthrew the rule of Chilean Socialist President Salvador Allende.

At the time, Colombia was descending into violence.

Pietro said that he had taken it upon himself since then to fight the "feudal" oligarchy that enriched itself at the expense of the poor of Colombia.

In a statement to one of the media, he said, "The politics of the 21st century represents a policy of life and a policy of death," adding, "I represent the politics of life."

Although he was never a fighter, Pietro's years in the M-19 rebel group created cause for criticism from some groups.

In 1985, the military arrested Petro on charges of illegal possession of weapons.

He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison, where he says he was tortured.

Petro's victory is said to represent a fundamental change in presidential politics for Colombia, which has long marginalized the left for its perceived association with armed conflict.

death threats

Petro has repeatedly reported threats against his life and that of his family, as well as persecution by government-run security services.

On May 7, 2007, the Colombian army arrested two non-commissioned officers of the Colombian army intelligence who were spying on Petro and his family in the municipality of Tingo, Cundinamarca.

The two men initially identified themselves as members of the Colombian intelligence agency's administration, but the agency's director, Andres Pinat, denied their allegations.

Its origins and backgrounds

Pietro of Italian descent was born in Sinaga de Oro in the province of Córdoba in 1960. His parents were farmers.

Seeking a better future, the Petro family decided to emigrate during the 1970s to the more prosperous Colombian town of Zipaqueira, north of Bogota.

Pietro studied at de Hermanos de la Salle, where he founded a student newspaper, Letter to the People, which paved the way for him to become a leader. He was elected an ombudsman in 1981 and a member of the council from 1984 to 1986. He graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Columbia Externado, and began his graduate studies in public administration.

Later, he obtained a master's degree in economics from the University of Gaviriana and then traveled to Belgium and pursued his postgraduate studies in economics and human rights at the Catholic University of Louvain.

He also started his PhD studies in Public Administration from the University of Salamanca in Spain.

Pietro was married three times.

His first marriage to Katia Burgos ended in divorce, and he has one son.

He was married to Marie-Luz Herran from 1992 until 2003, which also ended in divorce, and they have two children.

In 2003, he married Veronica Alcoser, with whom he had two children, and adopted Alcoser's son, who had given birth to him from another husband.

The United States loses a supporter in Latin America

For more than two centuries, Colombia has been a conservative champion of the United States in Latin America.

Even as left-wing governments came and went across the region, the center-right political establishment remained in control of the country, a continuity that cemented the country's role as a key ally of the United States.

Last Sunday, however, everything changed with Petro's victory. This left-wing politician drew on his side millions of young and poor toiling people looking for someone different.

His victory, unimaginable just a generation ago, is the most stunning example yet of how the coronavirus pandemic has changed Latin American politics.

The pandemic has hit the economies of this region harder than almost anywhere else in the world, with 12 million middle-class people losing their jobs and property in one year.

Across the continent, voters remained angry at their governments for failing to lift them out of their misery.

The winner has been the left in Latin America, which represents diverse movements of leaders who can now play a leading role in the hemisphere.

Causes of the Colombian Armed Conflict

The Colombian armed conflict was a direct result of a deep-rooted social and political conflict. Despite the country's vast natural wealth, a large number of Colombians live in abject poverty.

This poverty is particularly concentrated in rural areas.

While 30% live below the urban poverty line in Colombia, this figure rises to 65% in rural areas.

As a result, Colombia is one of the most socially unequal countries in the world.

Throughout Colombia's history, opportunities to address this social inequality through the political system have been hampered by systemic political violence.

Opposition parties, progressive political movements, and community activists have been targeted in the interest of protecting the current political and economic situation.

Organizations fueling guerrilla warfare emerged in response to this situation, and thus the armed conflict became a direct result of an unaddressed social and political conflict.

Petro's victory represented a fundamental change in presidential politics for Colombia, which has long marginalized the left for its perceived association with armed conflict.

Pietro believes that his political awakening came when he witnessed his father weeping over the death of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara.

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