Colombia: invested president, Gustavo Petro aims for the end of the "anti-drug war"
The new Colombian President Gustavo Petro was sworn in on Sunday August 7 in Bolivar Square in Bogota in front of a huge crowd and a delegation of international guests.
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Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in Colombia's history, was sworn in on Sunday in front of hundreds of thousands of people in Bogota, calling on armed groups to sign peace and end the "war against -drugs” held in check.
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Gustavo Petro was sworn in at a ceremony in Bogota's Bolivar Square in front of some 100,000 guests, including a large delegation of international guests like Spain's King Felipe VI and leaders from Latin America.
“
I don't want two countries, just as I don't want two societies.
I want a strong, fair and united Colombia,
” he said, moved, during a speech.
"
The challenges and tests we face as a nation require a period of unity and basic consensus
," added the former mayor of the capital Bogota and ex-senator.
During the electoral campaign, Gustavo Petro indicated that he would fully implement the peace agreement reached in 2016 with the FARC rebels and that he would seek dialogue with the ELN rebels.
He reiterated this desire, as well as his intention to implement a new strategy to fight against drug trafficking.
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To read also: Colombia: the challenges awaiting the new President Gustavo Petro invested this Sunday
This 62-year-old former guerrilla notably offered armed groups operating in Colombia “
legal benefits
” if they signed the peace: “
We call on (…) all armed groups to relegate arms to the nebulae of the past.
To accept legal benefits in exchange for peace and in exchange for a definitive end to the violence
,” he said.
He also felt that it was “
time to have a new international convention which accepts that the war on drugs has failed
”, to prefer a “strong policy of prevention of consumption” in developed countries.
According to him, in forty years of the fight against drugs, “
a million Latin Americans
” have been murdered and 70,000 North Americans succumb “
every year to overdoses
”.
Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine, with the United States as its largest customer.
“
The war on drugs has strengthened the mafias and weakened states
,” he noted.
with Agencies
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