Stop the bloodbath and put the package on prevention.
This is, more or less, the vision of Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in the history of Colombia in the fight against drugs.
During his swearing in on Sunday August 7 in front of hundreds of thousands of people in Bogota, he appealed to armed groups to sign peace and put an end to the "war on drugs" held in check.
This 62-year-old ex-guerrilla succeeds the very unpopular Ivan Duque (2018-2022) for a four-year term which he begins with the support of a left-wing majority in Congress.
Colombia, long ruled by a conservative elite, is thus on a trajectory common to other Latin American countries that are experiencing a left turn.
Legal advantages in exchange for peace
In particular, he offered armed groups operating in Colombia “legal advantages” 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.
Although the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Marxists) in 2016 has reduced violence, Colombia has not yet extinguished the continent's last internal armed conflict.
In addition to the ELN, powerful gangs of drug traffickers such as the Clan del Golfo, led by Baron “Otoniel” extradited this year to the United States, impose their law in several regions of the country.
And FARC dissidents are also challenging the state with resources from illegal mining and, above all, drug trafficking.
On this point, Mr. Petro proposes to rethink the failure of the crop eradication policy, in collaboration with the United States, the main consumer of this coca leaf derivative.
"Prevention of consumption"
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.
World
Colombia: Gustavo Petro invested, first left-wing president in the country's history
World
Colombia: Gustavo Petro becomes the first left-wing president in the country's history
World
Colombia
drug traffickers
Bogotá
stuffing
Dope
Drug traffic