A Colombian governor leaves the country after denouncing an imminent plan to assassinate him

In the image the governor of the department of Magdalena, Carlos Caicedo.

EFE / MAURICIO DUEÑAS CASTAÑEDA / ArchiveMauricio Dueñas Castañeda Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda / EFE

The threat of attacks against public figures is shaking Colombia again. The governor of the department of Magdalena, a Caribbean region with a significant presence of armed groups dedicated to drug trafficking, denounced this Thursday that he was forced to leave the country for a week before an imminent plan to assassinate him. Carlos Caicedo, a highly notorious left-wing politician, assured that behind the plot is the Clan del Golfo, the most powerful gang, so his lawyers requested precautionary measures to protect his life from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The departure from the country of the also former mayor of Santa Marta, the departmental capital in the Colombian Caribbean, has generated anxiety.

"We condemn these threats and follow up on their case, in accordance with our mandate," the Office in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on its social networks in one of the first reactions.

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According to the complaint, a reliable source alerted the governor to an imminent plan by the Gulf Clan to assassinate him. Its security scheme is insufficient to face a threat of that magnitude, from an organized criminal group with long weapons, Caicedo explained in statements to

Caracol Radio

without giving too many details. The information was forwarded to the security forces, something that has been confirmed by Defense Minister Diego Molano. The left-wing politician blamed President Iván Duque and former President Álvaro Uribe, the current president's mentor, for his safety.

The episode takes place in the midst of a security crisis due to recurrent massacres in various parts of the country and the incessant murder of all kinds of social leaders and former combatants of the extinct FARC guerrilla. Even the helicopter in which President Duque was traveling was attacked with rifle bursts last June, in an alarming episode that the authorities attributed to the dissidents who had departed from the peace process.

Caicedo has emerged as an alternative and opposition voice in the Caribbean since he was elected mayor of Santa Marta for the 2012-2015 term, a position his political movement has held ever since. Despite the multiple investigations and judicial questions that have persecuted him for more than a decade, he also reached the Governor's Office in the 2019 elections. He began to be recognized as a national figure after being a pre-candidate in the 2018 presidential campaign, in the who lost in a sort of left-wing primary to Gustavo Petro, ultimately defeated by Duque in the second round. Without further details, Caicedo has pointed out that the Gulf Clan's plans also include an attack on Petro, the leader of the polls for the 2022 elections.

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The Clan del Golfo, which also defines itself as Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC), emerged after the demobilization of paramilitary groups in 2016, under the Uribe government (2002-2010).

It gathers remnants of those squads and is considered the most powerful criminal and drug trafficking gang in the country, although it has been decimated after several years of police hunts.

Its top boss, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel, is one of the most wanted criminals, although he has insistently proposed some type of submission to justice process that has never materialized.

The councilman blames President Duque for "creating a climate of contempt" for the departmental government of Magdalena and for the impunity of paramilitary groups, and former President Uribe "for inciting the extreme right against us and the Colombian left," according to he has lashed out at them on their social media.

“The uribism expressed in their political clans-narco paramilitaries has tried to liquidate me morally and judicially with their control bodies, they have unjustly detained me, carried out all kinds of assemblages and defamatory campaigns;

none have worked for them.

Now he plans to assassinate me, ”accuses the governor from an unknown location.

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