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Gustavo Petro: "Today begins the Colombia of the possible"

2022-08-07T23:19:16.551Z


The new president assumes power with a union speech: “I will work to achieve true and definitive peace. Like no one, like never"


Gustavo Petro raises his fist during the swearing-in ceremony as president of Colombia, in Plaza Bolívar, in Bogotá, on August 7, 2022.LUISA GONZALEZ (REUTERS)

Gustavo Petro is already the first leftist president in the history of Colombia.

In a colorful and diverse ceremony, marked by the pulse around the possibility of exhibiting Simón Bolívar's sword, as the president proposed, he was sworn in for the next four years.

As he already did throughout his campaign, he delivered a speech vindicating the communities that have always been excluded.

“Here it is as in the journey of my existence, the town.

The humble hands of the worker, here are the peasants and those who sweep the streets”, he recalled as soon as he started the words from him, reinforcing the insistent message that the Colombian people were precisely the guest of honor at the inauguration of the.

"Getting here undoubtedly implies going through a lifetime," said the 62-year-old president,

that in his youth he belonged to the M-19 guerrilla.

"It's time for change," he proclaimed.

In the Plaza de Bolívar, in the heart of Bogotá and before a dozen heads of state, Petro proposed a different future to Colombia, moments after having sworn in his vice president, Francia Márquez, the first Afro woman to reach that position, who also swore before his ancestors and ancestors, and of having ordered the Military House to bring the sword of the liberator, a permission that the already former president Iván Duque had denied.

“Today our second chance begins.

We have earned it”, said Petro after referring to the popular passage with which he ends

One Hundred Years of Solitude

, the masterpiece of his beloved Gabriel García Márquez, which speaks of the lineages condemned to not have a second chance on earth.

"Our future is not written," she emphasized when referring to the yearning for union and reconciliation.

“Today the Colombia of the possible begins… May peace be possible.

We have to end, once and for all, six decades of violence and armed conflict.”

“We will comply with the peace agreement”

President Gustavo Petro has committed himself to peace, to the victims.

“May peace be possible.

We have to end, once and for all, with six decades of violence and armed conflict," said the president, who has also promised to "strictly" follow the recommendations of the report of the Truth Commission, which emerged from that historic pact between the government and the FARC.

"We will work tirelessly to bring peace and tranquility to every corner of Colombia," he promised in his nascent mandate.

He also called on "all the armed to lay down their arms in the mists of the past," referring to the possibility of new dialogues with the ELN guerrillas - without mentioning them by name - and legal benefits for other criminal groups in exchange for give up violence,

the search for “total peace” that he has insisted on since his victory at the polls.

“I will work to achieve true and definitive peace.

Like nobody, like never”, he reaffirmed as the first point of his Government decalogue.

“The war on drugs strengthened the mafias”

When talking about peace, Petro has questioned the policy against drugs and has put numbers on the failure of a war that has failed.

“He has left a million Latin Americans murdered, during these 40 years, and what does he leave?

70,000 North Americans die from overdoses every year”, Petro himself responded, continuing to enumerate what, according to him, has been the effect of an ineffective policy.

“The war on drugs strengthened the mafias and weakened the States.

That the war on drugs has led States to commit crimes and has evaporated the horizon of democracy.

Are we going to expect another million Latin Americans to be murdered and for overdoses to rise to 200,000 in the United States each year?

Or better,

"Let's not naturalize inequality and poverty"

Petro asked to hoist another of its main flags.

“Let's not look the other way, let's not be accomplices.

With will, redistribution policies and a justice program we are going to make Colombia more egalitarian and with more opportunities for all”, he promised by proposing an economy based on production, work and knowledge.

"That is why we propose a tax reform that generates justice," he said in reference to the first of the great transformations that is coming, which he framed as a matter of "human solidarity" and is one of the priorities of the legislative agenda of the Historical Pact, the motley left-wing coalition that brought him to power.

“The time has come to be aware that hunger is advancing.

It is advancing around the world because an idea of ​​food security based exclusively on international trade collapsed.

The world today learns the importance of food sovereignty.

Colombia is a country that should and can enjoy food sovereignty to achieve zero hunger”.

“Taxes will be fair”

Petro recalled that he also intends to reform health and pensions, the employment contract and education.

"Taxes will not be confiscatory, they will simply be fair, in a country that must recognize the enormous social inequality in which we live as an aberration," he said.

"The time has come to be aware that hunger is advancing," he stressed, questioning the current schemes of international trade and defending the importance of food sovereignty.

“Make gender equality possible”

Gustavo Petro could not stop talking about gender equality.

His government, the first with an Afro woman in the vice presidency, Francia Márquez, promised in a campaign the creation of the Ministry of Equality, which Márquez will lead, and turn his Executive into a true example of equality.

“We cannot continue allowing women to have fewer job opportunities and earn less than men.

It is time to combat all these inequalities and balance the balance”, she said while announcing her commitment to the environment.

A call to unity

The president finished with an unequivocal call for unity, both Latin American and national.

“Let us understand once and for all that there is much more that unites us than what separates us.

And that together we are stronger ”, he pointed out in a call to the region, with other leftist leaders such as the Chilean Gabriel Boric or the Argentine Alberto Fernández among the public.

“We have to say enough to the division that confronts us as a people.

I don't want two countries, just as I don't want two societies.

I want a strong, fair and united Colombia”, he concluded.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-07

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