A group of abortionists tried to set fire to the Main Cathedral in Bogotá, Colombia, on Wednesday (). Abortion up to the 24 week, authorized in February by the country’s Constitutional Court, was denounced and returned for analysis by the magistrates . Considering the Church as responsible for this movement, protesters set fire to the cathedral.
The country has been ruled by Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president of the Colombia, which carries with it progressive agendas such as the decriminalization of abortion. In an interview with Gazeta do Povo, Colombian senator María Fernanda Cabal, from the opposition, said that violence against the Church and other institutions will be difficult to combat in the country from now. The parliamentarian emphasizes that the authorities did not punish the aggressors, not even at the municipal level, through Mayor Claudia López, who is aligned with Petro.
“It will be difficult to fight this because we are under a socialist government, which is an atheist and sees these acts of vandalism as a sign of ‘freedom of expression'”, he observes. “I think this behavior obeys the agenda 2030 promoted by progressives, in addition to the much publicized ‘molecular revolution’ that always manifests itself with violence”, he comments.
Juan Camilo Restrepo, former High Commissioner for Peace, also spoke. “There are some barbarians who intended to burn down the Primate Cathedral of Colombia. We are ready to defend beliefs and institutions,” he tweeted.
Nicolás Gómez Arenas, an influential political scientist on social media, asked the mayor of Bogotá to clarify what happened, as the video shows that living managers do little to deter vandals from burning down the cathedral. “Why do the supposed managers of coexistence allow the door of the First Cathedral to be burned? Claudia López, what’s going on? To govern, to manage, to do something or to resign. This has nothing to do with freedom of expression, it is pure vandalism”, he published.
Since Petro assumed the presidency, on August 7, other leftist agendas have gained space and make it difficult to control violence in the country, generating criticism of the president’s conduct in the area of security.
One of Petro’s other initiatives is to remove 70 generals and colonels of the Army and the National Police, put limits on bombings against guerrilla groups and reform the Mobile Police Shock Squad (ESMAD), responsible for containment of protests.
Weakening of the fight against drugs
The Colombian government also wants to revolutionize the fight against the drugs. After presenting a bill to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, Petro and his caucus intend to do the same with cocaine. “We will never achieve peace in Colombia until we regulate drug trafficking”, claimed Senator Gustavo Bolívar, one of the signatories of the marijuana bill, in late August, in an interview with CNN.
“We could, for example, make a small treaty in our countries to modify the Narcotics Convention of 1961 and plant the first flag of legalization in the world, and other countries could join,” said Bolívar.
With FARC support, Colombia also announced at the end of last month that it will give priority to manual eradication and voluntary replacement of crops of coca in actions with the communities.
Petro’s policy goes against the small but significant advances of recent years. The previous government stated earlier this year that the objective for 2030 was to manually eradicate 103 thousand hectares of coca, a method that a year ago led to the eradication of 103.2022 hectares of illegal cultivation.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) stated in July that Colombia produced 972 tons of cocaine last year, 2.2% less than 994 tons calculated in 1960, and recorded 234 thousand hectares under cultivation, 4.5% below the 245 thousand hectares of the previous year.
Once again , the government’s initiative received criticism from the opposition. “Today we swim in drugs, but what will come of this decision? it will be a tsunami of drugs that will drown Colombia in more violence. We are going in the wrong direction”, wrote on Twitter the opponent Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, one of the opponents defeated by the leftist in this year’s presidential election.
Holding hands with guerrillas
The location of illicit crops coincides with the territories where most social and indigenous leaders were murdered and with the presence of illegal armed groups, such as dissidents from the Farc, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Gulf Clan.
Proposed peace agreements with guerrilla groups are also a priority for the Colombian government, especially the ELN. “We are repeatedly asking violent actors to accept our proposal for Total Peace,” Petro announced earlier this month.
The ELN is a guerrilla founded in the 1990s 1960 by students and leftist movements linked to the communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro in Cuba. It has a Marxist-Leninist ideological line and is one of the actors in the Colombian civil war that has been fought since then. Like other guerrilla groups, the ELN turned to drug and arms trafficking, smuggling and illegal mining.
Conversations with the ELN can lead to the same end as the FARC, which divided into groups that continue with criminal activities while others have political representation in the Colombian Congress [com assentos reservados], such as the Comunes party.
In an interview with Gazeta do Povo, José Gustavo Arocha, specialist in national security and master in public administration from Harvard University, pointed out that it is wrong to consider that these initiatives will benefit, above all, peasants and producers of drugs. “It is a campaign that seems populist to me, because of the theme and for attracting attention, but without a doubt that not only the Gulf Clan, but also the ELN and the FARC would be the biggest beneficiaries if that happened”, highlighted Arocha.
