The new president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, ordered this Sunday, as the first act of his Government, that the sword of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, a symbol of his guerrilla and later political strugglebe taken to the platform where the investiture ceremony takes place.
“As president of Colombia, I ask the Military House to bring Bolívar’s sword, an order of the popular mandate of this president,” Petro said shortly after being sworn in and receiving the presidential sash, amid an ovation from the crowd that attended. to the act.
Half an hour later, the president of the Senate, Roy Barrerasordered an unusual ten-minute recess at the investiture ceremony to give time for the Military House of the Presidency to take the sword to the platform, before Petro’s speech.
The theft of Bolivar’s sword was the first act of the guerrilla Movement April 19 (M-19), who took it on January 17, 1974 from the Quinta de Bolívar, a house museum in downtown Bogotá where it was on display.
The piece was returned by the M-19 to the Colombian Government on the occasion of its demobilization after signing a peace agreement in 1990, during the Government of then President Virgilio Barco, and since then it has remained in the Casa de Nariño, seat of the Executive.
for Petrowho in his youth was a member of the M-19, the sword has great symbolic value, and that is why he wanted it to be at his investiture ceremony, along with the sculpture of the dove of peace, created by the teacher Fernando Botero for the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC, in 2016, but the Government of his now predecessor , Iván Duque, did not allow it.
However, after Petro’s presidential order, and after waiting for a while, four soldiers dressed in the uniform of the Independence era, arrived at the Plaza de Bolívar carrying the sword in a glass case that they placed on a table. on the main stage.
“This sword has so much history that today it will add one morewhy it took so long to get to this square,” Petro said upon receiving that historical symbol, before beginning his speech.
According to what the communications coordinator of the investiture act, Marisol Rojas, told Efe this morning, the Duque government demanded policies, which were fulfilled, but “yesterday (Saturday) late in the afternoon, President Duque gave the order to that Bolívar’s sword does not come out”, a decision that Petro was quick to reverse as soon as he was sworn in as head of state.