The leftist Gustavo Petro was sworn in this Sunday as president of Colombia, a position to which he came to succeed Iván Duque, before a crowd that applauded him at the Bolivar Square in Bogota.
“I promise God and I promise the people faithfully comply with the Constitution and the laws of Colombia,” Petro said as he was sworn in before the president of Congress, Roy Barreras.
Petro ordered this Sunday, as his first government act, that the sword of the Liberator Simón Bolívara symbol of his guerrilla and later political struggle, is taken to the platform where the investiture ceremony takes place.
“As president of Colombia I ask the Military House to bring the sword of Bolívar, a popular mandate of this president,” Petro said amid a standing ovation from the crowd attending the event.
The meaning of the sword
The theft of Bolívar’s sword was the first act of the guerrilla Movement April 19 (M-19), which stole it on January 17, 1974 of 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 the then president Virgil Boat, and from that moment on it remains in a glass urn in the Casa de Nariño, seat of the Executive.
For Petro, who in his youth was a member of the M-19,The sword has a 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.
According to the communications coordinator of the investiture act, Marisol Rojas, the Duque government demanded policies, which were fulfilled, but “yesterday (Saturday) late in the afternoon, President Duque gave the order that Bolívar’s sword does not come out“.
However, Petro, as soon as he was sworn in as president, ordered that the sword was carried to the platform where the investiture ceremony takes place.