A simmering spat over candidates for government posts boiled up this week with revelations that a Bogotá university was faking professional titles for workers in Petro’s administration.

According to congress members revealing the scandal, 24 public servants got top contracts using dodgy titles from Universidad Fundación San José, a mold-breaking higher education institute once famed for accessible courses, but now under scrutiny for selling degrees.

They also accused Petro and his education chiefs of dragging their feet in investigating the university for the suspected fraud case.  

“Petro’s promises for education come to nothing,” said house representative Catherine Juvinao after she claimed to have identified 24 cases where officials and contractors in top government entities appeared to have been hired with diplomas from the Univerisity Foundation San José without all the tests.

One stand-out case was a government functionary who, according to university records, graduated in four quite different degrees – Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, Public Accounting and International Marketing – on the same day.

“This is one of the most serious cases. Who graduates with four degrees on the same day?,” the representative said in an interview with Semana magazine.

According to Juvinoa, the university handed out diplomas to students who had failed to complete the independent technical tests, known as PruebaPro, and in some cases had not studied at all.

Fake titles for plum jobs?

Although academic fraud has occured regularly in Colombia – and similar scandals have rocked previous governments – the investigations by Juvinao and her team are targeting an administration that promised to turn its back on corruption.

This week’s revelations followed last year’s political dogfight over the proposed appointment of 23-year-old Juliana Guerrero as vice-minister of youth. The candidate, who was close to both Petro and his education minister, was already embroiled in controversies over private use of police planes. Then in September she was found to have falsified her accounting qualifications at the university.

After public pressure the university rescinded the degree, and Guerrero herself told Caracol news that she intended to take the independent exams to regain her title in November.

Further investigations revealed a bigger suspicion: that the Petro government was routinely using the university – with which it had contracts – to fudge academic requirements for candidates favoured for plum jobs.

This week Juvinao accused  Petro government or running a “Cartel of Dodgy Diplomas” in cahoots with the San José university. “It’s bad news that our first left-wing government ended up being a monument to mediocrity, captured by an institution,” she said.

The state was “closing the door to those who studied hard by merit,” she said, while calling for a probe by the Attorney General’s office, adding that: “we have all the evidence to support any investigation”.

Political Attacks

For its part, the Ministry of Education announced this week it was investigating the University Foundation San José related to the case of Guerrero, Petro’s preferred candidate for the Ministry of Youth.

In the same communication, the ministry strongly denied it had any link to “illicit activities related to the expedition of academic titles”.

The Colombian president repeatedly defended Guerrero’s nomination for the post last year even after her degree was pulled by the university. Her only error was to claim her title before taking the final exam, he said, suggesting a storm in a teacup. The attacks were personal and political, he added.

“So, Juliana’s graduation exam, after completing her studies, was registered for in July and is scheduled for next November. Is that the summary of this scandal?” he wrote on X.

At first view Petro’s gesture seemed on target; young candidates, particularly female, get torrents of abuse in the rough-and-tumble of Colombian politics, often facing a public scrutiny less applied to old-school politicos.

But looking back that defence now seems misplaced: financial data revealed this month showed Guerrero had paid for her degree course long after receiving her diploma – almost unheard of in Colombia – while the university itself confirmed that she “never went to classes or presented exams nor complied with the accounting program”.

Doubling down

This week Petro doubled down on his defense of the University Foundation San José, claiming the accusations by the opposition unfairly focused on “poor single mothers” trying to get ahead.

“Private universities…allow these working women to study faster,” he said. “[Politicians] to gain votes shouldn’t destroy working women. I expect a public apology from these congresswomen to the working women of Colombia.”

To complicate the president’s narrative, referring to the Guerrero case, the university announced it had “detected and denounced a fraud” and had itself requested the attorney general’s office to investigate. It also promised to “stregthen internal audits” to prevent future cheating.

Representative Juvinao told Semana told Semana magazine that the Guerrero case suggested corruption in the form of cash for qualifications, and was likely “the tip off an iceberg”.

“There is a deliberate strategy to fabricate qualifications to fit the needs of Petro’s government departments,” she said.

In a country where people struggle for further education – and value highly their hard-earned academic qualifications – what started as an online spat over a youth representative is becoming a scandal with much more scope.

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Fracttal, a Madrid based company providing AI-powered maintenance and asset management software, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $35 million USD in a growth funding round led by American private equity firm Riverwood Capital. 

The round included participation from all existing investors, and reinforces Fracttal’s position as a global benchmark in maintenance, while enabling the company to reach more markets and customers who can benefit from managing their physical assets, tasks and operations from one unified platform. 

“It means a lot to us that all of our current investors, especially Seaya Ventures alongside Kayyak, GoHub, and Amador, are doubling down. It’s a strong signal. They’ve seen the product mature, the technology scale, and the impact we’re having with customers, and they’re choosing to continue backing us in this next phase,” said Christian Struve, CEO and co-founder of the startup. 

“Maintenance is one of the largest and most mission-critical functions across industrial and infrastructure sectors, yet it has historically been underserved by modern software. Fracttal has developed a world-class, AI-driven platform with the technological depth needed to transform how organizations manage complex, distributed assets,” Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, Riverwood Capital co-founder and managing partner, explained. 

Through the funds, Fracttal will accelerate its growth across Latin American and European markets, including Mexico, Brazil, Spain and France – where it has already seen strong product-market fit, marquee customers and growing demand from mid-market and enterprise clients seeking predictive maintenance. 

In a 2025 study, the company found that only 2% of firms in Spanish-speaking countries had implemented AI in its maintenance operations, although 64% planned to or were already running pilot programs. 

Regardless of the sector’s critical needs, the startup will still face challenges when it comes to their expansion: 34% of survey respondents said the main barrier in maintenance adoption is lack of specialized technical skills within companies; 29% noted resistance to change from organizations or staff; 27% said high initial investment costs; and 11% warned of distrust in AI results. 

To address these hardships, Fracttal will allocate a significant portion of the recent investment to product development, with a strong focus on enhanced AI and agentic capabilities, IoT sensor technologies, and advanced vertical functionalities. The company will also scale its teams across engineering, data science, product, sales, marketing and customer success, while strengthening its internal structure to scale sustainably. 

In parallel, Fracttal will actively pursue inorganic growth opportunities, including strategic acquisitions and partnerships, to accelerate market expansion, deepen product capabilities, and consolidate its leadership in key regions.

“Having Riverwood Capital as a partner marks a turning point for us. They know how to scale technology companies globally, how to build durable businesses, and how to support founders who aim to transform entire industries,” Struve added.

“Their support comes at the perfect time for our global ambitions, strengthening our leadership in Latin America and accelerating our expansion in Europe, a region where we see a massive opportunity to deploy our AI-driven vision for the future of maintenance.”

The global predictive maintenance market was valued at $14.31 billion USD in 2025, and experts project it will reach as much as $116.23 billion by 2032 – and $205 billion by 2035. 

Such a growth rate (30.5% compounded annual growth rate) is explained by the ever-pressing need for reducing inactive time and maintenance costs across industries. Predictive maintenance, in fact, estimates the best time to complete tasks, which optimizes the cost of processes and prevents time loss, according to consulting firm Research Nester. 

Fracttal was founded to democratize critical intelligence maintenance technologies. “Too many companies were still managing their assets with spreadsheets and outdated systems, wasting time and money,” Stuve told Contxto last year.  

“Today, artificial intelligence and the proliferation of industrial sensors are opening possibilities that were unthinkable just a decade ago. We can now understand the condition of an asset before it fails, learn from every operation and empower maintenance teams to make faster, better decisions,” the executive said. 

“That is the future we build every day at Fracttal thanks to our platform and our commitment to true Maintenance Intelligence.” 

The company’s Fracttal One AI-powered solution centralizes all maintenance operations through open integrations with any enterprise system and third-party IoT sensors, as well as its proprietary portfolio of IoT hardware. Meanwhile, Fracttal Sense enables organizations to operate with greater efficiency, safety and sustainability. 

Featured image: Christian Struve courtesy of Fracttal.

This article originally appeared on Latin America Reports, and was republished with permission.

Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.

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Bogotá’s mayor and security chiefs celebrated some positive results last week with stats showing an overall reduction of high-impact crimes in the city during 2025, with the murder rate dropping in the city even as violent deaths increased across Colombia.

“In Bogotá in 2025, there were fewer homicides robberies, fewer vehicle thefts, fewer motorcycle thefts, fewer cases of extortion, more drug seizures, more weapons seizures, and more arrests,” said Bogotá´s mayor Carlos Galán, presenting a security scorecard showing security shifts in the first two years of his administration.

Some decreases were significant, such as extortion cases dropping by 20 per cent, stolen car cases by 22 per cent and commercial theft by 30 per cent. Others were less impressive: street robberies only reduced by 6 per cent, and cases of sexual violence by 8 per cent.

Homicides, perhaps the most significant metric, reduced last year by just 3.4%, with 1,165 killings recorded on the national police database compared to 1,214 in 2024. This gave Bogotá – with a population of around 8 million – a current homicide rate of 14.8 deaths per 100,000 of the population, according to the standard formula used to compare deaths across varying population sizes.

Limited success

This was way short of Mayor Galán’s stated goal of 8 deaths per 100,000 during his four-year tenure, but a better result than the national one. At 14.8, Bogotá’s homicide rate was considerably lower than Colombia’s national figure of 25.9 deaths per 100,000 of the population, based the alarming total of 12,484 violent deaths reported nationwide – a two per cent increase on the previous year.

City security secretary César Restrepo also pointed out that Bogotá had proportionally less murders than other major cities such as Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Pereira and Cali (see table below). Medellín, however, bested the capital with a reduced rate of 11.7 per 100,000.

And in our own comparison with cities worldwide, Bogotá’s homicide rate was lower than Washington D.C. (17 per 100,000) Baltimore (23 per 100,000) or New Orleans (33 per 100,000) but much higher than most European cities such as London (currently at 1 per 100,000) or Berlin (3 per 100,000).

Backdrop of violence

The challenges facing Bogotá in reducing violence against a national backdrop of increasing insecurity were highlighted in a recent study by think tank Centro de Paz y Seguridad Externadista which compared homicides rates between recent national governments.

The current Petro government reported 40,633 violent deaths during its first three years, an increase of 11 per cent over the same period for the Juan Manuel Santos government (2014 to 18) and seven per cent higher than during Ivan Duque’s tenure from 2018 to 2022.

The data pointed to a failure of the Petro’s Paz Total (‘Total Peace’) process which reduced military pressure on illegal armed groups allowing them to expand their range and illegal activities in the last three years, concluded the report.

“Although the government insists that the national conflict is de-escalating, the figures point to another scenario: homicidal violence remains at high levels,” said study leader Andrés González in December presenting the findings on YouTube.

González also pointed out that while most territorial battles took place in rural areas, the effects reflected in urban hubs where local crime groups – often with links to larger armed groups – used lethal violence in conflicts linked to extortion and micro trafficking.

Catch and release

Another challenge for Bogotá’s security was the low conviction rate for captured criminals, according to city police chief Giovanni Cristancho in an interview with El Tiempo. Out of 33,000 criminals arrested in the city in 2025, less than 10 per cent ended up in jail, he said.

Criminals showed little fear of the justice system, and many caught by the police were multiple offenders, said Christancho, with the police having to “catch the same person 20 times”.

Recycling criminals back on the streets was “outside the control of the district government”, security chief Restrepoalso told  El Tiempo last week, but recognised it reflected badly on the city administration.

“Most citizens express their annoyance because criminals are either released or not convicted. As long as these other conditions remain unresolved, all the results we announce will continue to generate frustration among the public,” he said

This chimed with a common perception in Bogotá that even if the police are clamping down, the justice system as a whole is failing the city. Those concerns were echoed in a recent public survey by city watchdog Bogotá Como Vamos that found that a  62% of respondents perceived Bogotá as less secure, the highest figure recorded since 2008.

Catch and kill

Low conviction rates could explain the resurgence of vigilante justice being meted out by frustrated rolos in recent years, with groups of citizens organizing to capture and beat offenders, sometimes tying them to lampposts or parading them naked through neighborhood and posting videos on social media.

Barrio justice has long been a problem in Bogotá; a study from 2016, reported in The Bogotá Post, showed an average of one lynching death every three days over a 12 month period in the city.

A more recent phenomenon in the city is the rise of fleets of armed private security guards mounted on motorbikes chasing down stolen vehicles.

One company, Self Security GPS, uses satellite tracking and immobilizer devices to recover stolen vehicles, but also regularly posts alarming videos of their ‘commandos’ taking down car thieves, sometimes with dramatic shoot-outs on the street with passers-by diving for cover.

According to data from the mayor’s office, at the last count, there were 150,000 private security guards “supporting security in Bogotá” – far outnumbering the 17,500 uniformed police.

Increasingly though, frustration among everyday citizens has boiled over into drastic reactions to street crime. Such an attempt at instant justice ended in tragedy last week with three deaths after a Bogotá driver was robbed at gunpoint by two masked robbers on a motorbike; the victim gave chase and crushed the fleeing assailants with his pick-up truck. In the ensuing multi-vehicle crash one of the robbers was killed, along with two innocent travelers who also lost their lives.   

Statistically, not a good start to 2026.  

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The National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group has proposed a “national accord” to settle its long-running insurgency against the Colombian state in a statement released on Sunday. 

The proposal – which the group says would encompass social, political, environmental and security issues – comes amid renewed pressure on Colombia’s largest guerrilla force, with Washington and Bogotá mulling joint operations against it.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who suspended peace talks with the ELN last year, shot down the idea of an agreement, citing the rebels’ alleged involvement in drug trafficking and recruiting child soldiers.

“The National Liberation Army proposes … that a national agreement be established to overcome the structural crisis and the social, political, and armed conflict that has lasted for more than seven decades [in Colombia],” read the ELN’s statement. 

The group suggested the agreement would be negotiated following presidential elections scheduled for May and aim to “eradicate poverty”, “overcome drug trafficking,” and “protect ecosystems,” among other goals.

But Petro fired back at the proposal in a post on X, saying the ELN had squandered their chance to negotiate a peace deal: “An agreement was offered, and the ELN destroyed it with bloodshed and fire, killing humble farmers.”

“No negotiations can move forward… without a real end to illicit economic activity and the abandonment of child recruitment,” continued the South American leader. 

Petro assumed office with the goal of negotiating peace deals with Colombia’s many armed groups, but suspended talks with the ELN in January last year over its involvement in a wave of violence in the northeastern Catatumbo region.

Since then, government forces have increased pressure on the rebel group by ramping up military action. 

But the White House’s recent military buildup in the region has added a new dimension to the Colombian counterinsurgency. 

The ELN has historically used Venezuela as a safe haven, out of reach from Colombian forces. But since Washington’s military buildup in the Caribbean and intervention on January 8, guerrilla operations in the country have become increasingly vulnerable.

Indeed, some rebel commanders had already begun returning to Colombia in recent months due to concerns around Washington’s military buildup, according to a military officer cited by AFP.

The Venezuelan government is also under pressure to take action against the ELN, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Washington’s support for Maduro’s successors is contingent on its ability to expel Colombian rebels, among other conditions.

A potential coalition of forces against the ELN is also forming. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti told Colombian radio station Blu Radio that Petro had discussed joint operations against the ELN in a call with Donald Trump last week. 

Petro also floated the idea of a triple alliance between Bogotá, Caracas, and Washington, potentially targeting rebel outposts on both sides of the border. 

The ELN has roughly 5,000 fighters and has been active since the 1960s.

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A week on from the extraordinary events of the third of January, where does Colombia stand, what happens next and what do people think?

Despite aggressive rhetoric, Colombian president Gustavo Petro and US president Donald Trump have ended up on relatively good terms over the last week after Maduro’s capture, and for now there appears to be a wary calm between the Palacio Nariño and the White House. It’s too early to talk of a bromance, but there’s certainly been a rapid de-escalation.

The US president pointedly praised Petro’s tone in his tweet after they spoke over the phone on Wednesday, indicating that the Colombian president had been rather less bullish one on one compared to his public speeches and tweets.

Petro also seems happy with the conversation, saying that he had cleared the air and underlining that he is not connected to the illegal drug trade. He pointed out that he has stepped up seizures of drugs and has in fact been threatened various times over his life by drug cartels.

Esto es Histórico.

Hablaremos con Trump, de la Paz del Continente, de la soberanía , de un Pacto por la Vida basado en las energías limpias. Se puede descarbonizar la matriz de EEUU si se vuelve real el potencial de energías limpias de Suramérica pic.twitter.com/0bqPP2lAYe

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) January 8, 2026

Petro had criticised his counterpart in the White House all week, convened protests against the US military’s actions in Venezuela and called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, of which Colombia is a temporary member.

However, Petro appears to have struck a far more conciliatory note when actually talking to the US president on Wednesday. For his part, Donald Trump also turned down the heat, saying it was a great honour to speak with the Colombian president and that they would talk further in person at the White House.

Petro has confirmed that this will take place in the first week of February. He’s also invited interim Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez to visit the Palacio Nariño for talks.

Alongside his usual flurry of tweets, Petro had been setting this in motion, with his Interior Minister (and former ambassador to Venezuela) Armando Benedetti sending a memo to the US underlining their commitment to fighting drug production.

Antagonism serves both sides

Petro has been highly critical of Trump’s actions in the Caribbean from the outset. He has warned Trump “not to wake the jaguar” and denounced his strikes on boats over the last few months.

Bad blood between the pair goes back a long way, but has really ramped up in recent weeks. Even before the extraordinary events of last weekend, Petro’s fierce criticism of the military build up in the Caribbean had led to him and his estranged wife Veronica Alcócer being stuck on the Clinton List.

The truth is that antagonistic public rhetoric plays well for both Petro and Trump, regardless of how much damage it may do to the reputation of either country. They both get to play the big man and impress their base, which both need right now in the face of domestic woes.

Presidente Donald J. Trump sobre la llamada con el Presidente Gustavo Petro: https://t.co/1lTgSYF8hb

— US Embassy Bogota (@USEmbassyBogota) January 8, 2026

Trump doesn’t seem to mind Petro’s words, as long as he gets his way. That fits with his previous actions, including his fallout when running against current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He says Petro’s been very hostile, but that’s all in the past.

For Petro, this also sets him up nicely for his post-presidential life. In an interview this week he expressed a desire to tour the world speaking at conferences and the international exposure this week has been good for that. On top of that, Trump will likely lift the restrictions on him and his family as a reward for toeing the US line.

What’s the feeling in the calles?

One could have been forgiven for not noticing the midweek protests. Despite the best efforts of hyperbolic foreign journos, Bogotá has been far from a seething cauldron of dissent. In reality, a few hundred Petro diehards trooped out as expected.

Most Colombians are well aware of the reality of Maduro’s rule and the abuses carried out in its name. Apart from a very few outliers, there is no love lost for Nicolás Maduro and an overwhelming satisfaction that he’s no longer Venezuelan president.

That’s not to say, though, that Colombians are wildly happy about the current situation. Colombia is a very different country to her neighbour, but there remains a relatively well-founded concern among many that there may be attacks on Colombian territory.

Anti-American sentiment is not exactly thriving, but graffiti and the like is already going up in certain parts of the city. There’s little to no appetite in the country for any US military activity in Colombia, even against cartels or guerrillas.

Worries still linger over the possibility of other repercussions. The waits for American visas have only just started to come down, with new appointments a year hence. Many worry that will increase again and that extant visas for expat Colombians may be affected too.

Tariffs, too, are never far from people’s minds, although Trump’s current position towards Colombia seems to be benign. Tourism will possibly be affected, both in the short and medium term.

Of course, Bogotá has a thriving Venezuelan expat community as well. While there is general delight at Maduro being arrested, there remain justifiable fears over what comes next. Delcy Rodríguez is seemingly no-one’s first choice and most hope for the promise of free and fair elections.

The Plaza de Bolívar and many others around both Bogotá and Colombia have seen large groups of Venezuelans gathering both to celebrate Maduro’s fall and to call for a transition towards a proper democracy. Most, however, are just getting on with life and wary of reading too much into things at present.

A particular trend has been for exiled Venezuelans to take to social media in order to decry what they often see as ‘Venezuelasplaining’. Many accounts are keen to point out that while the US might only be interested in oil, neither were China, Russia and Iran after arepa recipes.

Venezuelan man:

“Those who say that the U.S. is only interested in our oil, I ask you: What do you think the Russians and the Chinese wanted here?

The recipe for arepas?" pic.twitter.com/BWpCmCxFGI

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 4, 2026

As for other Colombian politicians, there’s been a mixed reaction. The Centro Democrático has had a well-coordinated and fierce response, aggressively trying to connect Petro and his allies to Maduro, with some success.

Others are resisting the temptation to use Venezuela as a political football, preferring to cautiously celebrate Maduro’s capture while expressing concern both about the manner it was done and the current political inclarity in the country.

What happens next?

For now, Delcy Rodríguez appears to be in control of Venezuela. She’s been sworn in as president and Trump says she’s committed to working with Washington. That means allowing US oil companies in, buying American goods and stopping shadow fleet sales.

While Trump had initially been dismissive of Maria Corina Machado, saying she had little support or respect in Venezuela, he’s changed his position a little and has a meeting lined up with her soon. This may be connected to her apparent offer to share her Nobel Peace Prize with him.

Regime enforcers have been on maneuvers throughout the past week to quieten internal dissent and quell momentum towards thoughts of a full democratic transition. The ELN has stepped up operations near to the Venezuelan border and Iván Mordisco has suggested a coalition of guerrillas to fight interventionism.

Plenty remains unclear about the whole situation. Trump has expressed a lot of opinions and thoughts but hasn’t elaborated on what the details behind any of it might be. There’s also a worrying lack of corroboration from other players. 

Rodríguez and Petro haven’t really confirmed his takes on their talks, nor have oil companies definitively committed to full investment. At the moment, it seems like all parties are reasonably happy with the state of play but keeping options open. 

Petro gets to play the plucky leader standing up to US imperialism, shoring up his party’s base at home ahead of coming elections while burnishing his reputation overseas. Trump gets to be the decisive commander in chief that took out a rival, while Rodríguez has received a promotion.

For now, it really could go in a number of different directions and small actions might be the things that push the country in certain directions. There are lots of cards on the table and plenty of big decisions to be taken.

Worryingly, the most likely scenario at the moment seems to be that the regime continues in power, just with a new leader and a new-found willingness, however reluctant, to work with the USA. For the ordinary Venezuelan, tragically, little much has changed as things stand.

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Bogotá, Colombia — Thousands gathered in Plaza de Bolívar after answering Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s call to mobilize against threats to Colombia’s national sovereignty from the United States.

Petro called for people to take to the streets in every public square across the country after Trump said military action in Colombia “sounds good” on Sunday, January 4,, just a day after removing Nicolás Maduro from power in neighboring Venezuela.

While Petro was expected to deliver a rousing speech against U.S. intervention, he told the crowd that he had to make his remarks less “harsh” after a conciliatory call with Trump just minutes before addressing demonstrators.

Plaza de Bolívar, located in central Bogotá near Congress and the Casa de Nariño presidential residence and office, hosted over 20,000 demonstrators and was adorned with flags and protest signs from the afternoon into the night of January 7.

“And no, no, I do not feel like being a North American colony. And yes, yes, I do feel like being a free and sovereign Colombia,” protesters chanted.

Many participants also used the demonstration to voice opposition to related issues, such as the exploitation of natural resources and the presence of foreign military bases.

“If we don’t defend our country, who will do it for us?” said one demonstrator. Other attendees stressed that the mobilization was not only about Colombia, but about Latin America as a whole.

Throughout the day, the rally featured musical performances and included the presence of labor and union representatives, public institutions, and a large portion of the presidential cabinet. The president and several ministers delivered speeches from the main stage.

President Petro presented some official data and concrete results from three years of his administration — including his fight against drug trafficking — many of them in comparison with the previous government. Among the achievements cited was the seizure of 2,800 tons of illegal substances by December 31, 2025. 

“My goal was zero blows against Colombia’s peasantry, voluntary crop substitution; we are now at 30,000 hectares registered,” he explained.

Petro publicly accused the U.S. far right and Colombian politicians of having convinced Trump that he “ran cocaine factories” and was a “front man for Maduro.” “We are not enemies of any people in the world,” he stated during his speech. Petro also said he spoke with Delcy Rodríguez, Interim President of Venezuela.

The phone call was later confirmed by Trump through his Truth Social account: “It was a great Honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future. Arrangements are being made between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Foreign Minister of Colombia. This meeting will take place in the White House in Washington, D.C..” 

In closing, the Colombian leader reaffirmed his stance on national sovereignty, as well as his differences with Trump over events in Venezuela — which he described as “illegal” — and other issues.

“To the mothers of Colombia, I say that the country clearly stands up for the defense of national sovereignty, because [Álvaro] Uribe is wrong. If they touch Petro, they touch Colombia. And if they touch Colombia, Colombia responds as its history has taught it—plain and simple.”

Featured image: Demonstrators at Plaza de Bolívar in central Bogotá
Author: Cristina Dorado Suaza

This article originally appeared on Latin America Reports and was re-published with permission.

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