Colombia’s armed forces will be on high alert following allegations of a FARC plot to commit terrorist attacks in Bogota during Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos’ inauguration.
General Paez Baron, the police’s director of civilian security, announced Sunday that all possible measures would be taken to secure the capital city and other strategic areas around the country. He stated that the police would mobilize its entire forces of 160,000 men and women as part of this effort.
His announcement came hours after Luis Gilberto Ramirez Calle, head of the directorate of the judicial police and intelligence (Dijin), claimed to have thwarted rebel plans to disrupt Santos’s inauguration which is to take place on August 7.
Ramirez alleged that the FARC’s leader of armed operations, Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, also known as “Mono Jojoy,” had ordered guerrillas to acquire weapons to attack the Bogota during outgoing Colombia President Alavro Uribe’s handover to Santos. But his organisation reportedly thwarted the transaction by capturing four weapons dealers in the north of Bogota.
The head of the Dijin also alleged that the FARC had further plans to commit terrorist acts in a number of Colombian cities.
Prior to officially taking office, Santos will convene the first meeting of his cabinet this Tuesday and Wednesday in the city of Anapoina, in Colombia’s central Cundinamarca department.
The closed-doors round of meetings will be followed a press conference Wednesday, at which it is expected that some of Santos’ first acts as president will be announced.
After the National Electoral Council officially recognized Santos as president-elect on Monday, he announced that Mariana Garces Cordoba will assume the portfolio of Minister for Culture in his incoming cabinet.
Garces graduated with a law degree from Bogota’s Universidad de los Andes and has a specialization in Marketing and Business from Cali’s Universidad Icesi. She was Cali’s Secretary for Culture and Tourism between 2005 and 2007, has directed Cali’s International Art Festival several times, managed regional television station Telepacifico and was executive director of the Association for the Promotion of the Arts.
Santos also named the director of Colombian welfare agency Bienestar familiar Elvira Forero as vice health minister and Jairo Clopatofsky as the new director of Coldeportes, the Colombian Institute for Sport.
They join Minister for the Interior German Vargas Lleras, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera, Education Minister Maria Fernanda Campo, Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin, Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry, Transport Minister German Cardona, Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo Salazar, Trade Minister Sergio Diaz Granados and Minister for Mining and Energy Carlos Rodado Noriega in the Santos cabinet.
