The head of the Conservative Party calls on President Juan Manuel Santos to take direct control of Colombia’s security and remove Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera, El Espectador reported Tuesday.
Party president Jose Dario Salazar warned that “history would not forgive us” if the government loses what was left to it by the previous government, i.e. the security gains made under the previous government of Alvaro Uribe.
He said “we hope the government of President Juan Manuel Santos will consolidate this historical legacy that was left by former President Uribe,” reports El Espectador.
Senate President Armando Benedetti, a member of Santos’ Partido de la U, publically criticized Rivera on Tuesday, calling for him to improve the security situation or “step to one side.”
Salazar said “I don’t know where the fault is but the security we had before has been broken … He [Rodrigo Rivera] has lacked a more effective management and the results are not what the country needs.”
Rodrigo Rivera was defense minister after Santos was elected president in 2010. Rivera has no background in the armed forces.
Rivera, who was a congressman at the age of 26 and a senator from 1998 to 2002, studied human rights law at American University in Washington D.C.
President Uribe, who was in power from 2002 to 2010, was thought to micro-manage the security forces. He oversaw a dramatic decrease in violence rates and kidnappings.