Colombia’s ruling party made it clear why the security forces allowed ELN guerrillas to carry out a military offensive but cracked down on peaceful protests.
I was already wondering why President Ivan Duque used counterinsurgency tactics to suppress peaceful protests in November last year, but went on a “spiritual retreat” in the middle of the ELN’s “armed strike” over the weekend.
This didn’t make any sense to me until Senator Carlos Meisel of Duque’s far-right Democratic Center on Monday demanded the State apply “the principles and flags that inspired the Democratic Security Policy — implemented under the government of Alvaro Uribe — that brought back tranquility and peace.”
I agree with the spoiled brat-turned-lawmaker to call Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, and the commanders of the armed forces and the national army to congress.
Meisel can take his Democratic Security Policy and ask his daddy to shove it up his ass though. Executing civilians went out of fashion more than a decade ago already.
Instead, I want to know why both the commander-in-chief and the defense minister abandoned their posts during an announced military offensive of a guerrilla group whose outspoken purpose is to overthrow the state.
I also want to know if the security forces were ordered to retreat to their barracks and police stations, allowing the ELN to successfully strike three crucial infrastructure targets and terrorize hundreds of thousands of Colombians.
As far as I know, the purpose of the National Army’s so-called Damasco Doctrine is to protect national security, not the interests of former Medellin Cartel associates like the Uribe and Trujillo families.
My monitoring of both the civilian protests and the guerrillas’ offensive, however, gives me the impression that the security forces are doing the latter.
The fact that Meisel called for a debate less than 12 hours after the ELN was done wreaking havoc additionally gives me the impression that the intention from the beginning has been to use the guerrillas’ terror campaign to justify this.
What I believe should be debated in Congress is why scumbags like Uribe and Trujillo are not using the security forces against guerrillas who are threatening national security, but against law-abiding civilians who are not.