This is how Gustavo Petro met his first wife
Around the age of 17 and with the intention of finding a place in the world, Mary Luz Herrán joined the M-19 hand in hand with a boyfriend, a political social movement that revolutionized the country with its ideals. Once inside, in 1988, during the country’s mayoral elections, she was approached by a young man, she suspected him because of his attitude and thought: This must be an infiltrated police officer.
Andrés, as he introduced himself, was attended by a colleague of Mary Luz, whom she delegated to get rid of the current presidential candidate.
“He simply wanted to meet me and he caused me a lot of suspicion (…) we met at a Patriotic Union kiosk, at first I didn’t help him, I told a colleague to help him, and he went to a corner, and it seemed suspicious to me and I told the partner, ‘that must be a strip’That’s what we call infiltrated police officers or those who want to infiltrate”.
At Gustavo Petro’s insistence on meeting her, she attended him and after talking and becoming friends, they began dating. While he drank beer, she ate ice cream, since she was still a minor, she describes him as a kind person who did not even introduce himself as a commander, a role she had at that time.
“When I met him, I perceived maturity in him, a very focused person. We talked a lot. He was very kind as he is,” said Herrán.
Mary found in him that support and maturity that she was looking for at that moment in her life, from there the attraction began to arise and they decide to run away together, for love and for security reasons.
I didn’t know that he had fallen in love with me until I read about it in his book (laughs). When he was in jail, he wrote me very nice things.
The beginning of the relationship was gruesome, Mary Luz’s father even thought of suing Petro for kidnapping by taking her without her consent. She, firmly convinced of his decision, accompanied him to the department of Tolima, in that place, each one would have a specific role.
They moved the length and breadth of the department under false identities. The atmosphere with the authorities was quite complex due to the strong operations against these types of groups, until one day, the inevitable came and Mary Luz was captured.
Being in jail was not a reason for the relationship to weaken, on the contrary, cWith false identities, Gustavo Petro visited her permanently and he brought him items for his maintenance, he was concerned about his well-being and made him the promise that he would wait for his freedom.
There were 13 months in total that Mary Luz lasted in prison. During that time, in jail, she became a benchmark for female empowerment and through her speech, she convinced several of them to give themselves their place as women.
Coming out, Petro kept his promise and was waiting for her. She was the first woman from the M-19 to be released from prison, she remembers that she was released a few days before the murder of Carlos Pizarro. Later, they left Tolima to go to Cundinamarca, to start Gustavo’s political campaign.
He wanted to have children with Mary Luz, months later she became pregnant with her first daughter Andrea.
“Then he tells me ‘you are pregnant with another child of mine’, I tell him how so and he tells me that he had the symptoms, the symptoms gave him, he did not give me anything until four months,” he says between laughs when remembering how she found out about the pregnancy of her son Andrés.