President Gustavo Petro made a forceful pronouncement on the visit of Vice President Francia Márquez to African territory, mainly focused on the detractors of the official and the government itself, who have criticized the diplomatic tour of that continent. The first president assured that all Colombians had black roots, bringing up the times of the colony.
According to Petro, the questions about Márquez’s visit to Africa are constant, however, he assured that all Colombians came from that territory, because although the European descent is latent, both indigenous people and blacks have an important influence on the local culture and history.
“What are they going to talk about with those blacks from Africa if they are poor, because we come from Africa, there is one of our roots; Undoubtedly, European blood is in our blood, but there is also the ancestral blood of indigenous peoples, black blood is in all our veins,” said the Colombian president.
He even dared to compromise what he called “rich whites”, arguing that although they consider that he does not have black roots, they also have them. Petro assured that the army commanded by Simón Bolívar managed to defeat the Spanish thanks to the intervention of other races and ethnic groups, explaining that these were the ones in charge of founding said group that he fought in colonial times.
“That the rich whites do not believe that they do not have black blood in their veins, because they do; the founder of the Republic, the liberator had black blood in his veins and the liberating army would not have given a leap before the most powerful army in the world at that time, the Spanish army, if it had not been the natives and blacks who up in arms they would have built what was called the army of the liberator under the command of Simón Bolívar”.
One of the referents of the aforementioned context was Benkos Biohó, leader of the so-called palenques. Said character was quoted by Petro, explaining that Biohó was in charge of promoting the term freedom in coffee territory, highlighting this name over those in charge of translating the rights of man from France.
“Without black blood there would have been no freedom in Colombia, the first to speak of freedom were not those who translated the rights of man from French literature, but were the blacks who were slaves here in Colombia like Benkos Biohó, who was able to of saying freedom and building the first free territories of America”.
For the country’s first left-wing president, Francia Márquez’s trip to African territory is more than justified. For Petro, the vice president’s words about the arrival of slaves in the country and their struggle to achieve freedom are prudent and are part of the history of the American continent.
“And now they come to tell us what we are going to do in Africa, well the vice president said well, from there the ancestors of the vice president arrived in America in shackles and now their descendants are free, all because of their ancestors by demonstrating that they did I could fight for the freedom of America and for the freedom of Africa”, he pointed out.
President Petro defended the vice president’s visit to Africa.
Currently, the vice president is in Kenya and her last meeting was with the vice president of this country, Rigathi Gachagua. In their dialogue they talked about several points and prioritized the exchange of languages and education, even establishing a possible training on coffee production in this country. It should be noted that Colombia and the aforementioned African nation have diplomatic relations since 1967, which have been strengthened over time. with Infobae