Betancourt: Government kneels
Criticism of President Petro’s peace strategy was made yesterday by the director of the Green Oxygen party, Ingrid Betancourt, who said that a government is seen kneeling before crime. “Today, what I feel we are experiencing is a setback in time, but a worse setback than what has already been experienced (…) Today we are worse than before, those who remember the weakening of the State in the Caguan negotiations Today we are with a weakened government, kneeling before crime, and when a government weakens and kneels, that is a preamble to the greatest killings,” said the former presidential candidate at the launch of the Civil Truth Commission.
Decoration to police officers of Los Pozos
President Petro decorated 64 members of the Police and 36 of the Army yesterday for their work in Los Pozos, Caquetá, last March, where they remained calm despite being detained by peasants and humiliated when they went to control a protest against an oil company. In these events, a policeman was assassinated by the demonstrators and a peasant also lost his life. Petro said during the ceremony that “because there was no confrontation to the death between the civilian population and the Public Force, are we weak then? That is not true; weak those who advocate it”.
Bonanza of candidates by signatures
A total of 1,071 committees of significant groups of citizens have registered with the National Registry to collect signatures in support of candidates and lists that do not appear by party in the regional elections in October. The National Electoral Council detailed that, as of April 10, the majority of committees seek to support mayoral candidates, with 898; for councils there are 83; for government, 71; for JAL (Local Administrative Boards) l6, and with a view to assembly there are 3. The EOM (Electoral Observation Mission) said that the increase in the number of significant groups of citizens in the last elections may have different reasons. For example, in practice these candidates extend the time they spend promoting their candidacy to up to 8 months.