At dawn today, June 15, the union, civic and community leader Víctor Cetre Mosquera died in Medellín.
He was 95 years old and was born in 1928 in San Pablo Adentro, a corregimiento located five kilometers from the urban area of Istmina, where he did his primary studies. He then entered the former School of Arts and Crafts in 1945, today the San Pablo Industrial Integrated Institute, where he graduated as a shoemaker.
Víctor Cetre wrote in his autobiography:
“Very early on I showed my inclination for letters, combining shoemaking and study with an emphasis on political science, social issues and the art of writing. My vocation for reading led me to abandon the profession, giving myself completely to intellectual work, being recognized as a front-line fighter in the union, civic and community fields, with a long history in the written treatment of various issues of local interest and national”.
“I left my biggest mark in Andagoya where I gave the best of my life in defense of active and retired workers, to avoid the end of the company Metales Preciosos del Chocó and the community in general.”
“Wherever there was a struggle for the betterment of the people, Víctor cetre was present there, from the community action boards, in the parents’ associations, in the union, in the cooperative, in the pensioners’ association, in Cimarrón, and, finally, in the presidency of the Community Participation Committee, from where he fought battles for the maintenance and improvement of the pedestrian bridge over the Condoto River and the construction of the health post”.
Víctor Cetre wrote more than a hundred newspaper articles denouncing the social crisis in Chocó and published the book “Istmina: socioeconomic, historical, geographical, cultural and political notes”