Petro Warns of Coup Brewing in Colombia

By Camilo Rengifo Marin – Sep 16, 2024

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has reported that a plan for a coup d’état is coming together in the city of Armenia, in the Quindío Department, which has strong financing and would seek that the president of the Senate, Efraín Cepeda—businessman and politician belonging to the Conservative Party—replaces him at the Casa de Nariño as president of the nation.

In response to a publication of the Conservative Party on social media—to which the president of the Liberal Party, César Gaviria, surprisingly joined—Petro clarified that he wasn’t accusing Efraín Cepeda as the one responsible for wanting to remove him from office, and also that it is not true that he is accusing the congressman of moving large amounts of money for his exit from power.

“Nowhere did I accuse Cepeda of a coup d’état,” Petro emphasized on social media. “What I said is what the law says. If the removal of the president and vice-president takes place, and that is a coup d’état, the person who assumes the presidency is the president of the Senate.”

Petro also stated that this alleged coup d’état would be “financed by the mafia,” and criticized the process being carried out by the National Electoral Council (CNE) against his presidential campaign regarding alleged irregular financing, suggesting that there are economic interests behind this investigation so that the case reaches the Accusations Commission of the Chamber, in order to suspend him from office.

Petro assured that if he did not have the popular support of the public, this alleged coup d’état would have materialized immediately, in statements that have generated an intense debate in the country about political stability and tensions between the government and diverse sectors of the Colombian society that supported the governments of the fascists Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque.

He indicated that the main reason why these sectors would not be behind his exit from power is because his alleged enemies “are not so stupid” to push for an overthrow of a president who, as in his case, was elected with over 11.7 million votes during the 2022 presidential elections. An attempted coup would mean a response from his supporters in the streets and, consequently, a popular insurrection.

Popular media
During a meeting with representatives of non-mainstream media platforms, the president revealed details of what he considers to be an imminent threat against his government and pointed out that there are important sums of money involved in these alleged impeachment attempts. To contextualize his argument, Petro referred to recent events in other Latin American countries, such as the attempted military uprising against Bolivian President Luis Arce, and the impeachment of Pedro Castillo in Perú. He also commented that the coup plotters are planning for his death, and that “the order would already be given,” only needing execution.

Petro spoke further on the importance of alternative media, that it allows for a world in which “the worker tells a news story, the peasant tells what happened in his village, the woman tells of her sadness and her struggles, the young man sings poetry,” a world that “does not appear in RCN or Caracol.”

“I am an example of alternative communication. I, like you, am a communicator, a man who always fought against the narrative of the hegemonic media,” he said before some 1,500 community journalists and directors of small alternative media. Petro announced that “by presidential directive, the law of thirds is being applied,” referring to his promise from his presidential campaign whereby one-third of the government’s advertising budget must go to the alternative media. “We can apply it once and for all, while we are in government,” he added.

The president made these statements in continuation of his defiant attitude towards hegemonic media, having accused the newspaper El Espectador, the channels RCN and Caracol, and the magazine Semana of manipulating the minds of Colombians to defend the interests of the big businessmen who are their owners: the Santo Domingo families, owners of El Espectador, Caracol TV, and Blu Radio; Ardila Lülle, owner of RCN; Luis Carlos Sarmiento, owner of El Tiempo; and the Gilinski family, owners of Semana.

“Whoever holds economic power is king is the economic power,” he pointed out in another of those speeches, on Monday, September 9. “The owners of the great media of the world belong to the economic power.”

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Remembering Chile
Petro compared the truckers’ strikes of recent weeks with the coup d’état against Salvador Allende, carried out in Chile on September 11, 1973. “They wanted to see if what they did to Salvador Allende could be repeated, by blocking the roads to overthrow the president, which is what they want to do: either the president dies or they overthrow him, the order is given,” he said, claiming that a term of three months has been given to execute this alleged plan, following which Colombian government has stated it will go “to the limit” to lift the strike.

The president continued speaking about the alleged plan against him, which he has mentioned in previous speeches, but has not provided further evidence. “They make a mockery of popular will as they did on April 19, 1970,” Petro said, once again referring to the coup against Allende, after affirming that the coup plotters would want people to remain passive against injustice.

Petro took the opportunity to call on alternative media that this is where they are needed. “A coup d’état is not the generals of the police and the army, looking for a way to take over the Palace and remove the president. No gentlemen, the oligarchs of the country are not such brutes. It is a Colombian style coup d’état,” said Petro.

Both the government and the opposition—grouped around the Centro Democrático and Cambio Radical—deployed, almost at the same time, a strategy of mutual international condemnations in order to seek foreign support in the midst of the harsh polarization that plagues the country and that is already part of the political menu they want to offer in view of the 2026 presidential elections.

The previous Saturday, Petro had pointed out that the CNE is taking steps towards “a coup d’état” by wanting to investigate him for possible irregularities in the financing of his electoral campaign. “Each step taken against the president in the electoral council builds a coup d’état,” Petro postulated via his X account, adding, ”Are they still complaining about Venezuela? In Colombia, a coup d’état is advancing against the president.”

Petro pointed out that “the Constitution does not allow a purely administrative and political structure, such as the electoral council, to pave the way to suspend the president from his functions for an investigation over which he had no more involvement with in the 30 days after the election.”

“Those defeated by the candidate of the people want to be able to make their own decisions in the electoral council and in the commission of accusations that the president who defeated them and his electorate should leave, without having committed any crime,” he continued.

The president also declared himself in rebellion on Thursday, September 12, 2024, in regard to the ruling of the Council of State that forced him to retract the statements he made against Enrique Vargas Lleras, brother of former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras, whom he had accused of allegedly embezzling $5 billion while he was in charge of the New Health Promoting Company.

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)