This Monday, June 17, 2024, a debate on political control of the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, was held in the Congress of the Republic due to the insecurity crisis that is being experienced in the southwest of Colombia. Regarding the questions to the official, Paloma Valencia, senator of the Democratic Center, spoke about the complex situation of public order in Caucaregion from which it is native.
>>>Cabal to Quilcué in debate on political control of mindefensa: “You took out the public force”
What are the concerns you expressed to the minister in this debate?
Paloma Valencia: We have expressed to the minister concerns about the security of the department, which has been suffering from an upsurge in violence. Of course, Cauca has never been flowers, but what is being seen are the historical highs of violence that the department has endured.
In several of the municipalities we are seeing that we are reaching historical highs and this has to do with the fact that The Government renounced the anti-drug policywe are seeing how crops in the department also reach historic highs, how the homicide rate exceeds any precedent in recent years, but, above all, how the seizure of drugs in the department is not enough, eradication has gone to zero hectares per yearand how captures from illegal mining have also decreased to be the lowest in recent years.
So what we told the Government is ‘here they have us in a department where they are killing us because there is no anti-drug policy or anti-mining policy.’
Senator María Fernanda Cabal stated that from 193,000 to 158,000 men in the public force, how is this affecting the issue of security?
Paloma Valencia: We are also seeing a weakening of the public forcewhich has not only been losing the number of men, but also losing its capacity, because we have the helicopters strandedthey have not bought the planes, President Petro prohibited the bombings, which was what really gave him superiority.
But perhaps the most impressive figure that we gave in the debate is that Colombia today, after the government of Gustavo Petro, has increased by 3,500 additional men in illegal structures. We are at more than 16,700 men. These are the numbers of men in arms prior to the Havana agreement.
That is to say, we signed the Havana agreement, the number of men decreased and today we are there again. If we continue at this rate of growth, what we are going to have is a return to the pastbecause those ceasefires that the Government has given have allowed territorial control by illegals to advance.
The Ombudsman’s reports show that, for example, in the FARC dissidents there went from 230 to 299 municipalities that are today under the control of these illegal groups.
Asocapitales raised the need to resume bombing, do you agree?
Paloma Valencia: Absolutely agree with that. The thing is One of the issues that allowed the defeat of the illegal groups and for which the FARC ended up negotiating was precisely because of the bombings.. You will remember the jokes that were made at the beginning when Timochenko came out that said that he got scared every time he heard an airplane.
When criminals cannot sleep two nights in the same place, the war is won for the State. The only superiority that we have in this conflict is the Air Force, which today is parked and disabled due to the decisions of the Government..
Watch the full interview with Paloma Valencia in the video included in this article.
>>>Petro refuted Cabal, who stated that during his government “he has not done anything in Cauca”
