BOGOTA.- He President of Colombia, Gustavo Petrocelebrated the triumph of the newly elected President of Mexico, Claudia Sheimbaunand said that she “helped” the Colombian guerrilla of the M-19 “from hiding.”
“Claudia helped the M-19 in the clandestine times in Mexico. From a very young age she has been a great social fighter,” the president, who was part of that rebel organization until its demobilization in 1990, wrote on the social network X.
Without giving details about the help that Sheinbaum provided to the guerrilla, Petro celebrated that “a woman from the left” came to power in “one of the largest nations in the world.”
Founded in 1974, the April 19 Movement (M-19) took up arms against the conservative and liberal elites that governed in Colombia. The highest point of the confrontation came in 1985, when a rebel commando took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, unleashing a bloody military retake operation that left dozens dead and missing.
Sheinbaum, 61, made history on Sunday by being elected as the first president of Mexico with between 58% and 60% of the votes, about 32 points ahead of the conservative candidate Xóchitl Gálvez.
In the eighties he was a member of the University Student Council (CEU), a leftist organization that was a pool of personalities from the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, his political godfather.
Mexico In that same decade, it hosted rapprochements between leaders of the M-19 and the then president of Colombia, Belisario Betancur. Personalities known to sympathize with the insurgents, such as Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, also received asylum in that country.
After signing peace in 1990, the M-19 transformed into a political party of the same name.
NULL
FOUNTAIN: With information from AFP
