Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe and his main rival in the Senate, Gustavo Petro, clashed on Monday over their alleged ties to late drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The clash erupted during a debate on a pending political reform after far-right Senator Carlos Felipe Mejia of Uribe’s hard-right Democratic Center (CD) party referred to Petro’s past as a guerrilla of M-19, and a “great alliance” this urban guerrilla group allegedly had with the Medellin Cartel in the 1980s.
You disarmed with a narco-terrorist group that is not much different than the [recently demobilized] FARC, because during the Palace of Justice siege you too had a great alliance with the Medellin drug cartel.
Senator Carlos Felipe Mejia
When Gustavo Petro was a guerrilla
Petro, whose group demobilized two years before Escobar’s death in 1993, responded immediately, and implicitly pointed out that Escobar’s cousin, the controversial Senator Jose Obdulio Gaviria, is a senator for the CD, and that Uribe had been a an associate of the Ochoa crime family that helped found the drug cartel in the 1970s.
If you really want to know what Pablo Escobar was doing back in the 1980s I invite you to look at the family members of Pablo Escobar and the family Ochoa, and look to which political party these family members belong today.
Senator Gustavo Petro
Uribe’s cartel years
This in turn spurred a reaction from Uribe, who is investigated by the Supreme Court over the tampering of witnesses who have confirmed the former president’s alleged ties to illegal armed groups.
What a coward you are for referring to a person who only just left the Intensive Care Unit and cannot assist in this debate for health reasons.
Senator Alvaro Uribe
Thirtyfive years after being forced leave Congress and almost 25 years after his death, Escobar’s corruption of both politics and the country’s armed conflict continues to haunt the politicians who were active in the “silver or lead” days in which the Medellin Cartel financially rewarded loyal politicians and ordered the assassination of those who opposed him.
How drug trafficking entered Colombia’s armed conflict
Senate President Ernesto Macias quickly ended the side-tracking of the debate and urged to resume the debate on political reform of Colombia’s chronically corrupt political system.
