Colombia’s International Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio has warned that her nation would reply any breach of its sovereignty with a army response, within the wake of threats from United States President Donald Trump.
At a information convention on Tuesday, Villavicencio underscored that, underneath worldwide regulation, international locations have the appropriate to self-defence ought to they be attacked.
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“If such aggression have been to happen, the army should defend the nationwide territory and the nation’s sovereignty,” she stated.
Her feedback come as Latin America grapples with the aftermath of the US army assault on Venezuela within the early morning hours of Saturday, which resulted in dozens of deaths and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores.
In asserting the assault, Trump on Saturday put the Latin American area on discover, describing the Western Hemisphere as his sphere of affect.
“We’re reasserting American energy in a really highly effective approach in our residence area,” Trump stated, praising the “nice dominance” of the US.
He added that the army operation “ought to function a warning to anybody who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives”.
Parallel between Venezuela and Colombia?
Trump has maintained that Maduro was the pinnacle of a narcotics-trafficking community in Venezuela — an assertion beforehand questioned by the US intelligence neighborhood — and he has blamed Maduro for inflicting 1000’s of overdose deaths within the US.
On Sunday, whereas using on Air Pressure One, Trump drew a comparability between Venezuela and Colombia, its neighbour and the world’s largest producer of cocaine.
“Venezuela, it’s very sick. Columbia may be very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and promoting it to the USA,” Trump stated, in seeming reference to Colombian President Gustavo Petro. “He’s not going to be doing it very lengthy, let me inform you.”
When one reporter requested, “So there could be an operation by the US?”, Trump replied, “Sounds good to me.”
Petro’s administration has lengthy touted its efforts to crack down on cocaine trafficking, by destroying laboratories the place the drug is produced and intercepting shipments.
Final November, Petro celebrated what his authorities known as the largest cocaine seizure in a decade, with 14 tonnes, worth nearly $388.9m, confiscated because it reached Buenaventura’s port on the Pacific Ocean.
There is no such thing as a proof that Petro himself is concerned in any narcotics trafficking, regardless of Trump’s claims on the contrary.
He and Trump, nevertheless, have lengthy exchanged barbs, with Petro criticising the Republican chief for his hardline immigration insurance policies, his help for Israel’s genocidal warfare in Gaza, and his lethal assaults on boats within the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Trump has responded by taking motion in opposition to Petro, stripping the Colombian president of his US visa in September and sanctioning him in October.
Escalating rhetoric
Petro is the primary left-wing president to steer Colombia’s authorities, and his time period ends in 2026.
He has denounced the US assault on Venezuela and warned that Latin America should unite to keep away from being handled as “a servant and a slave” to international pursuits.
“The US is the primary nation on the planet to bomb a South American capital in all of human historical past,” Petro wrote on Sunday.
“What a horrible distinction that’s, as a result of South Individuals is not going to overlook it for generations. The wound stays open for a very long time.”
He later made reference to his time as a insurgent fighter throughout his teenagers and 20s, when he participated in Colombia’s six-decade-long inside armed battle. He instructed he would take up arms again if Colombia confronted international assault.
“I swore to not contact one other weapon because the 1989 peace settlement, however for the sake of the homeland, I’ll take up arms once more, although I don’t wish to,” Petro posted on social media.
For her half, Villavicencio has emphasised in an announcement that Colombia is addressing drug trafficking with “rigour, sacrifice, and a complete method”.
On Tuesday, she added that her ministry rejects any threats in opposition to Latin American sovereignty, in addition to in the direction of Colombia’s democratically elected president.
“An offence in opposition to the president is an offence in opposition to our nation and a disregard for all of the democratic processes that we’ve got carried out,” she stated.
She is slated to fulfill members of the US Division of State later within the day.
