“I’m asking the military house to bring this Bolivar’s sword. It is an order of the people’s mandate and this president. These were the words spoken by last Sunday Gustav Petro in his first decision as President of Colombia.
The inauguration ceremony the first left ruler of the country then had an unexpected pause because of this item, a sword full of symbolism and this eventually led to discord between the new and outgoing governments. A discord that squirted right at the end King of Spain, Felipe VI, who did not rise before the passage of this symbolin a gesture strongly criticized by the left on both sides of the pond.
It is the sword of independence hero Simón Bolívar. Stolen in 1974 by the M-19 guerrilla, to which Petro belonged, the sword was returned in 1991 after that organization was disarmed.
The now former President Ivan Herzogstaunch opponent of Petro, he refused to give it up for the ceremony. She was eventually taken to Plaza de Bolívar in a glass case by four members of the Presidential Guard they fulfilled the first order of the new president. “Arriving here next to this sword is a life for me, a resistance. This sword represents too much for usPetro then emphasized.
The eventful history behind the symbol
Among those invited to the ceremony Carlos Sanchez, a veteran of the former M-19 guerrillas who was involved in stealing the sword. Along with other former collaborators outside the museum they got it from, Sánchez recalls the exact spot where he parked the car that afternoon of January 17, 1974.
He waited for the departure of two guerrillas, among them Alvaro Fayad who, dressed in a Mexican serape, entered the Quinta de Bolívar, He broke the glass case where the sword was and took it.
“They came out with the sword under the serape, They got in the car and when I tried to start it, it turned offsays Sanchez. Eventually, he asserts, with the help of strangers, he was able to turn it on without being chased or fired. Sánchez then placed the sword on a map of Latin America and snapped a photo that also shows a machine gun and an M-19 shield.
The picture was published in the local press with the caption: “Bolívar’s sword has appeared. It’s in Latin America!” It was the letter of introduction from a new nationalist urban guerrilla. In the same year, Sánchez handed over the rusty gold-handled weapon to the former Guerrilla commander Jaime Batemanin Bogota.
From there, the mystery surrounds the relicthe went through several hiding places in order to evade the severe military search land in Cuba.
In 1990, M-19 signed peace and became a political party, and the following year leader Antonio Navarro traveled to Venezuela to accept the sword from Cuban diplomat Norberto Hernández, Navarro himself told the Cambio portal.
The sword reappeared in public in July 2020, as the Duke ushered them into the government palace to commemorate Bolívar’s 237th birthday. Duque showed it to Petro at a private meeting after the former guerrilla’s victory in the June presidential election. “The sword It has so many stories that today it will add another one: why it was delayed in arriving at this place,” commented the new governor.