'Will take up arms': Colombia prez on Trump's threats; what ex-guerrilla fighter said

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Monday helium was prepared to “take up arms” aft US President Donald Trump threatened imaginable subject enactment against the South American country.Trump warned Petro to “watch his ass” and described him arsenic “a sick antheral who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.” The 2 leaders person exchanged crisp remarks for months.When asked straight whether the United States would transportation retired a subject cognition against Colombia, Trump replied, “It sounds bully to me.”Trump’s comments followed a US cognition successful Venezuela days earlier, successful which President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and transported to New York to look national charges.Responding to the US President’s threats, Petro, Colombia’s archetypal leftist person and a erstwhile subordinate of the M-19 guerrilla radical issued a connection connected X.“I swore not to interaction a limb again... but for the homeland I volition instrumentality up arms again,” said Petro.After the operation, Trump had accused Petro, without providing evidence, of engagement successful cause trafficking. Washington imposed fiscal sanctions connected Petro and his household and removed Colombia from the database of countries certified arsenic allies successful the US warfare connected drugs.

In a lengthy connection connected X, Petro defended Colombia’s anti-narcotics strategy portion informing against the dangers of excessive subject force. “If you weaponry adjacent 1 of these groups without capable intelligence, you volition termination galore children. If you weaponry peasants, thousands volition crook into guerrillas successful the mountains. And if you detain the president, whom a bully portion of my radical emotion and respect, you volition unleash the fashionable jaguar,” helium wrote.Petro has been a vocal professional of the increasing US subject beingness successful the Caribbean. The deployment began with the bombing of alleged cause boats, aboriginal expanded to the seizure of Venezuelan lipid tankers, and culminated successful Saturday’s raid connected Caracas that led to Maduro’s detention.He besides condemned the US cognition successful Venezuela, calling it an “assault connected the sovereignty” of Latin America that could trigger a humanitarian crisis.The Trump medication maintains adjacent ties with Colombia’s right-wing opposition, which is hoping to unafraid victories successful legislative and statesmanlike elections aboriginal this year.