(8 Aug 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bogota - 7 August 2022
1. Stage with new Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaking to attendees and the nation
2. Honor guards standing next to sword of Simon Bolivar and Petro at lectern
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia:
"It's more democracy, participation that I'm proposing to end violence. But we're also calling on all those with arms (referring to armed guerrilla members) to leave your arms in the past, accept legal benefits in exchange for peace, in exchange for the definitive non-repetition of violence, to work as owners of a prosperous but legal economy that ends the backwardness of the regions."
4. Close of sword of Bolivar in glass case
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia:
"It's time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has emphatically failed, that it has left one million Latin Americans murdered, the majority of them Colombians in the past 40 years. And that it leaves 70-thousand North Americans dead every year due to overdose on drugs of which none are produced in Latin America, that the war on drugs strengthened mafias and weakened states."
6. Audience, some holding umbrellas
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia:
"Climate change is a reality. And it's urgent. It's not something said by the right or the left, science says it. We must and can find a model that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. There will only be one future if we balance our lives and the economy of the entire world with nature."
8. Wide of sword, and Petro and others standing on stage
9. Various of crowds gathered outside to see the event on large screens
STORYLINE:
Colombia's first leftist president spoke to the nation on Sunday after being sworn into office, criticizing the war on drugs and addressing climate change.
Gustavo Petro has promised to fight inequality and bring peace to a country haunted by feuds between the government, drug traffickers and rebel groups.
"It's time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has emphatically failed, that it has left one million Latin Americans murdered, the majority of them Colombians in the past 40 years," Petro said at the event in Bogota.
Petro, a former member of Colombia's M-19 guerrilla group, won the presidential election in June by beating conservative parties that offered moderate changes to the market-friendly economy, but failed to connect with voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence against human rights leaders and environmental groups in rural areas.
On Sunday, he said Colombia was getting a "second chance" to tackle violence and poverty and promised that his government would implement economic policies that seek to end longstanding inequalities and ensure "solidarity" with the nation's most vulnerable.
The incoming president said he was willing to start peace talks with armed groups across the country and also called on the United States and other developed nations to change drug policies that have focused on the prohibition of substances like cocaine, and fed violent conflicts across Colombia and other Latin American nations.
Petro is part of a growing group of leftist politicians and political outsiders who have been winning elections in Latin America since the pandemic broke out and hurt incumbents who struggled with its economic aftershocks.
Eight heads of state attended Petro’s inauguration, which was held at a large colonial-era square in front of Colombia’s Congress.
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