The commander of the Colombian Army, General Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro, will leave office on July 20, less than three weeks before the president-elect, Gustavo Petro, takes office, with whom he had clashes during the electoral campaign, and after a management plagued of controversies.
The strong man of the Army will leave office two and a half years after assuming it as a strategist general to renew the image of the institution, affected by the responsibility of its members in violations of human rights under the direction of his predecessor, General Nicacio Martinez.
However, his management was overshadowed precisely by what the position cost his predecessor and also by his controversial statements in the midst of the political campaign against Petro, who won the Presidency of Colombia on June 19 by the leftist coalition Historical Pact. .
"On July 20, (it is) the day on which this soldier, after 40 years of service having done my compulsory military service as a high school graduate, I will say goodbye to the Colombian people"General Zapateiro said during a ceremony at the Tolemaida military base, in the center of the country.
That day, July 20, Colombia celebrates Independence with the traditional military parade, which will be Zapateiro’s last, according to what he announced today.
Despite the controversies in which he was involved, criminals fell during Zapateiro’s administration, such as the head of the Colombian criminal gang Clan del Golfo, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel, or Andrés Vanegas Londoño, alias Uriel, leader of the National Liberation Army. (ELN) in the jungle department of Chocó (west).
INTERVENTION IN THE CAMPAIGN
The election of Petro as president, a position he will assume on August 7, is not viewed favorably by a military sector because during his youth he was a guerrilla member of the April 19 Movement (M-19), which demobilized in 1990 after signing a peace agreement with the Government.
General Zapateiro was in the eye of the storm last April when he criticized Petro, then a presidential candidate, for allegedly playing politics with the deaths of soldiers.
"Senator (Petro), do not use your investiture (parliamentary inviolability) to pretend to engage in politicking with the death of our soldiers, rather comply with your citizen duty of substantiated denunciation before the Prosecutor of the facts that you mention"General Zapateiro wrote on social networks on that occasion.
Petro had reproached Zapateiro for a message lamenting the death of six soldiers in an attack by the Clan del Golfo, saying that some Army generals were "on payroll" of this group, dedicated above all to drug trafficking, and criticizing that "drug trafficking politicians" be promoted to high military leadership.
Zapateiro’s attitude was criticized by various sectors that then asked the attorney general, Margarita Cabello, to suspend the Army commander for participating in politics, something that he could not do by law.
However, there was no sanction and the officer remained in office, although he did not intervene in the campaign again.
OTHER CONTROVERSIES
Among the multiple controversies that Zapateiro experienced as commander of the Army is the one that arose in February 2020 when he presented his "heartfelt condolences" to the relatives of Pablo Escobar’s former head of assassins, Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, alias "Popeye"who had died hours earlier from esophageal cancer.
"As commander of the Army, I present to the family of ‘Popeye’ our heartfelt condolences. Today a Colombian has died, whatever happened in his life, and the National Army, headed by its commander – who was involved in the fight against drug trafficking in 1993 – greatly regrets the departure of ‘Popeye’"Zapateiro said then.
Criticism fell on the officer because the hit man boasted of having killed some 300 people with his own hand and, as head of the MedellÃn cartel’s thugs, helped plan another 3,000 homicides.
The Army commander has also been questioned about a military operation last March in the southern department of Putumayo, which killed 11 people.
Colombian President Iván Duque reported then that 11 FARC dissidents had died in an operation by the Armed Forces in Puerto LeguÃzamo (Putumayo), in which four more people were arrested, including a pregnant woman.
However, as the days passed, testimonies from relatives and community members came to light in journalistic investigations that confirmed that some of the dead were not FARC dissident guerrillas, something that the Army continues to defend to this day. but civilians.
During his administration, a scandal was also unleashed in May 2020 due to espionage by the Colombian Army on journalists, politicians and human rights defenders.
"Zapateiro resigned. He should have quit months ago. A new Army, with new leadership and with peace as its objective, will arrive with our government"César Pachón, senator-elect of the leftist coalition Historical Pact, expressed on Twitter, waiting for what happens with the Army during Petro’s presidency.