The relic became one of the undisputed protagonists of the ceremony that made Gustavo Petro the first left-wing president of Colombia. We review why the weapon occupied such an important space during the inauguration and what role it played in the Colombian war and peace.
Two hundred and three years separate two of the most important days in the history of Colombia. They are joined by a date, August 7, and a sword.
We are talking about August 7, 1819, when Simón Bolívar and his Army defeated the forces of the Spanish Crown and gave independence to several South American territories, including Colombia. And also on August 7, 2022, when the sword of the liberator became the protagonist of the investiture of the first left-wing president in the country, Gustavo Petro.
“As president of Colombia I ask the Military House to bring Bolívar’s sword. An order of the popular mandate and of this president.” They were the first words that Petro spoke after being sworn in at the Plaza de Bolívar, in the heart of Bogotá.
What happened next will go down in history as a new chapter of this weapon loaded with symbolism.
A presidential tug-of-war
After Petro’s order, the investiture ceremony was suspended for about half an hour. That time was the time it took for the military commanders to decide what to do: whether to follow the orders of the now ex-president Iván Duque, who had ordered that the sword be kept in the Casa de Nariño, headquarters of the presidential palace; or Petro, who had just become Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
The fight was finally won by Petro and the soldiers of the honor squad quickly got to work. Wearing a uniform designed in honor of the one worn by Simón Bolívar’s Army, they collected the sword in an urn and carried it to the stage where the newly sworn-in president was waiting.
The relative speed was due to the fact that, in principle, everything was prepared for this relic to be present at the investiture: everything had been agreed with the outgoing Administration. The manufacture of a special urn where it would be transported, the layout of the table on which it would rest and even make a special insurance for the sword during the day it went outdoors.
However, with a few days left before the change of government, Petro’s team denounced that Duque, a conservative, political godson of former President Álvaro Uribe and a clear opponent of the new leftist president, was preventing the sword from being part of the ceremony.
The tug of war became public domain and the weapon was conspicuous by its absence during the first part of the investiture; an absence that only contributed to making his appearance shine even more.
Already with the sword on the platform, Petro declaimed: “This sword represents too much for us, for us, and I want it to never be buried again, I want it to never be held again, just to be sheathed —as its owner, the liberator— said. when there is justice in this country. Let it belong to the people: it is the sword of the people and that is why we wanted it here at this time and in this place”.
The actual immobility
The arrival of Bolivar’s sword became an exciting moment: all the people from the delegations of foreign countries stood up to receive it.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric; that of Argentina, Alberto Fernández; the one from Bolivia, Luis Arce; even the one from Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, a conservative who was booed when he arrived at the ceremony, stood up to pay tribute to the historical figure who also won independence for his country.
In fact, high representatives of five of the now six countries that achieved their first independence thanks to this military officer were able to see Bolívar’s sword: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama (Venezuela was not invited to the ceremony).
However, there was a movement that contrasted with all the other shows of respect. Or rather, a lack of movement: King Felipe VI of Spain was the only one who remained seated while his gaze followed the historical weapon that was brandished more than two hundred years ago against his own Crown.
The gesture dug an even deeper ditch between the Spanish head of state and the public that came to celebrate the investiture of Petro, who had already booed him upon arrival at the square. After all, the Colombian indigenous movements, which still suffer from the wounds of the genocide of colonization, have been one of those that gave the current president the electoral victory.
The cycle of war and peace
This time, however, it is not the first or the second time that Bolívar’s sword is the protagonist of a chapter of the Colombian war and peace. On January 17, 1974, a newborn guerrilla stole it from the Quinta de Bolívar, a museum in downtown Bogotá where the weapon rested.
It was the April 19 Movement (M-19), a mostly urban armed movement known for the shock effects of its actions, such as this robbery.
In the place of the relic, the guerrillas left the following note: “Bolívar has not died. His sword breaks the cobwebs of the museum and he launches himself into the combats of the present. It passes into our hands and now points against the exploiters of the people.”
Some words that, in some way, echo those of Petro, and it is no coincidence: the president, decades after the robbery, was part of the M-19 and shares, at least partially, the ideology that sees Bolívar as a benchmark of the left and of Pan-American sovereignty.
This is how the circle closes: after keeping the sword hidden for seventeen years in Cuba, as reported on Monday by the then number 2 of the guerrilla, Antonio Navarro, the M-19 signed a peace agreement and returned the weapon to the Government Colombia in 1991 as a symbol of reconciliation.
Bolívar’s sword was in Cuba from the late 1970s until we returned it in 1991
Jaime Bateman asked the Cubans to keep it, to avoid the risk of having it in Colombia– Antonio Navarro (@navarrowolff) August 8, 2022
A reconciliation that was not exempt from difficulties, but that, more than thirty years later, allows a former M-19 guerrilla to be president of Colombia and present Bolívar’s sword at his inauguration, this time legitimately.
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