Stolen Colombian weapons and ammunition may have landed in the hands of armed gangs in Haiti, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, warning against arms traffickers who have created alliances with corrupt members of the country’s army. his country, according to an article in the Miami Herald published this Wednesday, May 1.
While calling the theft of the weapons a serious problem, Petro also warned that some of the military supplies may have ended up in the hands of Colombian guerrillas and other local armed groups. Besides ammunition, missing supplies include explosives, grenades and anti-tank missiles.
The weapons were “intended for third parties such as armed irregular groups in Colombia… and probably for groups involved in foreign conflicts, the closest being Haiti,” Petro said Tuesday from the presidential palace in Bogota.
“More than a million cartridges were lost,” he said, as well as “explosives, grenades and weapons such as missiles” from military bases in Tolemaida, 120 kilometers southwest of Bogota, and La Guajira, near the northern border with Venezuela. “There have long been networks made up of people from the military and civilian forces dedicated to a massive arms trade,” the president added.
The discovery was the result of inspections of military bases in the central and northern sectors of the country between February and April, which revealed disappearances of ammunition and weapons, Petro said, without disclosing the caliber of the armaments. Audits also showed that thousands of grenades and anti-tank charges were also missing, as well as 550 rockets and two missiles.
In Haiti, armed groups have attacked hospitals, police stations and the offices of the country’s newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, as they continue to tighten their grip on the capital, Port-au-Prince. Even the city center premises of the official government journal, Le Moniteur, were not spared.
Earlier this week, the Office of the Secretary of State for Disability Inclusion said that people with disabilities living at Maison St. Vincent in downtown Port-au-Prince were victims of attack by armed groups. The house is now among several government facilities and structures in the capital’s downtown area that have been targeted by gangs who have vandalized or looted training schools and the National Library.
Petro, wearing a military cap as he met with reporters at the presidential palace on Tuesday, described Colombia’s arms theft as a scandalous act of corruption involving officials charged with protecting the state.
The missing weapons were detected as part of his government’s efforts to fight corruption. “One of the main objectives is to separate members of law enforcement from any criminal association,” he said.
With Miami Herald
