The US State Department announced Friday to withdraw the visa to the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to urge an act in New York against the genocide in Gaza to US soldiers “to disobey orders and incite violence.”
“This morning, the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, addressed the US soldiers in a New York street by urging them to disobey orders and incite violence,” says a message from the State Department on the social network X. “For these reckless and provocative actions, we will revoke the petro visa,” adds the brief message.
Petro, in an act convened in New York against the Israeli campaign in Gaza asked American soldiers to disobey mandates from their government in order to allow a future “army of salvation” multinational to operate that would support the Palestinian people and whose creation, he said, would propose to the United Nations Assembly, which met these days in New York, with the presence of Netany whom most delegations left alone. “(That army) has to be bigger than that of the USA. That is why from here, from New York, I ask all the US army soldiers to disobey the order of (Donald) Trump. I ask them not to point their rifles against humanity,” Petro cried during the demonstration.
The Colombian president said that this future army would have military personnel from different countries, although for now, Indonesia has said that he will support the initiative.
The proposal, covered by the UN figure known as 'Uniting For Peace', must be supported by two thirds of Member States in the General Assembly to be able to develop a coordinated military action internationally.
“The nations that vote in favor of this resolution will have the responsibility of configuring with their armies this great unity, pioneer in the world, to enforce the orders of international justice,” added the Colombian president, who according to diplomatic sources to Efe has already abandoned the US “as planned” back to Bogotá.
Petro: “The US government no longer complies with international law”
Gustavo Petro has not taken long to respond to the measure on social networks: “I arrived in Bogotá and I find that I no longer have a visa eeuu. To go to Ibagué to the great Tolimense concentration for democracy I do not need a visa,” he says. “Separating the US from Colombia is what the mafias need. What the US government does with me, breaks all the norms of immunity on which the operation of the United Nations and its General Assembly is based. There is total immunity for the presidents who attend the assembly and the US government cannot condition the opinion of the US,” he said.
“The one who has not allowed entry to the Palestinian authority and the one that is removed from the visa for asking the US army and Israel not to support a genocide, which is a crime against all humanity, show that the US government no longer fulfills international law,” he adds, and the message ends up ensuring that “the United Nations headquarters cannot continue in New York.”
A demonstration against Netanyahu
His words coincided with the celebration of the UN General Assembly in New York, in which Benjamin Netanyahu intervened on Friday to ensure that he would continue with the genocide in Gaza – “we have not finished,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister pronounced these words to a few UN delegates, since most countries left the room between boos as a protest when I was going to take the floor.
While this protest occurred within the assembly, thousands of people marched from Times Square to the United Nations headquarters to protest against Gaza genocide and show their support to the Palestinian people. He went to this demonstration to which Petro came and where he pronounced the words for which Trump has now decided to revoke the visa.
The most watched speech
To all this is added that Gustavo Petro's last intervention in the United Nations Assembly this week has been very popular and shared in different social networks. “There is no superior race, there is no chosen people of God, it is neither the United States nor Israel. Ignorant fundamentalists of the extreme right think like this. The people chosen by God is humanity all,” he said. “The UN has to change, a different, human UN, which must first stop the genocide in Gaza,” he added.