Colombian President Faces Criminal Complaint for Using Terrorist Flag in Government Acts

Colombian activist Josías Fiesco filed a legal complaint against the nation’s far-left President Gustavo Petro on Monday over Petro’s repeated use of the Marxist M19 guerrilla terrorist organization’s flag in official government events.

Fiesco requested in the complaint that local authorities investigate Petro for alleged incitement to hatred and apology for crime, arguing that the use of the terrorist group’s flag in public events is offensive to M19’s victims.

“This is the flag of Colombia,” Fiesco said in a video posted on social media while holding a Colombian flag, “not the flag of the M19. Today, we have filed a complaint against Gustavo Petro so that public events paid from the taxes of Colombians are not used to promote the flag of the M19, a criminal group that shed so much blood of citizens.”

“Today, we are ashamed of how this government seeks to promote it with the waste of Colombians’ taxes. Colombians respect each other and our patriotic symbols,” Fiesco declared.

M19 was a former Colombian Marxist terrorist group active between 1974 and 1990, when it demobilized and became a small far-left political party that disbanded in 2000. Petro, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, joined M19 at the age of 18 and has repeatedly boasted about belonging to the now-defunct terrorist group.

Throughout the years it was active, M19 members committed numerous crimes such as theft and murder and conducted several heinous terrorist attacks in Colombia — including the 1985 siege of the Bogotá Justice Palace, one of the worst terrorist attacks in Colombian history.

On that day, roughly 35 M19 members attacked the seat of Colombia’s judiciary, holding hundreds of civilians hostage. Nearly a hundred civilians were killed during the siege, including 11 Colombian Supreme Court justices.

Petro publicly claimed this year that M19 had some of its members train with pro-Palestinian terrorist groups in Libya, asserting that those groups had “the same root” as M19.

Josías Fiesco reportedly expressed his rejection of what he considers an attempt by Petro to legitimize M19’s terrorist acts and recalled the serious human rights violations M19 carried out in the country. Fiesco further stressed that official government events should be a space of neutrality and show respect for the victims of the Colombian conflict and not exalt symbols associated with episodes of violence.

“The M19 was a criminal group and there were 17 events where Gustavo Petro ordered the waving of the flag of that group, which only murdered and kidnapped Colombians,” Fiesco said. “It is a shame that the government, in events paid with taxes paid by Colombians, is determined to mask up the atrocities, their perpetrators and re-victimize those who lost their loved ones.”

The M19 flag — blue, white, and red horizontal stripes with black-colored letters spelling “M-19” on its center — has made recurring appearances in official Colombian government events ever since Petro took office in August 2022, eliciting widespread condemnation from Colombian citizens and most notably from victims of the terrorist group.

Last week, Petro and the M19 flag were the center of a new controversy during a meeting between Petro and Uruguay’s leftist former President Jose Mujica. In their meeting, Petro awarded Mujica with the Boyacá Cross, the highest award the Colombian State gives to “illustrious people.” Petro reportedly personally gave the award to Mujica instead of having Mujica receive the award at the Colombian Congress due to his delicate health, as the 89-year-old former president suffers from esophageal cancer.

The controversy arose after Petro intended to display the M19 flag with Mujica amid the ceremony, leading to an impasse between the Colombian president and his visibly annoyed staff. According to the Colombian newspaper El Colombiano, the cause of the impasse remains unclear.

The M19 flag made a prominent appearance on May 1 during the Colombian government’s official event commemorating the “International Workers’ Day” or “May Day” communist holiday — in which Petro also announced the unilateral rupture of Colombia’s decades-long friendly ties with Israel.

Petro personally brandished the M19 flag at that event and proclaimed that the terrorist group’s flag “is not stored, it is not hidden, that flag is raised and will continue to be raised.”

In June, Petro ordered the inclusion of a hat that once belonged to Carlos Pizarro, one of M19’s founders, on the list of Colombia’s “cultural heritage” assets, granting the object special protection status by the Colombian state. 

The hat was allegedly worn by Pizarro when M19 signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 1990 that led to the group’s demobilization. According to Petro, the hat is a “symbol of peace” that belongs to “the Colombian people.”

Prior to the complaint filed on Monday, Fiesco also reportedly participated alongside other individuals in another complaint filed against Petro this year after Petro claimed that people who chant “out with Petro” in different public events are “assassins” wanting to kill him.

The complaint led to the Colombian State Council ordering Petro to issue a public apology on his Twitter account, which he published on September 19.

“The people who shout ‘Out with Petro’ are not murderers, excuse me. But without being my constituents, they want to pass over the majority popular vote in Colombia and that is murdering Democracy,” Petro’s message read. “I did not say assassins to them but to those who with the same cry of ending the left and progressivism did the massacre of the [Patriotic Union] and Gaitanism in Colombia.”

“Killing Petro is also an ‘Out with Petro,'” he continued. “The political debate should take place in the squares and the parliament and not in the courts.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.