Petro clarifies from Spain that his call for “revolution” does not mean defending violence

May 2. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has qualified this Tuesday from Spain, a country to which he has arrived on an official visit, that his fiery speech on May Day in which he advocated mobilization in the streets and for the “revolution” does not imply a call to violence.

“Now we want those changes to have the support, we want to know if that exists. No change can be presented in a society if there is no popular support for those changes, they cannot be imposed. And the call for the presence of the population in the streets , in the squares, is not a call for violence,” Petro pointed out, according to the Colombian press.

For Petro, it is only a citizen and peaceful expression to support the necessary changes in the country because, according to him, through the demonstrations, violence in Colombia is reduced.

The leader has pointed out that his words could be misinterpreted because he never called for violence and that in Colombia it must be understood that “the popular will” must be respected.

Petro thus responded to the controversy generated after his speech on Monday from the balcony of the Casa de Nariño, headquarters of the Colombian Presidency, in which he called for popular mobilization.

“It is not enough to win at the polls. Social change implies a permanent struggle and the permanent struggle occurs with a mobilized people and at the head of that people must be the youth, the working people, the working class. The attempt to restrict reforms can lead to a revolution,” he said. The opposition, which has always reproached him for his past as a member of the M-19 guerrilla, has described his speech as “threatening” and “undemocratic.”

Petro and his wife, Verónica Alcocer, have arrived this Tuesday at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas International Airport where they have been received with military honors. Then Petro has moved to the headquarters of the Colombian Embassy in Madrid, where he has visited the 6th Services Fair, a sample of Colombian entrepreneurs in Madrid.