Gustavo Petro gestures during his swearing-in ceremony at Plaza Bolivar, in Bogota, Colombia August 7, 2022. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

The new Colombian President Gustavo Petro has taken office. The left-wing politician took his oath of office on Sunday in Plaza Bolívar in the center of the capital Bogotá.

“More participation and more democracy is what I propose to Colombian society to put an end to the violence in our country,” said the 62-year-old on Sunday.

Several colleagues such as Chile’s President Gabriel Boric, Argentine President Alberto Fernández, Bolivian President Luis Arce and Spain’s King Felipe VI. attended the celebration.

Anger was caused when the outgoing Conservative government refused at the last moment to hand over national hero Simón Bolívar’s sword and artist Fernando Botero’s Dove of Peace sculpture to be displayed at the presidential inauguration. Immediately after his oath of office, Petro had the sword brought to the ceremony.

“The sword should never be buried again, never held back again,” said Petro. “It should only be sheathed, as its owner the Deliverer said, when there is justice in this land. May it belong to the people.”

In the 1980s, Petro belonged to the rebel organization M-19, which once stole the sword and finally returned it after being demobilized. After turning his back on the armed struggle, he was a diplomat in Belgium and mayor of Bogotá, among other positions.

In the June 19 runoff, Petro defeated populist real estate entrepreneur Rodolfo Hernández. Vice-President Francia Márquez is the first black woman to head the state. The former environmental activist has received multiple death threats for her commitment and received the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2018.

The challenges for the new head of state are great: Colombia is struggling with the economic consequences of the corona pandemic, great social injustice and widespread violence.

The previous conservative government of President Iván Duque only half-heartedly implemented the peace agreement with the guerrilla organization FARC. Many ex-combatants therefore went underground again and joined criminal gangs.

Petro now wants to consistently implement the peace treaty signed with the FARC six years ago and also wants to start talks with the other armed groups in the country.

“In order for peace to be possible in Colombia, we need dialogue, a lot of dialogue, to understand each other, to look for common ways to bring about change,” he said in his inaugural speech. He also wants to normalize relations with Venezuela and reopen the borders to the neighboring country.

His reform plans include higher taxes for the wealthy, an emergency program against hunger, and the move away from oil and gas and the promotion of renewable energies. He is supported by a left-leaning majority in Parliament.

In the fight against drug crime, Petro also wants to take other paths. So far, Colombia has been the US’s closest ally in South America in the so-called war on drugs, receiving millions of dollars for police and military use.

“The war on drugs has gotten states to commit crimes,” he said. “Are we going to wait until another million Latin Americans are murdered and 200,000 people die from drug overdoses in the United States every year? Or do we trade failure for success so that Colombia and Latin America can live in peace?”

In addition, the ex-guerrilla announced that he would slow down the exploitation of raw material deposits. This could also have consequences for Germany, which wants to import more coal from Colombia in the future because of the sanctions against Russia because of the war of aggression against Ukraine.

In addition, Petro proposed an international fund to protect the Amazon rainforest. “Where is the World Fund for the Protection of the Amazon Forest? We can turn the entire population of the Colombian Amazon into forest protectors, but we need financial help from around the world to do that,” he said in his inaugural address.

In order to protect the “lungs of the planet”, the international community could reduce his country’s external debt in order to finance actions to protect and reforest the rainforests. If the International Monetary Fund “helps turn the debt into concrete action on climate change, we will create a new thriving economy and a new life for humanity,” Petro said.