Mexico’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was at one time a member of the terrorist guerrilla group M-19 (Movimiento 19 de Mayo), Colombia’s president and leading group member Gustavo Petro said on Monday.
The bombshell revelation came on Monday afternoon when Colombia’s controversial President Petro spoke to news reporters during his visit to Mexico for Sheinbaum’s swearing-in ceremony. The Colombian president claimed Sheinbaum was a member of the M-19 group and that now, with both her and him in office, there were two presidents from the same terrorist organization turned political party.
Sheinbaum is expected to take office on Tuesday, becoming Mexico’s first female president and successor to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the founder of the populist Morena Party. Sheinbaum has publicly bragged about her controversial activism during her university days. In 1991, the Stanford Daily published a photograph showing her holding a poster demanding “Democracy Now.”
However, the claims made by Petro are the first of its kind, tying Sheinbaum to a terrorist organization at a time before the M-19 turned into a political party and still carried out terrorist attacks. In the 1990s, M-19 signed an accord with the ruling party, laid down its arms, and became a political party in Colombia — becoming the leading leftist political organization.
According to a report by Mexico’s Proceso, Colombia’s Vice-Chancellor Jorge Rojas claimed that Sheinbaum had been a member of the M-19 in Mexico and had helped provide refuge to group members who had to flee Colombia. He claimed that despite her young age at the time, she was very enthusiastic.
The terrorist guerrilla group M-19 spread terror throughout Colombia in the 1980s when they carried out numerous high-profile kidnappings, murders, and terrorist attacks. They were also involved in drug trafficking while claiming to be pushing to establish democracy. The group has been tied to the 1985 terrorist attack on Colombia’s Palace of Justice, where they took hostage the country’s supreme court. After a rescue attempt by the Colombian military, over a dozen judges had been killed, Argentina’s Infobae reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
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