Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro denounced on Tuesday the disappearance of more than a million pieces of ammunition, explosives, and weapons from the inventories of two military bases in northern Colombia.
The missing ammunition and weaponry was detected as the result of an inspection carried out by the Colombian Army in the Tolemaida military base and the 10th Armored Brigade base in La Guajira.
Petro – who was accompanied by Defense Minister Iván Velásquez and Helder Giraldo, the Commander General of the Colombian Military Forces – attributed the disappearance of the military equipment to alleged trafficking networks linked to Colombian and foreign groups. He suggested that the equipment may have ended up in the possession of illegal armed groups and possibly in foreign conflicts such as that in Haiti, where violent gangs have left the country in a state of near-complete collapse.
“With ammunition alone, there are more than a million rounds of ammunition missing,” Petro said.
“The only way to explain this type of shortage is that for a long time there have been networks made up of people from the military and civilian forces dedicated to a massive arms trade using the legal weapons of the Colombian state,” he continued.
According to the Office of the Colombian President, the inspections to the Tolemaida base took place on February 12, while the inspection to the 10th Brigade’s base took place on April 1.
At the end of the inspections, the authorities found that roughly 1.9 million rounds of ammunition of varied calibers were missing, as well as roughly 20,500 grenades of varied types, 2 Spike Missiles, 37 Nimrod missiles, 550 RPG rockets, and other kinds of explosives.
Petro asserted that, in his opinion, the missing military weaponry went to Colombia’s armed groups, without mentioning any specific culprits. Petro also suggested that the missing items may have reached “foreign conflicts, the closest, that of Haiti, seven hours by speedboat from the La Guajira base,” as well as the international arms smuggling market.
The Colombian president said it was “essential for the national public opinion to know about these facts, because we need, without a doubt, to completely separate the Public Force, as any other branch of public power, from any act of corruption.”
Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez explained that the decision to inspect the two military bases followed an investigation into the origin of a grenade thrown at a toll booth on a road near the capital city of Bogotá last December. Petro confirmed that the grenade thrown in December came from the arsenal of the Tolemaida base.
“It is a procedure that arose precisely from the launching of the grenade at the toll booth on the road to Villavicencio, if I remember well, when it was defined that the origin of those grenades used at the toll, against the toll, should be sought, and from there, reviewed precisely in Tolemaida,” Velásquez said. “Then the review of the 32 deposits that are in what the president mentioned, which thus effectively is the fort of Tolemaida, was made.”
Velásquez added that investigations are underway and that the Defense Ministry will refer the case to the military criminal justice system. In the meantime, some members of the Colombian security forces in the two inspected bases have been separated from their positions; their names or ranks were not specified.
Helder Giraldo, the Commander General of the Colombian Military Forces, stated that the investigations will also seek to determine the period of time in which the weapons were extracted from the military bases.
“We are going to get to the bottom of the matter to determine who is responsible, not only at the present time, but also backwards,” Giraldo said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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