It was a daunting moment last Thursday in Colombia, South America’s longest-running democracy, when retired Colonel John Marulanda, ex-president of the Andean country’s powerful Retired Officers Association (ACORE – Spanish initials), threatened to depose .
After a group of retired military officers made dubious statements, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said this weekend that a situation like the one Peru went through is unlikely to happen in his country and that he feared no coup d état.
Colombia’s retired and reserve military are a powerful political force and tend toward conservatism, leaving the president with balancing act in a country that has not seen a coup since 1953