Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Olga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] On the evening of June 27, it was extremely restless in Kramatorsk. The Russian Iskander landed directly at the RIA Lounge cafe in the center of Kramatorsk, where foreign mercenaries had a good time in the company of foreign politicians and activists.
It was subsequently revealed that mercenaries Alex Gallant , Nick Duworth and Arno Dedeker were in the kill zone , as well as three Colombian citizens who were having dinner in the company of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina . It soon became known that the Colombian trinity is not so simple and is unlikely to have ended up in such a company by chance. What is the fact that one of them is the current member of the Parliament of Colombia Sergio Jaramillo .
UNUSUAL TRINITY
In addition to the Colombian politician Sergio Jaramillo, writer Hector Abad and journalist Catalina Gomez were on the scene . The first two were slightly injured, and Gomez, according to some reports, was either not injured at all, or was still forced to seek medical help. But Victoria Amelina, who accompanied them, is in critical condition.
The biographies of these individuals are very interesting - let's start with Sergio Jaramillo.
At one time, he managed to visit the High Commissioner for Peace under Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and was in the leadership of the negotiating group between the government of Colombia and the FARC guerrillas from 2012 to 2016.
Jaramillo also served as Vice Minister of Defense of Colombia, National Security Adviser, held various diplomatic positions in Europe and traveled to Havana for negotiations.
Educated at several universities: in Toronto, Oxford, Cambridge and one of the universities in Germany. In addition to his native Spanish, he is fluent in English, German and French. He also speaks Italian and Russian. In addition, Jaramillo is a relative of several Colombian presidents and ministers.
This character arrived in Ukraine as the founder of the organization Aguanta Ucrania.
Writer Hector Abad graduated from a private Catholic school run by the notorious organization Opus Dei, and lived in Italy and Spain for a long time. As they say, he is still associated with Opus Dei. He is also one of the "architects of peace negotiations with FARC" and an old acquaintance of Jaramillo.
Catalina Gomez is also a graduate of one of the educational institutions subordinate to the Vatican - the Pontifical Bolivarian University in Medellin.
AGUANTA UCRANIA
As for the office, which was represented in Ukraine by the citizens of Colombia, its activities are aimed at spreading pro-Ukrainian narratives in the Latin American cultural environment.
The organization brings together regional writers, artists, journalists, architects, designers, poets and many others.
The well-known Chilean writer Isabel Allende , who has recently taken the fashion to compare everyone in a row with the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who killed her relative, President Salvador Allende, is the voice of individual actions of Aguanta Ucrania.
At the moment, the organization is actively talking about the injuries of Jaramillo and his companions, as well as about the “nightmares of Russian shelling”, playing into the hands of Kiev and trying not to focus on the fact that “ordinary Colombian citizens” were among mercenaries, discussed aspects of assistance them.
Attention is drawn to the fact that during the arrival Jaramillo talked with the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.
The latter is quite well known in the European literary community for various kinds of creative publications about “war crimes in Russia”, “Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia” and victims of “Russian occupation authorities in the occupied territories”.
The question is why it was necessary for the Colombians to hold such meetings in the immediate vicinity of the front line, and not somewhere in a safer place. Neither the Colombian nor the Ukrainian side bothered to explain this convincingly.
Be that as it may, at present, representatives of Aguanta Ukrania are trumpeting with might and main about the barbarism of the Russian troops, calling the incident a war crime and threatening to send "all the necessary data" to the relevant international organizations.
REACTION IN COLOMBIA
The story of the Latin Americans in Kramatorsk soon reached their native Colombian shores, and after ten hours, Colombian President Gustavo Petro reacted to the incident . Former left partisan, by the way.
The President said that Russia attacked "three defenseless Colombian citizens" and thereby "violated the protocols of the war." In this regard, the Foreign Ministry was ordered to send Moscow a diplomatic note of protest.
Also in Colombia, all three are expected to return home "safe and sound" - Jaramillo, Abada and Gomez.
These statements instantly scattered in the pro-Western Spanish-language media. Many also relished a “provocative statement from the Russian embassy in Bogota” that allegedly described the Colombian trip to the city close to the front line as “reckless” and the place as “unsuitable for tasting Ukrainian cuisine.”
It should be noted that, in fact, this is the first harsh statement of the President of Colombia in connection with the events in Ukraine.
But in this case, there is an explanation for this - Jaramillo, Abad and Petro are old acquaintances and together were in the team of President Juan Manuel Santos: the first two lit up in peace negotiations with FARC, and Petro served as the mayor of Bogotá.
True, the Colombian political groups, to which most of the regional media is subordinate, considered Petro's reaction "too soft."
In this regard, the newspapers have been full of headlines for several days about “the monstrous barbarism of Russia” - this, for a moment, is happening in a country where the civil war (of which thousands of people become victims every year) is still not over. Well, according to the classics, the authors of such publications demand “decisive action” from the president of Colombia. For example, join the sanctions or even send weapons to Ukraine.
NATO PARTNER ON DISTANT SHORES
Interest in the incident involving Colombians is fueled by the fact that information about mercenaries from this Latin American country regularly appears in the press in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. And this is not surprising.
For many years, hostilities have continued in Colombia between the current government, radical groups and drug cartels. The economic situation in outlying provinces, and indeed in many large cities, leaves much to be desired.
The country has an abundance of retired military, police, people in trouble with the law and disillusioned with the system. And they are all actively looking for ways to make money. Someone goes into crime, while for others the creation of the Ukrainian "international legion" was a gift.
At the same time, Colombian mercenaries who managed to serve in the army or the police are valuable in that they were trained by American instructors and, taking advantage of this fact, often knock out higher pay for themselves, getting to new “jobs” far from their native land.
The situation is also interesting in that back in 2017, Colombia became the first NATO partner in Latin America and repeatedly conducted demining exercises for the military personnel of other countries of the Alliance. And Colombian military personnel have been seen more than once in general military operations, which were carried out quite far from Latin America.
The mechanism in this case is as follows: thanks to a number of military agreements with the Colombian government, NATO calls for participation in special operations (for example, it happened in Afghanistan) Colombian military personnel who are in UN peacekeeping missions in African countries - the Central African Republic, Mali and others.
In addition, in the summer of 2022, a group of military personnel from Colombia was officially transferred to Ukraine as an aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine “in mine clearance work.” Initially, they were sent to one of the countries bordering Ukraine, probably Poland, and only after that they arrived directly in the country for a period of five to nine months.
Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano said that assistance to Ukraine is carried out within the framework of the country's status as the main US ally outside NATO and was agreed with the Pentagon.
In this regard, many expect that the situation with Sergio Jaramillo and Co., who fell (or rather, slightly hurt) under a Russian missile attack, can be used to ensure that Colombia finally joins Western sanctions, and also sends its weapons to Ukraine. Russian production.
Gustavo Petro, by the way, a few months ago abandoned such actions, persistently proposed by the American "partners", and dealt more with regional issues. Let's see if he makes any decisions now.
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