WASHINGTON: The US State Department said it would revoke the visa of Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, who returned to Bogota on Saturday after being accused of “incendiary actions” during a pro-Palestinian street protest in New York.
Petro was in New York for the UN General Assembly, where he fiercely rebuked US President Donald Trump’s administration and called for a criminal inquiry into recent US strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean in his Tuesday address.
The Colombian leader shared video on social media of himself speaking through megaphone to a large crowd on Friday, calling on “nations of the world” to contribute soldiers for an army “larger than that of the United States.”
“That is why, from here in New York, I ask all soldiers in the United States Army not to point their rifles at humanity. Disobey Trump’s order! Obey the order of humanity!” Petro said.
The State Department said on social media that Petro had “stood on a NYC street and urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence.”
“We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions,” it said.
Petro struck a defiant note after leaving New York for Bogota, saying that he considered himself a “free person in the world.”
“I arrived in Bogota. I no longer have a visa to travel to the USA. I don’t care,” he wrote on social media early Saturday.
He added that he was “not only a Colombian citizen but also a European citizen” which meant he would not require a visa but instead use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) for entry into the United States.
Petro said unarmed “poor young people” died in the strikes — more than a dozen in total — but Washington contends the actions are part of a US anti-drug operation off the coast of Venezuela, whose president Washington accuses of running a cartel.
Trump has dispatched eight warships and a submarine to the southern Caribbean, and the biggest US deployment in years has raised fears in Venezuela of an invasion.
Petro, whose country is the world’s biggest cocaine producer, has said he suspects some of those killed in the US boat strikes were Colombian.
Last week, the Trump administration decertified Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs, but stopped short of economic sanctions.
The countries are historical allies, but ties have soured under Petro — Colombia’s first leftist leader.
The South American country’s Interior Minister Armando Benedetti wrote on social media Friday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visa should have been revoked rather than Petro’s.
“But since the empire protects him, it’s taking it out on the only president who was capable enough to tell him the truth to his face,” Benedetti said.
