Colombia will hold its presidential inauguration in Cali on August 7, the first time the ceremony has taken place outside the capital, Bogota, and it will proceed under a terrorism-threat warning from the country's defense minister [1].
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking to La FM radio, said armed groups could target the event. "Most likely, these criminals would attempt to disrupt this democratic event with acts of terrorism," Sanchez said [1].
The government has deployed roughly 11,000 troops and imposed a drone no-fly zone over the city [1]. President Gustavo Petro will not attend [1].
Moving the inauguration to Cali, one of Colombia's largest cities, breaks with the long-standing practice of swearing in the president in Bogota. The threat warning turns a symbolic first into a security operation, staged in a region that has borne decades of conflict among guerrilla remnants, drug-trafficking networks, and state forces.
For Cali's residents, the ceremony brings national attention and an armed lockdown at once. The 11,000-troop deployment is the measure of what it costs to hold an open democratic ritual under a credible threat of violence.
