Publicado por el Ministerio de Defensa de Colombia el 15 de octubre de 2020.
Numerous statistics about security and counter-narcotics, through September 2020. (link at mindefensa.gov.co)
October 15, 2020
Logros de la Política de Defensa y Seguridad
Tag: Defense Ministry
July 2, 2020
An administrative tribunal in Cundinamarca temporarily suspends the activities of the U.S. Security Force Assistance Battalion, which had been on a high-profile advisory and training mission in Colombia since early June. The court finds in favor of 25 Colombian senators who argued that the Constitution requires that they autorize such deployments. The suspension is temporary while the Duque government turns information about the deployment over to the Congress.
July 2, 2020
June 12, 2020
Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo reports that, between January 1 and June 7, homicides declined by 17 percent compared to the same period in 2019. Police data show 15 types of crime dropping by 80 percent or more during this period. The country’s COVID-19 lockdown is the principal cause.
June 12, 2020
June 10, 2020
Colombia’s Senate holds a debate over the presence in the country of a 53-person U.S. training brigade (Security Force Assistance Brigade, or SFAB). The debate is called by opposition senators, who allege that the deployment violates Colombia’s constitution, which requires Senate approval for the transit of troops through national territory. Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, in an hourlong statement, insists that the U.S. personnel are not “transiting through” on their four-month deployment, but are collaborating to fight narcotrafficking. Ruling-party Senator and former president Álvaro Uribe leads the bloc of senators defending the U.S. troop deployment. Opposition legislators voice strong concern that the U.S. deployment could be a step toward Colombian involvement in a conflict with Venezuela.
June 10, 2020
June 3, 2020
As fallout continues over a scandal involving military intelligence abuses, Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo announces new measures: the creation of new inspectors to supervise military intelligence and counter-intelligence units, new standards for personnel entering intelligence units; and stronger mechanisms for receiving complaints of wrongdoing.
June 3, 2020
April 16, 2020
Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo says that the government is forging ahead in the fulfillment of Constitutional Court-mandated requirements for the re-starting of aerial herbicide fumigation in coca-growing zones.
April 16, 2020
March 13, 2020
U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo visit the joint U.S.-Colombian “Ejercicio Vita” military exercise in La Guajira.
March 13, 2020
February 3, 2020
- Colombian Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo pays a visit to the United States. He visits the U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force-North in Key West, Florida, which monitors suspicious aerial and maritime trafficking. He meets with top officials at Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Miami. And he travels to Washington for a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
February 3, 2020
January 27, 2020
- Truth Commission President Francisco De Roux says that the Defense Ministry has gone a year without honoring requests for classified files necessary for the elaboration of the Commission’s report. De Roux says he has spent more than a month seeking a meeting with Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, whose order could probably produce the needed files.
January 27, 2020