Former Foreign Minister of Colombia Álvaro Leyva revealed in a letter published on Tuesday that far-left President Gustavo Petro refused to speak to Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping for the entirety of a lavish banquet on his official visit to Beijing in 2023 — an incident Leyva claimed as evidence of Petro’s drug addiction problems.
Leyva served as Petro’s foreign minister from August 2022 to May 2024. In late April, he published an explosive four-page letter in which he claimed that Petro — who has publicly advocated for the legalization and normalization of cocaine — suffered from substance addiction. Leyva asserted that he “confirmed” Petro’s addiction after the president allegedly went missing for two days during an unspecified official visit to Paris, France.
On Tuesday, Leyva published a longer follow-up letter in which he stressed to Petro, “Mr. President, you are sick.”
Leyva urged Petro to reconsider his continued service as president of Colombia. Leyva reiterated that the Paris incident featured “behavior that once again revealed the seriousness of your [Petro’s] condition.”
Leyva regretted in the missive having to resort to referencing Petro’s “embarrassing occurrences” before and after the Paris incident to make him understand that there are consistent behaviors and a “chain of similar events typical of your very erratic and reprehensible states and behaviors.”
To justify his accusations, Leyva cited several “scandalous situations” caused by Petro’s actions with other heads of state that Leyva claimed to have witnessed. Most alarmingly, the former foreign minister accused Petro of being wantonly disrespectful to the genocidal communist dictator of China, Xi Jinping, during a ten-course banquet reception on the occasion of Petro’s official visit to Beijing in 2023. The visit included discussions on the matter of Bogotá’s unfinished subway system — a subject that, Leyva claimed, the Chinese Embassy in Colombia had warned would be disrespectful for Petro to bring up to Xi personally, considering it of lesser importance.
Leyva wrote:
On Tuesday, October 24, 2023, you began your visit to the People’s Republic of China.
You had been warned that the issue of the Bogota subway was not a matter to be discussed with the Head of State, Xi Jinping. The same Chinese embassy in Colombia in a preparatory document for your visit clearly indicated so. However, you were obsessed with your position, stubborn, inflexible, and when you did not achieve your goal, you were affected. At the State banquet presided over by Xi Jinping, at a very long and beautifully decorated table set for the solemn occasion, attended by a large number of distinguished guests, seated beside the Chinese President in the center of one of the sides, you to his right and me to his left, you, President Petro, decided not to speak to your host. You maintained absolute silence the entire time.
You ignored him. As if he were not present. It was up to me to take [your] place. For two long hours, I talked with President XI Jinping. In the meantime, ten courses were served in the style of official Chinese banquets. With Xi Jinping, I had the pleasure of talking about his family and mine. About local politics, his vision of the world, and the future of international trade. Once again, I saw you in very bad shape, President Petro.
Other similar incidents cited by Leyva in his letter include Petro’s official June 2023 visit to Germany, where the far-left president allegedly generated tensions through remarks lamenting the fall of the Berlin Wall – a celebratory event in Germany history as it marked the reunification of the country. Petro, as a hardline leftist, bemoaned the end of communism in East Germany. According to Leyva, Petro’s statements provoked a “historic annoyance” with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that was only solved through Leyva’s intervention.
“’Something is happening to your president,’ the federal minister present, my equivalent, commented to me in surprise,” Leyva said. “I saw myself in a tight spot to pull you out the other side. I felt so ashamed.”
The former foreign minister also cited a February 2023 incident involving a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Leyva claimed that he was able to get Erdogan agree to have a phone call with Petro at the request of Laura Sarabia, the current Colombian foreign minister, only for Petro to not pick up the phone. A new phone call was coordinated, but was “equally unheeded” by Petro.
“Already from the outside they are looking at you, sir, with an piercing eye. And they are beginning to have it right,” Leyva said. “The president of Colombia, the country of coca, fell into the trap. In the vice bush, coca, in which the sowings destined to its cultivation grow exponentially in the country. As crime grows, it’s murderous traffic, death, and corrupt money. “
“And you, Mr. President, the consumer. What about your concern for the famous certification? The disease has invaded you, president. You must accept it for the good of the country,” he continued. “Your decentered Minister of the Interior, Mr. Benedetti, is braver. In a recent interview with journalist Patricia Lara of Cambio magazine — April 27 to be more exact — he said: ‘I would not like to be an addict, but I am.’”
Petro responded to Leyva’s letter in remarks during an official speech in which he claimed that Leyva is allegedly conspiring with other Colombians in meetings “organized” by Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) to plot his ouster.
According to Petro, who did not present any evidence to substantiate his accusations, Rep. Díaz-Balart is part of the same “extreme right wing” that killed former American President John F. Kennedy and warned the U.S. Congressman not to overthrow him because he would “trigger the Colombian revolution.”
Rep. Díaz-Balart responded to Petro in a social media post asserting that Petro “appears to be under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or both, again,” and offered contact information for drug rehabilitation programs so Petro can “seek professional help with [his] addiction problem.”
“Mr. Petro is embarrassing. I hope that with professional help he can combat his addiction and get better,” Diaz-Balart wrote.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Read the full article here