Colombia Celebrates Independence Day With Military Parade
Soldiers participate in a parade commemorating Independence Day, this Saturday in Bogota (Colombia). Photo. EFE/ Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda
July 20, 2024 Hour: 4:44 pm
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, led this Saturday the traditional military parade of Independence Day although it took more than three hours to arrive.
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The parade featured more than 1,500 soldiers and officers from the Armed Forces and Police who remembered the events that led to Colombia’s independence in 1810.
“The military parade of July 20, is one of the traditional events commemorating the most renowned event in the beginning of the independence process of the Spanish crown. On this date, many protagonists and actions stand out that made July 20 a crucial day in the history of our country and that already allow 214 years of republican life,” says a Colombian government page.
On a 4.82 kilometer journey, Both sides of Boyacá Avenue were flooded with Colombians posted and climbed trees that came to celebrate their military forces by taking out the shirts of the Colombian soccer team after being second in the America’s Cup.
Colonel JosĂ© Luis Bastidas, head of Command Operations of the Colombian Military Forces (FF MM) reported that Military Forces and Police are leading the parade on July 20. This time there are several new features, as the route “includes from Seventh Street, all along Boyacá Avenue, going through the old Bavarian plant to 26th Street”.
Colonel Bastidas stressed that “the Military Forces and the National Police are going to show their best technological, tactical and technical capabilities and it is a surprise for all those who accompany us.”
Accompanied by the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, the first act consisted of the decoration of several officers of the Army, the Navy and the Colombian Air Force (FAC).
The first to parade, as usual, were war veterans and soldiers and marines wounded in combat, followed by the Army, the most powerful branch of the Colombian Military Forces.
Colombian flags and children disguised as soldiers flooded the streets of the Kennedy neighborhood, in the south of the city, which adjoined the main avenue where men and women marched to commemorate 214 years of Colombia’s independence.
The first female officers to have weapons training passed through the avenue proudly, as well as the representatives of the more than 11,000 that make up the Armed Forces today.
Kfir aircraft and helicopters flew through the Bogota sky as lancers, paratroopers and units such as the Joint Special Operations Command, considered the Army’s elite group; the Air Assault Division, Special Urban Counterterrorism Forces and Command Forces, among others.
All of them followed by the Army Anti-Drug Battalion and the Humanitarian Demining Brigades with their large structures on trucks and canine patrol, and those of Disaster Prevention and Attention, before giving way to the Navy forces, led by a British Navy piper.
Autor: ACJ
Fuente: Noticias Caracol // EFE // Bogota.gov.co