Colombian senators praised a judgement by a court in the South American country that ordered President Iván Duque to stop the United States military operations in Colombia and provide the Senate with information on the elite brigades operating in the country.

The decision of the administrative court of the province of Cundinamarca, published Thursday night, came after 25 opposition lawmakers alleged that the colombian Senate should have authorized the presence of the United States Army Security Force Assistance Brigade, which arrived in June for a four-month stay.

The ruling requires the Colombian government to hand over "all the information and backgrounds related to the entry, arrival and stay" of the United States Army Security Force Assistance Brigade, reports Sputnik.

Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said that the presence of the United States Army Security Force Assistance Brigade does not require authorization from legislators, and that the 53 members of the US unit are helping and advising four Colombian units, according to Reuters.

"There are no troop movements here, it is important to note that these are issues related to international military cooperation," Trujillo said during a virtual press conference.

The judge ruled that if Trujillo wants American soldiers to continue their operations, he must either receive permission from Congress or successfully appeal the ruling within 72 hours.

"With this transdencetal decision, win the sovereignty and dignity of our nation, and also respect for the independence of the public powers and the duty of the Senate to authorize or not the presence of foreign troops. It is an unprecedented ruling in this matter and it defends the right that Colombians have to determine what happens in our territory and in relation to foreign forces," said Iván Cepeda, senator of the Polo Democrático Alternativo party and one of those who filed the lawsuit, through a video posted on Twitter.

Antonio Sanguino of the Alianza Verde party, who is part of the group of senators who filed the lawsuit before the Colombian court, affirms that the government did not comply with the steps established in the constitution when authorizing the arrival of the US brigade to Colombian territory.

"We support the decision because it agrees with us reason in the sense that the President of the Republic and the Government should have requested the authorization from the Council of State and an endorsement, an authorization, from the Senate of the Republic, as established in Article 179 of the National Constitution," Sanguino said in an interview with Caracol Radio.

The government assures that the authorization from the senate was not required because the US military will not carry out "military activities" and that they will only provide services to "collaborate and advise" in the fight against drug trafficking. In addition, they point out that the arrival of this brigade is based on the military agreement that Colombia signed with the United States in 1952.

THE SIEGE ESCALATED AGAINST MADURO

According to Colombian media reports, the US military brigade will be deployed in the southwest of the country in the towns of Tumaco, Nariño. In the center of the country, in La Macarena, and the town bordering Venezuela in Norte de Santander. There are many voices in Colombia warning about a possible military aggression against Venezuela from Colombia.

"Even in an interview in Semana magazine, Foreign Minister Claudia Blum said that Colombia´s priority was to overthrow Maduro, so one does not understand how the foreign policy of a country like Colombia, whose Constitution requires the Government to respect the principle of sovereignty national and self-determination of peoples and abide by international law,  proposes, as a priority of its foreign policy, to overthrow the government of a neighboring country. In addition to that, time and again, government officials said that no option was ruled out, and neither option includes an impossible military intervention," said Sanguino referring to Colombia´s foreign policy towards the venezuelan government leaded by president Nicolás Maduro.

The arrival of the American brigade comes two months after the Donald Trump administration offered a $15 million bounty for Maduro´s capture.

"But not only has it been said, but the humanitarian concert, the diplomatic siege that President Duque led in person last year (against Maduro), the desertion of approximately 1500 members of the Venezuelan National Guard at the invitation of Colombia to Colombian territory, the recruitment of more than 300 of these people for mercenary operations, with US mercenaries from Colombian territory having previously been trained on Venezuela and Maduro, the three artillery boats that strangely appeared on the Meta River and ended up in Venezuelan territory 300 kilometers inland, abandoned by its tripulation, these are facts that would indicate that the presence of this brigade is not a fortuitous matter or a coincidence, nor is it disconnected from a situation that has an enormous risk of leading to a warlike conflict," warned Sanguino.

PEACE ACCORD TREATENED

In addition to condemning the regional conflict that may trigger the aggression against Venezuela, Senator Cepeda also condemned the presence of the US military brigade in Colombia for what it means for Colombia to put at risk in the Peace Agreement reached in 2016 after more than 50 years of civil war.

"These US military go to places where the Peace Agreement that was signed in 2016 should be implemented at this time, that is, to areas where peace policies should be privileged, which mean rural development policies, agrarian reform, construction infrastructure so that these rural populations, which have been historically subjected to violence, can develop a life of well-being and dignity. The fact is that at the moment we are noting the opposite, that is, the presence of foreign troops who come to advising the Colombian Army not on peace policies, but on military actions that will accompany the forced eradication of coca crops, since, obviously, it is a possibility not to consolidate peace but to return to the armed conflict, so this is an attack against the peace process, a new attack that this Government is making to destroy the process that has been underway," denounces Cepeda.