A popular saying says that there is no greater enemy than your own destiny. The adage fits perfectly with the story of two National Army officers: General Javier Alberto Ayala — commander of the Joint Strategic Transition Command — and Major Mario Andrés Peñuela, both prominent members of the institution’s Logistics School.
They were quite close, they even appear in photos smiling with the uniform full of medals, in one of them, Peñuela wears a green badge that highlights him as the best in his class the day he achieved the rank of major. He was successfully shaping up to be a Lieutenant Colonel one day.
However, everything was cut short when Major Peñuela saw that General Javier Alberto Ayala wanted to mess with his family, as he began to harass his wife, sending her messages with sexual content. Not content with that, he began to torpedo the career of his subordinate —Peñuela— avoiding promotions.
Loyal to the line of command, Peñuela denounced General Ayala with the very commander of the Army, General Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro, but he was ignored. In a statement released, Peñuela says that Ayala torpedoed his promotion to Army Lieutenant Colonel with the help of “Brigadier General Diego Luis Villegas Muñoz, president of the Promotion Committee and with the support of the Army Counterintelligence Commander, I was excluded. of Decree 858 of May 31, 2022 and my right to promotion.”
Peñuela’s denunciations did not sit well with General Ayala, so he decided —apparently— to damage the career of this promising officer. It was not just a version confrontation. In the reports, the Major presented evidence such as abusive calls and messages with a high sexual content from Ayala’s personal and institutional telephones, in addition to a minute of the times that General Ayala went to the family’s house in Peñuela’s absence and sent expensive gifts to his wife.
But it was not just a treacherous flirtation. Peñuela was expelled from the public housing where he lived —the houses that are granted to military personnel in service within a brigade or battalion—, he was transferred without any justification, which finally led to his promotion being blocked.
Since no one listened to him, the case ended as a complaint before the Attorney General’s Office. Now Major Peñuela asks for protection because he is facing “a network of corruption that protects itself, to the detriment of legitimacy and military honor.”
All this denunciation led to General Ayala requesting discharge following 35 years of service. In a public letter he recounted everything that happened to him in the Armed Forces, although he did not mention this case in which he is accused of sexual harassment and, in addition, of allegedly damaging the career of a good officer. The matter is so delicate that it is already in the hands of the lawyer Pedro Capacho, who assures that he has not been notified of a criminal or disciplinary file.
In a statement dated June 3, the Army Command stated that on May 24 they received a request from Major Peñuela to review the reason for not calling him to the promotion course. “The decree issued by which the promotions are conferred and in which the officer was not contemplated is an administrative act of full value. To date, no action established in our legislation has been filed by the major before the jurisdiction in which the reasons for non-conformity for his non-promotion are expressed”.
The Command also assures that before May 24, Major Peñuela had not disclosed the alleged harassment by General Ayala.
But this would not be the only complaint once morest General Ayala, whom some officers remember as a man who was following the officers’ wives. His career in the military would not have been as successful if it weren’t for some help. Several years ago he was not called to take the Lieutenant Colonel course, “because he never met the troop command requirements,” according to sources.
Ayala took advantage of the army to study, he became a lawyer. A source says that Ayala never commanded troops, never wanted to leave Bogotá, never went to operations. “That’s why they didn’t call him a colonel.” However, a relative with a good position in the Army moved influences so that he was called at the last minute. From there, Ayala jumped to the Ministry of Defense and then to a position in the United States, where he was discharged for speaking ill of the institution. Six years later he was reinstated thanks to a lawsuit.
He returned as a full Colonel, one step away from being a General, a promotion that he achieved with a high impact within the troops, since he was not respected because he had never gotten his boots dirty on the battlefield. Now Amaya steps aside for a complaint that, according to the evidence, can leave him very badly off
