Colombia

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Colombia achieves milestone in peace process as right-wing intensifies destabilization campaign

The historic ceasefire between the government and the ELN coincided with a fresh destabilization campaign against the Gustavo Petro government

August 05, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch


Members of the peace delegations and representatives of social movements participated in the launch of the National Participation Committee in Bogotá on August 3.

The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the country’s largest left-wing guerrilla group, on Thursday, August 3, began a 180-day bilateral ceasefire. The truce will remain in force until January 29, 2024. The historic step was agreed upon on June 9 during the third round of peace negotiations between the two sides in Havana, Cuba.

The development marked the most concrete progress to date for leftist president Gustavo Petro and his government’s plan to bring “total peace” to the country and end over 60 years of internal armed conflict, during which more than 450,000 people were killed.

During an event held in Corferias, Bogotá, the National Participation Committee, made up of 81 delegates from 30 different social movements, trade unions, human rights organizations, victims’ movements, business organizations, among other sectors from all over the country, was established.

The Committee will be responsible for defining the methodology to ensure the participation of Colombian society in making proposals in the peace process. It will also be in charge of bringing the suggestions and requests of the civil society to eradicate violence to the negotiation table. Above all the committee seeks to help achieve a successful peace process that is accompanied by transformations in society.

The event was attended by President Gustavo Petro, the head of government delegation Otty Patiño, the head of the ELN delegation Pablo Beltrán, the high commissioner for peace Danilo Rueda, Senator Iván Cepeda, and other members of the peace delegations. The event was also attended by several government ministers and officials, representatives of the UN, representatives from the Catholic Church and guarantor countries, as well as around 2,000 citizens from regions across the country, who have historically suffered the most from the conflict.

President Petro, in his speech, focused on the need for peace in the country. He analyzed the armed conflict and insisted on the need to value life above death. He stressed that a true revolution implies betting on peace, that is, on life, without the use of arms.

“Today is about life or death, no revolutionary can be on the side of death…, anyone who really wants to transform society in today’s world has to be on the side of life. “Being on the side of life is the revolution,” said Petro.

For his part, Beltrán highlighted the importance of the National Participation Committee in bringing forward proposals, solutions, alternatives and changes that the country requires and that are fundamental for the advancement of the peace process.

“May the people make a diagnosis, but also say what must be done! May the elites join the change!,” said Beltrán.

Social organizations hold national mobilization for Life, Peace and Popular Democracy
The ceasefire began a day after thousands of citizens and members of various social organizations took to the streets in different regions of the country demanding dismantling of paramilitary groups, end to persecution of social activists and movements, and real transformations that guarantee life, peace, justice and democracy.

On Wednesday, August 2, under the banner of “For Life, Peace and Popular Democracy,” thousands of people mobilized against violence and in defense of human rights in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Tadó, and Casanare.

The social organizations condemned that the paramilitaries continue to expand throughout the country and attack the people who fight for their rights and territories. Several social leaders denounced that the police and military forces continue to work with various paramilitary groups. “The existence and strength of paramilitaries is not possible without the systematic help of the public force,” argued social organizations such as the Congreso de los Pueblos, the National Agrarian Coordinator (CNA) and the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO). They also rejected the displacement and confinement of communities in regions hit by paramilitarism and demanded concrete responses from the government.

Likewise, the members of Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities condemned the Attorney General’s Office as the guarantor of impunity in the country and for allowing paramilitaries to commit crimes without being tried. They denounced the racism faced by the communities and explained that their cases are never “prioritized” and remain partially investigated and without conclusions.

The organizations also criticized the public petroleum company Ecopetrol as a part of the criminal political network, operated by private businessmen and members of various previous governments responsible for paramilitarism and corruption, that finances paramilitary actions in the country.

“It has lent itself to the looting of natural resources in order to enrich a few “good people” and also had agreements to deliver its products directly to the paramilitaries through an “agreed robbery” that gave them more than 85 billion pesos, only between 2000 and 2005,” denounced the organizations.

Last week, an investigation revealed a millionaire oil theft within Ecopetrol, carried out by 17 businessmen and members of former government officials with the help of paramilitary groups.

Right-wing intensifies destabilization campaign against the Petro government
The historic ceasefire between the national government and the ELN rebels began just as the country’s right-wing forces launched a new destabilization campaign against the Petro government following the arrest of the president’s son Nicolás Petro in an alleged money laundering case. Several right-wing opposition leaders and legislators are demanding Petro’s resignation.

Last week, on July 29, the Attorney General’s Office arrested Nicolás Petro, accusing him of the alleged crimes of money laundering, illicit enrichment and data breach. The arrest came after the publication of an interview given by Day Vásquez, ex-wife of Nicolás Petro, to Semana magazine, in which she alleged that her ex-partner would have received large sums of money from questionable sources. She mentioned that about 600 million pesos came from former drug trafficker Santander Lopesierra, alias “Marlboro Man”, and another 400 million pesos from the son of a controversial figure known as “Turco Hilsaca”. She also alleged that the money was supposedly earmarked for Gustavo Petro’s presidential campaign, but instead was used by Nicolás to purchase a luxurious home in Barranquilla.

This Wednesday, on August 3, in the first hearing before the Attorney General’s Office, Nicolás Petro admitted having received money from irregular sources, and that a part of it was allegedly used for his father’s 2022 presidential campaign.

Following the statement from the Attorney General’s Office, Vicky Dávila, director of the weekly magazine Semana that has been critical of Petro since he was a candidate, claimed that Nicolás Petro told the Attorney General’s Office that Gustavo Petro was aware of the irregular money being used in his campaign.

President Petro immediately reacted to the claim, assuring that it was a lie. “This is a lie. But in order to spread it, now several networks put this statement as some sources of the prosecutor’s office, this is how they spread the lie,” said Petro in a tweet. “To this day there is not a single sentence or audio of months of conversations recorded in the audios of my son and his ex-wife or in the videos that the author has of all my private meetings of the pre-campaign and campaign intercepted by government agencies that confirms this lie,” he added.

During a public event on August 3, Petro once again rejected the accusations. “Someone wrote today that my son had said that I knew that illegal money had entered my campaign. This statement can be analyzed in several ways and since it was not said by a judge, I am going to analyze what he said. He has a subliminal instinct in what he said and obviously if that were true, this President would have to leave today. So I have to tell that person, don’t keep telling lies. My son didn’t say that, and he didn’t say that for a basic reason, I have told my children: never commit a crime,” said the president.

“This is not the first time that they have tried to use the family scars, some will heal, others may never heal, they have tried to use all the weaknesses and errors to open the way to the collapse of the first popular government in Colombia,” Petro added.

To those demanding his resignation, Petro said “It is to the people that I must answer, be sure that this government is ending by popular mandate. There is no one who can end this government but the people themselves, and the people themselves gave an order by majority at the ballot box, we will continue until the year 2026.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/08/05/ ... -campaign/

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Colombia adds 100 social leaders assassinated in 2023


According to Indepaz, since the signing of the peace agreement in August 2016, around 1,514 leaders and social defenders have been assassinated in the South American country. | Photo: www.dejusticia.org
Published 5 August 2023

The senator for the MAIS Movement, Aida Quilcué, demanded urgent measures from President Gustavo Petro to protect the lives of social leaders.

At least 100 social leaders have been assassinated in Colombia, after confirming on Friday the assassination of the social and indigenous leader, Luis Eduardo Timana, in the Pradera municipality of the Valle del Cauca department.

According to the Institute for Development and Peace (Indepaz), the indigenous leader of the Nasa people was assassinated by unknown persons on his way to his home, located in the rural area of ​​the municipality.

The indigenous senator for the Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social (MAIS), Aida Quilcué, regretted the death of Tinama on her social networks, while demanding that Colombian President Gustavo Petro take urgent and effective measures to protect the lives of social leaders. .



The social leader was a candidate for the Pradera municipal council for the Historical Pact and was part of the political support of the legal representation team for victims led by the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC) for case 05 of the JEP.


According to the balance of Indepaz, since the signing of the peace agreement in August 2016, around 1,514 leaders and social defenders have been assassinated in the South American country.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0008.html

Google Translator

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Relations Sour Between US and Colombia Over Colombian President Petro’s Refusal to Condemn Hamas
Posted on October 13, 2023 by Nick Corbishley

“The only way for Palestinian children to sleep in peace is for Israeli children to sleep in peace. The only way for Israeli children to sleep in peace is for Palestinian children to sleep in peace. War will never achieve this.”

When the former Guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro came to office in June 2022, becoming the country’s first left-wing president since Colombia won independence in 1819, it was clear he would have to tread very carefully in his relations with Washington, especially given all the US military bases on Colombian soil. Today, sixteen months after his election, Petro faces his first major diplomatic standoff, not only with Washington but also Tel Aviv — all the result of his refusal, so far, to condemn Hamas’ ruthless attack against Israeli citizens on Sunday.

Instead, Petro, a voracious poster on X/Twitter, wrote the following on the social media platform:


War has broken out again between Israel and Palestinian Gaza. In my speech at the United Nations I showed how world power treated the Russian occupation of Ukraine in one way and the Israeli occupation of Palestine in another, very different way…

From a very young age I studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I know of the immense injustice that the Palestinian people have suffered since 1948. Just as I know about the immense injustice that the Jewish people suffered at the hands of the Nazis in Europe since 1933.

If I had lived in Germany in ’33 I would have fought on the side of the Jews and if I had lived in Palestine in 1948 I would have fought on the Palestinian side.

Now the neo-Nazis want the destruction of the Palestinian people, freedom and culture. Now we democrats and progressives want peace to prevail and the Israeli and Palestinian people to be free.

“Unfortunate Messages”

Petro has also likened Gaza to Auschwitz as well as to the Warsaw Ghetto, which was destroyed by the German military after an uprising by Jews confined there. None of this, of course, has gone down well with the Israeli or US governments — or for that matter, opposition parties and much of the media at home.

“They are very unfortunate messages,” said Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Lior Haiat. “They demonstrate a lack of knowledge, not to say ignorance, and an enormous lack of respect. After the atrocities that we have seen from this barbaric attack, making the comparison that the president of Colombia made, I am sorry to say, but it is a comparison that has no basis.”

In an interview with the Colombian newspaper SEMANA, Israel’s ambassador in Bogota, Gali Dagan, called on the Colombian Government to raise its voice forcefully against terrorism.

“It is very difficult to find the common denominator between these two cases [of Ukraine and Palestine]. We hope that a country friendly to Israel will strongly and clearly condemn the terrorist attack against innocent civilians in the State of Israel.

Shortly after the attack on Saturday, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry did release a statement strongly condemning “terrorism and attacks against the civilian population.” But by the next day, the statement had been replaced by one that no longer mentioned the word “terrorism” or referred to Hamas by name.

Among the dozens of messages Petro has published or shared on Twitter/X since Sunday was a photo montage of some of the Palestinian children who have perished under Israeli occupation, alongside the following text (translated by yours truly):

The only way for Palestinian children to sleep in peace is for Israeli children to sleep in peace.

The only way for Israeli children to sleep in peace is for Palestinian children to sleep in peace.

War will never achieve this, it can only be achieved by a peace agreement that respects international legality and the right of the two peoples to exist free.

He also posted this graph showing the glaring disparity between Palestinian and Israeli deaths over the past 15 years of conflict:

​

Since then Petro has maintained a running commentary on developments in Israel and Gaza, repeatedly calling for peace negotiations. On Monday, he responded to Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Galant’s call for a total siege and blockade of Gaza and his description of Palestinians as “human animals” by warning:

“This is what the Nazis said about the Jews. Democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to re-establish itself in international politics. Israelis and Palestinians are human beings subject to international law. This hate speech if it continues will only bring a holocaust.”

On Thursday, Petro’s remarks finally elicited an official response from the US government on Thursday.

“We strongly condemn President Petro’s statements and call on him to condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, for its barbaric murder of Israeli men, women and children,” Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt of the office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS) said on X.

This is probably no idle warning. After all, Colombia is arguably Washington’s most important client state in Latin America. Its military has close ties not just with the US, largely as a result of Washington’s funding of Plan Colombia, but also Israel, which trains Colombian soldiers and sells them weapons and security tech. In 2017, Colombia became one of NATO’s global partners, and the Alliance’s first Latin American partner. Five years later, it was designated by the Biden Administration as one of the US’s 18 Major Non-Nato Allies (MNNAs). The five original MNNAs, established in 1987, were Australia, Egypt, Japan, South Korea and Israel.

Colombia also has seven formal US military bases on its soil and allegedly dozens of so-called “quasi-bases” — which differ from formal bases in no other way than that they lack a formal lease agreement for use of facilities — scattered around the country, particularly in areas rich in mineral resources and/or close to Colombia’s border with Venezuela, according to Schools of America Watch. As if that were not enough of a threat, the US is also amassing troops in neighbouring Ecuador and Peru.

Mixed Messages

Colombia is not the only Latin American country to have (so far) refused to condemn Hamas’ actions. Cuba, which has not had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1973, the year of the Yom Kippur War, called the current conflict “a consequence of 75 years of permanent violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and Israel’s aggressive and expansionist policies.” The government of Bolivia expressed “deep concern” about “violent events” in the “Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestine” while Venezuela’s government called for “genuine negotiations” between Israel and Palestine without expressly condemning the attacks.

Most other countries in the region, including Mexico and Brazil, did condemn the attacks, though few, with the notable exception of Nayib Bukele’s government in El Salvador, have expressed support for Israel’s unbridled retaliation. Some refused to mention the word “terrorism” or Hamas by name. As with the war in Ukraine, most countries seem to want to maintain some degree of neutrality on the issue.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, for example, said it “condemns the attacks suffered by the people of Israel (and) sends its condolences to the families of the victims.” It also “calls for an end to this inappropriate violence…to avoid an escalation that (will cause) greater…suffering to the civilian population… Every terrorist act constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”

The statement did not mention Hamas, and that was enough to draw Israel’s ire. The Israeli Embassy in Mexico expressed its “dissatisfaction” with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s statements in relation to the events in Israel and “deeply regretted that the Government of Mexico has not adopted a more energetic and determined position in the face of this situation.” It also noted that “maintaining a neutral position rather than taking sides ultimately means endorsing and supporting terrorism.”

In response, AMLO said:

The Israeli ambassador in Mexico says that she does not agree with our position, she has every right to say so, to express it, because we are free, we respect the Government of Israel and much more so the people of Israel, but we do not want war. We do not want violence. We are pacifists and we don’t want any human being of any nationality to lose their life, whether Israeli or Palestinian. We want the most important human right to be guaranteed, which is the right to life.

Brazil’s government was slightly more forceful in its condemnation and even projected the Israeli flag on the dome of the country’s National Congress in solidarity with the victims. The country is currently UN Security Council President and is leading efforts to negotiate a ceasefire to the conflict, so far to little avail.

“There is no justification for resorting to violence, especially against civilians,” the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “The Brazilian Government urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalating the situation.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da Silva expressed his “rejection of terrorism in any of its forms” and called for a two-state solution.

But like Mexico, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry did not use the word “terrorism” or refer to Hamas by name in its statement, to the consternation of the Israeli Embassy. “One of the things we said to the Foreign Minister is that there is no more serious example of terrorism,” said the Israeli ambassador. “It is the personification of terrorism. And the lack of this word in the Ministry’s statement is… I can’t speak against the government, but it betrays a lack, at least, of sensitivity.”

The US presumably feels the same and will be doing everything it can to bring LatAm countries into line. In its joint declaration with the governments of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, the Biden Administration told the world:

“We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned.”

But will the world listen? After all, the US and the EU do not have the strategic influence or soft power they once had, having squandered much of it on the costly wars they have waged and the brutal sanctions they have liberally imposed. For the past 20 months, the US and its NATO allies have been desperately trying to persuade Latin American countries to endorse their sanctions against Russia as well as furnish Ukraine with Russian-made weapons, to no avail.

At a recent summit in Brussels between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Latin American leaders rebuffed EU requests for Zelensky to attend as well as include in the final summit declaration a paragraph condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was a PR disaster for Brussels. In his closing statement at the Summit of the Peoples, a parallel event taking place in Brussels, Petro pilloried the EU’s obsession with the war in Ukraine, which he described as “a far-removed issue” for Latin America and the Caribbean:

“The EU has basically focused on a topic that was of fundamental interest to itself, but which is far-removed for us: the war in Ukraine. [It wanted] to point to the construction of a block in the world, Latin America and the European Union, coalescing around Zelensky and support for a political, economic and military strategy, obviously. That was its priority.”

Now the priority of the collective West is to coalesce support around blanket condemnation of Hamas’ hideous war crime while giving carte blanche to Israel to commit a far larger one — one that has so far entailed cutting off all basic services and supplies to Gaza and levelling large parts of the enclave, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of others.

The next move in Israel’s grotesque game plan, it seems, is to corral around 1.1 million people into the southern half of the enclave in preparation for what is likely to be a substantial ground offensive — with “devastating humanitarian consequences”, says the UN. And the ostensible liberal democracies of the West are fully on board while many are in the process of outlawing pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

A quick look at the map below shows just how out of synch the collective West is with Latin America — and for that matter, the rest of the world — on the Israel-Palestine question, and indeed has been for years. As of December 31 2019, every country in Latin America except Panama, Mexico and a few island states had recognised Palestine as a sovereign state. The same goes for 138 of the world’s 193 countries — representing over three-quarters of the global population.



Among the G20, nine countries had recognized Palestine as a state by the end of 2019. Seven of them are BRICS members, new and old (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey), the other two being Turkey and Indonesia. Ten G20 countries had not recognised Palestine (and still don’t). Six of them are NATO members (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Three of them are major non-NATO allies (Australia, South Korea and Japan). The other is Mexico.

But even that changed in June this year when Mexico’s AMLO government quietly reclassified the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic mission in Mexico from special delegation to embassy, despite huge pressure from the US State Department.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10 ... hamas.html

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President Petro Condemns Capitalism as ‘Building Walls and Dropping Bombs’ at WEF in Davos (+Fake Video)
JANUARY 18, 2024


Colombian President Gustavo Petro (right) and US billionaire Bill Gates (left) conversing during a panel at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, January 17, 2024. Photo: Office of Colombian Presidency.

Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, made a statement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he would like to see “the power of international law” restored, and the global financial system changed.

During his speech this Wednesday, January 17, at the “Addressing the North-South Schism” panel, the Colombian president referred to the need to reestablish “the power of international law,” which he noted “has practically fallen to pieces.”

On Tuesday, President Petro referred to his proposal to change public debt for environmental protection, especially in the Amazon, a region that he reiterated requires urgent climate action. According to him, a significant injection of resources is required to save the Amazon rainforest, estimated to be around $2.5 billion per year, which requires a significant change from public debt to climate action, and not the current model of “handouts”.

“We need a flow of approximately $2.5 billion a year to revitalize the already deforested space and to maintain over the years the construction of a bio-economy,” he said, “that is, an economy with the jungle and not against the jungle, which means sustaining it.”

Petro also referred to the Essequibo territorial dispute between Venezuelan and Guyana in this context, noting that oil extraction in the Essequibo territory—currently under Guyanese administration but claimed by Venezuela—should not continue. He also mentioned that the dispute was on the verge of turning into a military conflict, averted so far by Guyanese President Irfaan Ali’s acceptance of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s call for direct dialogue.



“What human life must consider is not who owns the Essequibo but that the oil from the Essequibo does not come out,” Petro said during the panel ‘Seeking a balance for the Amazon,’ “because, if it comes out, our fight against the climate crisis would just become an innocuous speech.”

Colombia’s position is that of “no more oil exploitation,” which is why—during the COP 28 Summit of 2023—it signed the fuel non-proliferation treaty last month in Dubai, “which only the islands that are about to disappear with their populations have so far signed,” Petro stated, underlining the importance of saving the Amazon region, which in his opinion is “the foundation of human life.”

From war to genocide
The Colombian president further recalled that a year ago, in the same forum, the term ‘polycrisis’ was coined. “I think that things have gotten worse because from war we went to genocide, to bombing children,” he said, referring to the Israeli occupation entity’s criminal bombing against the population of the Gaza Strip, Palestine, which has caused the death of at least 12,000 innocent children in less than 100 days.

In his opinion, the schism in the world is represented by “fortress capitalism, which builds walls and drops bombs.” When discussing solutions to the Israeli entity’s illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, he referred to the fact that the votes in the United Nations Security Council “have politically separated the Global North and the Global South.”


Smearing campaign
During his participation in the Davos Forum, President Petro was targeted in a new smear campaign, when a video montage that altered the official video of one of the president’s speeches at the forum was circulated and made viral in social media across Colombia. In the video montage, they made alterations to the president’s voice that implied that—at the time of making his statement—he had been drunk, or in a state of intoxication.

One of the Colombian far-right political figures who spread the false video on social media was Luis Guillermo Vélez, a member of the Democratic Center and the alderman of Medellín. When the video was proven to be a fake, the Uribista politician offered a public apology on social media: “Yesterday I posted a video where the president seemed drunk saying nonsense. Some friends told me it was an edited video and I took it down. I apologize to Gustavo Petro, and am publishing the original video,” he wrote.

President Petro responded to the apology in these terms: “You are a public servant and a university professor. Manipulating the truth to destroy the honor and morals of another public servant is conduct that breaks the disciplinary code,” he stated, before adding, “I accept your apology, and hope that other members of the opposition will abandon this practice of manipulation and falsehood.”

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

https://orinocotribune.com/president-pe ... ake-video/

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President Petro Denounces Attempt of Institutional Rupture and Coup in Colombia
FEBRUARY 4, 2024


Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Photo: EFE/File photo.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, denounced the attempt of a “serious rupture of institutional order,” referring to the investigation by the Attorney General’s Office against him, which he called unconstitutional.

Petro decried that the Colombian Attorney General’s Office has opted for disruption of institutional order to remove him from the presidency.

“They have decided to break the institutional order. As the president of the republic, I must warn the world of the mafia that has taken over the Attorney General’s Office, and I must ask the people for maximum mobilization,” the Colombian president wrote on social media.

He stressed that the judiciary cannot investigate a president “because legally a workers’ union contributed to a left-wing party [campaign].”

Gustavo Petro referred to the investigation carried out by the Attorney General’s Office for the alleged contribution of 500 million Colombian pesos (about $127,000) made by the Colombian Federation of Education Workers (FECODE) to Petro’s presidential campaign in 2022.


Petro explained that contributions made by a teachers’ union to a political party cannot be equated with contributions to political campaigns by drug traffickers like El Ñeñe.

“They consider the contribution by alias ‘el Ñeñe’ as legal; they consider the contribution of the teachers’ union as illegal because we are progressive,” Petro said.

Former President Iván Duque was accused of receiving funds from the deceased drug trafficker José Guillermo Hernández, alias “El Ñeñe” for his presidential campaign. However, the Colombian judiciary closed that case known as “Ñeñepolitics.”

“Unions have been raided; witnesses have been tortured and pressured to accuse the president, and they have not been successful,” Petro added. “Drug traffickers, perpetrators of crimes against humanity, corrupt politicians, and corrupt sectors of the Attorney General’s Office are desperately trying to remove the president elected by the people.”

The Colombian president stressed that the institutions are being used to create “the attorney general’s great masterpiece.”

“The Attorney General’s Office will ask for my impeachment without hiding that it has carried out an unconstitutional investigation against me, looking for the victory that the people did not grant them [the opposition],” he warned.

In this scenario, Gustavo Petro called on all human rights organizations, progressive parties, and workers’ movements in Colombia and the world to be attentive and join the grassroots response initiative.

(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón

https://orinocotribune.com/president-pe ... -colombia/

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POLITICAL TENSION CONTINUES TO INCREASE IN COLOMBIA
Feb 9, 2024 , 3:30 pm .


President Gustavo Petro and prosecutor Francisco Barbosa (Photo: Bloomberg)

Last Monday, February 5, we warned that a new case of lawfare in the region was being brewed against the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, whose maneuver implies a political war through judicial-media channels in order to achieve a change of regime through not conventional.

Likewise, we mentioned that there were signs of the beginning of a process of persecution against members of the government to reduce the power of the president, by Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, former President Iván Duque's file, who put the institution at the service of the conservative elites. Barboza's term ends next February 12 and in these last days he extremes his positions against Petro.

The scenario of confrontation became more evident this Thursday, February 8, when the Supreme Court of Justice reported that it had failed to elect the nation's new Prosecutor, which caused protesters to gather in front of the headquarters of this institution located in the capital of the country. The Supreme Court of Justice has to choose between Amelia Pérez, Ángela María Buitrago or Luz Adriana Camargo.

The protesters, mostly made up of union organizations, demanded a delay in the definition of the new authority of the Public Ministry and demanded that the Court immediately elect one of the three candidates for the Prosecutor's Office proposed by Petro since last year. The protest also sought to prevent the Prosecutor's Office from being temporarily in charge of Deputy Prosecutor Marta Mancera , right hand of the outgoing authority and who may possibly continue the war against the Petro government.

In anticipation of the soft coup against him, Gustavo Petro had called for marches, as did right-wing leaders arguing that the president was seeking to impose a revolution.

Regarding the delay in the process to elect the new authority, and thereby stop the constitutional rupture orchestrated by Barbosa, Petro said that sectors outside the Supreme Court of Justice and linked to drug trafficking and corruption seek to interrupt his mandate. For its part, the Court raised the tone and accused the Executive of putting democracy “in suspense.”


Different audiovisual materials show that there were infiltrators who tried to change the tone of the peaceful protest that had been taking place in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice, as reported by several users on social networks. It should be noted that a scenario of violence would contribute to strengthening the opposition narrative that Petro wants to generate chaos to impose a “revolution”, a stigma that they have wanted to project because the President was linked to leftist movements.

Everything indicates that political tensions in Colombia will continue to grow as long as prosecutor Francisco Barbosa, an open opponent, continues to hold office or maintain his influence in the institution to try to overthrow Petro via lawfare, a maneuver that has been used against other progressive governments of the region.

Unfortunately, President Petro could well trust the efforts and calls that institutions like the OAS could make in favor of the democratic stability of his country. A brief summary of his actions in recent years confirms that the organization is a source of destabilization, if we do not see the coup against Evo Morales in 2019.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/si ... n-colombia

Google Translator

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Journalist David Escobar: President Petro’s Total Peace Is Necessary for Colombia but Requires Political Will of All
MARCH 8, 2024


Poster of Orinoco Tribune's interview with Colombian journalist and documentarian David Escobar. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.

The Total Peace project promoted by the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, is essential for the Colombian society, but it requires political will on all sides to be a reality, commented Colombian journalist and documentary filmmaker David Escobar in an interview with Orinoco Tribune.

“The goal that the government of Gustavo Petro has with Total Peace is something necessary for the Colombian society… but not all groups have political will,” which makes it a difficult goal to achieve, he said.

David Escobar is a Colombian journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Cali, in the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia. He graduated in journalism and communication from the Universidad del Valle. As a documentarian, he has produced and directed several documentaries, such as Colombia: Young Protesters Dead and Disappeared, Paren de Matarnos, and has worked as a researcher for another documentary, Bajo Fuego. He also covered in detail the 2021 National Strike of Colombia.

In an interview with Orinoco Tribune on Monday, March 4, Escobar discussed various recent developments in Colombia, including the current state of the Total Peace process and the attempts by the Colombian right wing to remove President Petro from power.



Total Peace
When asked what President Petro’s Total Peace program means, Escobar explained that Petro is trying to bring all armed groups in Colombia—both revolutionary movements and paramilitary gangs—under an umbrella of peace process in order to stabilize the Colombian state and society. “Here in Colombia, historically there have been many peace processes. You can see the latest one with ELN, the peace process with FARC before that, the process with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and Justice with paramilitary groups, the peace process that led to the 91 constitution, and so on,” he explained. “Nevertheless, after the armed groups give up their weapons, even if they are paramilitaries that are serving de facto right-wing power, they are killed, they are executed.”

Escobar went on to explain that the same happened with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that signed the 2016 Peace Accords with the government of Colombia. “Hundreds of former FARC members have been killed and the peace agreements have not been accomplished… because of the lack of political will, and the paramilitary groups that remain in the territory, and former guerrilla members who went back to the mountains to continue being an armed group.”

Moreover, the armed revolutionary movement National Liberation Army (ELN) was not part of any peace process before, and the ongoing peace process intends to find a solution between the organization and the Colombian government. The Petro administration also plans to disarm the paramilitary and narco-trafficking gangs and allow their members to reintegrate into society. “So, basically, what Petro means by Total Peace is to achieve a peace agreement with all these groups. That’s a huge purpose, very difficult to achieve,” Escobar explained.

Moreover, there are legitimate concerns of some guerrillas of being killed once they surrender their weapons, as has happened to ex-FARC members and all other former guerrilla organizations. “There is also the sabotage from the right wing groups, the paramilitary groups,” Escobar added. “And I think, as it has been the custom here, there is interference from foreign intelligence agencies” such as Mossad and CIA.



Judiciary against Petro
When consulted about the current crisis in the Colombian judiciary regarding the selection of the new attorney general, David Escobar explained that former Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, whose term ended recently, worked hard to block the selection of his successor in order to provide the right wing with time and opportunity to coup the Petro government. On February 12, the day Barbosa’s term ended, he imposed his Deputy Attorney General Martha Mancera as the “interim attorney general” until the Supreme Court elects the new attorney general from the shortlist of three names proposed by President Petro in August 2023.

Martha Mancera is accused of having ties with narco-trafficking gangs from Buenaventura, of the Valle del Cauca region. She has also faced criticism for not investigating the massacres and the murders of social leaders that continue in Colombia. “The point here is that many people close to former President Iván Duque and also senators and politicians from the right are related to drug trafficking, so they need an attorney general to protect them, to close all the investigations,” Escobar explained. “So these de facto powers don’t want the election of the general attorney that has been proposed according to law… by President Gustavo Petro.”

According to the journalist, the right wing wants to remove Petro from power because “the program and policies of President Petro are not aligned with neoliberalism. His democratic policies include the recovery of the public sphere, a state of social wellbeing that’s more like Keynesian state. And the right wing politics is fighting to preserve its power and privileges in these spheres.”

“Petro has been giving the properties seized from the drug capos to peasants, or to the victims of violence,” he continued. “Even if it is not at a percentage that we would like to see, still the right wing does not want to leave it in his hands, because they were enjoying these properties by paying very low taxes, or having the control of many state institutions through corrupt contracts.”

Future of progressive forces in Colombia
Regarding the future of the progressive movement led by Petro, Escobar stressed that the possibility of progressive forces being able to maintain power in Colombia “is not something that we can take for granted. As in many other countries here in Latin America, there is a possibility of the right wing to be back in power.”

Moreover, due to the existence of presidential term limits in Colombia, progressive forces must look for some alternative to Petro if the movement is to continue. The Colombian presidential race is expected to start next year, but at the moment neither the right nor the left has any potential candidate. According to Escobar, the Colombian left must aim for holding political power, but achieving it will be difficult. One of the major factors sabotaging the left is the continued murder of social leaders by paramilitary gangs, as it is a way of politically disconnecting the government from the bases.

The ongoing political changes in Colombia are also reflected in the media. Although Colombian mainstream media still holds considerable economic and political power and acts as an arm of the Colombian right and the de facto powers including organized crime, several alternative media projects are coming up throughout the country and reaching a considerable public. In this regard Escobar named the renowned journalist Hollman Morris who is now serving as the director of the public television channel RTVC.

“There is also mobile phone communication to fight this [media] warfare,” he added. “Are we winning this warfare? Are we losing this warfare?… The struggle in this camp is a symbolic fight and it needs to reach the public.”

Although there remains a lot of work to be done by the Colombian left in the media warfare, “I think we are winning as a society when we have this capability to inform ourselves,” Escobar concluded.

https://orinocotribune.com/journalist-d ... ll-of-all/