Colombia

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 11, 2022 1:41 pm

Indepaz Reports Worrying Number of Killed in Colombia

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930 social leaders have been killed during Iván Duque's administration in Colombia, Indepaz reported. Jun. 10, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@AlfonsoJavierL5

Published 10 June 2022 (8 hours 41 minutes ago)

Over two thousand people have been killed during Iván Duque's term in office, Indepaz reported.

According to the latest report by the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), more than two thousand people have been killed in Colombia in the last four years due to the mismanagement of security by the government of Iván Duque, the entity said.

The report says that between August 7, 2018, and June 4, 2022, a total of 930 social leaders were killed, of which 126 were women.

The report says that peasants, indigenous people and mainly social leaders, human rights defenders and even demobilized members of the FARC-EP are among those most affected.

Indepaz informed that among the signatories of the 2016 Peace Accord in Havana, the number of people killed amounted to 245. Meanwhile, a total of 261 massacres were documented during this period with a balance of 1 144 victims.

The government of Iván Duque subjected us to a cycle of violence due to its lack of commitment to the implementation of peace and its ineffective security strategy. According to Indepaz, 930 leaders and 245 ex-combatants have been assassinated in his government.

The organization ranked Cauca, Antioquia, Nariño, Valle del Cauca and Putumayo among the five departments most affected by such violence.

According to researchers, these figures are close to the worst period of violence recorded in recent decades, specifically between 2002 and 2006, when the government of Alvaro Uribe was in power.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ind ... -0026.html

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They denounce the murder of a social leader in Antioquia, Colombia

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Madrid López became the 84th leader assassinated in 2022 and the 1,311th since the signing of the 2016 peace agreement. | Photo: AA
Published June 10, 2022

According to Indepaz, the 45-year-old leader was killed after receiving shotgun fire in various parts of his body.

The Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) of Colombia denounced this Thursday the murder of a social leader in the municipality of Tarazá, located in the northwestern department of Antioquia.

"Danilo de Jesús Madrid López was a recognized leader and current vice president of the Community Action Board of the Doradas Altas village, located in the municipality of Tarazá," the entity wrote on its Twitter account.

According to Indepaz, the 45-year-old leader was killed after receiving shotgun fire in various parts of his body.


Madrid López thus became the 84th leader assassinated in 2022 and the 1,311th since the signing of the 2016 peace agreement.

Likewise, the institute explained that the Ombudsman's Office issued an early warning of electoral risk where "it is evident that fragile alliances are being forged between the groups to resist or facilitate the entry of other armed groups."

The non-governmental organization stressed that the chances of events like this occurring in the area are high, since disputes are taking place between groups to increase the area of ​​influence.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/denuncia ... -0036.html

Google Translator

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Colombia: World Power of Life or Neo-Fascist Pillar?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 8, 2022

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Colombia: World Power of Life or Neo-Fascist Pillar?Francia Marquez and Gustavo Petro (Photo: @darwintorres_22 Twitter)

The leftist Historical Pact emerged as the favorite of Colombian voters in the recent election. But rightist forces are working to prevent Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez from winning in the second round and becoming President and Vice President of Colombia.

A new and devastating utopia of life, where no one can decide for others even how to die, where love is truly true and happiness is possible… Gabriel García Márquez


We live at a historical crossroads, an era of civilizational crisis where life and death are at stake worldwide, a situation in which Colombia faces a deep dilemma. On May 29, 2022, around 21 million citizens voted in Colombia’s national elections to elect its executive branch. The victory of the Historical Pact “Colombia Can” comes to the fore, an alignment of the new left with Gustavo Petro as president and Francia Márquez as vice-presidential formula. It is the first time that a left-wing coalition has triumphed in a presidential election in Colombia, adding 8.5 million votes, the largest number obtained in the first electoral round by any political group in the country’s history. On June 19, a second round will be held to decide the two main executive positions, since no one obtained more than 50% of the vote.

It was a Sunday of multiple passions and conflicting expectations, revealing the political and ideological plurality of one of the countries with the greatest ethnic-racial, ecological, cultural, and regional diversity in the Americas and in the world. Colombia is a stronghold, a key player in the geopolitical strategy of the United States, with nine military bases that are pillars of the Southern Command. As Secretary of State in the Barack Obama administration, Hillary Clinton characterized Colombia as “the most stable democracy in Latin America”, thus defending the so-called “democratic security” policy of then President Álvaro Uribe, which left an equation of millions of displaced by the armed conflict, along with tens of thousands of murdered and disappeared social leaders and trade unionists, consolidating a regime of violence and corruption that still prevails in the country. The imperial eyes are set on the Colombian elections.

Since the parliamentary elections and the consultation for presidential candidacies on March 13, 2022, the most notable political fact have been the triumph of the duo Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez of the Historical Pact, itself product of the alliance of a multiplicity of movements—Afro-descendants, Indigenous, peasants, youth, students, feminists, LGTBQ+, urban, workers, ecological, pacifists—a broad constellation of demands that invigorate and combine the country’s social, cultural, and political struggles. The “Pact” represents a coalition, a discourse and a program that reinvents the Latin American left, due to its fully democratic vocation and its intersectional politics that articulates a plurality of identities, struggles and demands. Gustavo Petro, the most prominent progressive political figure in Colombia, who was mayor of Bogotá, is the third time he has participated in the presidential contest, achieving second place with more than 8 million votes in the 2018 elections.

The biggest novelty in Colombian politics is the candidacy of Francia Márquez, first for the presidency, and once she comes second in the March 13 consultation, for the country’s second executive position.[1] Francia is an Afro-descendant lawyer and activist who emerges on the national stage with her leadership of the struggles of her rural mining community “La Toma”, in the Department of Cauca. She began as the leader of the communal council of her neighborhood in Suàrez, Cauca, and as a social movement activist, particularly the Process of Black Communities-PCN, a social movement organization that has spearheaded efforts in favor of autonomy, territorial integrity , against racism, in opposition to the neoliberal paradigms of development, in favor of peace with justice, human rights, ethnic-racial and cultural identity, differentiated citizenship and substantive democracy, from its bases in Black communities, throughout the country.

In 2015, Francia emerged forcefully onto the national stage as the main organizer of the March of the Turbans, a week-long pilgrimage from Cauca to the capital city of Bogotá, protesting the destruction of the environment and the assassination of leaders in the community of “La Toma”. The slogan Black Women March for Life and in Defense of their Territories served as a paradigmatic example in denouncing the violation of lives and territories in Black, Indigenous, and Peasant communities across the country.

Francia Márquez, enunciating a new discourse of protection of the “common home”, mother nature, brandishing the banner of life against the destruction, both of the environment and of human lives, which prevails in Colombia due to the formations of violence promoted by armed actors (paramilitaries, guerrillas, army) and the neoliberal model, won the Goldman Prize for environmental justice in 2018, and emerged as vox populi during the 2021 National Strike. In this context, the Soy Porque Somos Movement emerged,[2] which launched her presidential candidacy advocating for a broad project of justice and peace, against the web of violence and injustices—social, ethnic-racial, ecological, patriarchal—that abound in the country.

The inclusion of Francia Márquez as a candidate for Vice-President added to Gustavo Petro’s presidential campaign the voice of a Black woman from the popular-rural sector, with authenticity and clarity in her criticism of inequalities and oppression, and a sharp speech of change not before seen in the Colombian national political scene. It is important to recognize that Gustavo Petro’s discourse was enriched by Francia Márquez, giving greater prominence to problems such as racism and sexism and, therefore, to the demands of Afro-descendants, Indigenous people, feminists and LGTBQ+ sectors. In this key, the Historical Pact sows the seed of a new way of doing politics, for a more plural and profound project of liberation.

The political discourse of the Historical Pact can be summed up in three slogans: Gustavo Petro’s assertion that its main purpose is to turn Colombia into “a world power of life”, and Francia Márquez’s affirmations, “Let’s go from resistance to power until dignity becomes customary”, and we want to build a kind of country where you can “Vivir Sabroso”.[3] The call to turn Colombia into “a world power of life” is a statement for peace, an alert to combat necropolitics, the forces of death, evident both in the daily sum of political assassinations and femicides, and in the serious increase in insecurity and social inequality. That is why it is fundamentally a cry for peace with social justice.

In that vein, when Francia Márquez speaks of the movement “of resistance to power until dignity becomes customary”, she states the imperative need for a substantive change in the political equation of the country, that is, a deepening of democracy where the “nadies”—black people, indigenous people, peasants, young people, from the urban popular sector, LGTBQ+, etc—who are excluded from political power, come to govern the country.[4] “Vivir Sabroso” is an Afro-descendant vernacular expression from the Chocó region to name the ideal of life, which in the mouth of Francia Márquez has become an ethical-political principle to signify the will to rebuild the country for the sake of a politics for life based on ideals of justice, peace, equity, and hope, a “politics of love” to recreate the nation.

From another angle of vision, the great surprise of the elections of May 29, 2022, was the achievement of second place by Rodolfo Hernández, a millionaire tycoon from the construction industry, who was mayor of the city of Bucaramanga in the Department of Santander, with almost 6 million votes, which constitute 28% of the electorate, forcing this to a second round of elections to decide the executive. Hernández surprised by beating the former mayor of Medellín—the second most important city in Colombia—Federico Gutiérrez, recognized as the opposition candidate against the Historical Pact, promoted by the political and economic elites that govern the country.

These ruling classes see Petro and France as a serious threat to their prevailing regime of injustice and corruption. Rodolfo Hernández emerged at the last minute to second place with a simple moralistic rhetoric against corruption, manifested in his slogan “Do not steal, do not lie, do not betray.” He claims to be outside the political class despite being an elected politician facing legal charges of corruption. His authoritarian populist discourse is nourished by his express admiration for “a German thinker named Adolf Hitler”, as he declared in a television interview. In that vein, in another interview, Hernandez said that he could dispense with the legislative power to govern, because he intends to preside directly with “the people”, to which he added that his government management could well be sustained by declaring the “state of shock” (or state of exception) by the executive.[5]

His neo-fascist sensibility is fueled by his misogynistic statements that women are not meant for politics, but “to stay home and cook.” These demonstrations are related to their xenophobic expressions against immigrant women from Venezuela in Colombia who, according to Hernández, are only “machines to give birth to poor babies.” This type of disdain for subaltern sectors is also evident in his description of families from the popular sector who are indebted to their housing projects as “little men who live in debt to me.” We wonder to what extent the electorate is aware of these actions and how they interpret them. Expressions of support on social networks indicate that a sector of the electorate sees Hernández as a benevolent patriarch with the will to “save the country”, as he stated in his triumphant speech on May 29, celebrating being declared a contender for Gustavo Petro by the presidency in the second electoral round.

Despite his claim of independence from the country’s political elites, the official leadership has expressed support for Hernández, beginning with former President Álvaro Uribe along with the main political figures associated with Uribismo such as Senator María Fernanda Cabal and Paloma Hernández. In conservative concert, in his public speech accepting that he lost the elections, Federico Gutiérrez expressed his intention to vote for Hernández, stating that “we do not want to lose the country”, while accusing Petro of being “a danger to freedoms, the economy, our families and our children”. With this move, Gutierrez promoted a rhetoric of fear to the “socialist threats”, marking an ideological route for the political contest to come.

The coming to the main arena of Colombian politics of Rodolfo Hernández can give a clearly neo-fascist character to Colombian power scene. His speech and strategy are more similar to the new right-wingers like Trump and Bolsonaro than to the old leaders of the Colombian right-wing like Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque, who were defeated by popular will in the May 29 election. Uribe masked his authoritarianism with a rhetoric of “democratic security”, did not engaged in misogenous language, and made gestures of recognition of excluded ethnic-racial groups. Again, it is important to bear in mind that the majority of the active electorate voted for Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez, while Rodolfo Hernández declared himself independent of political groups.

However, Hernández voted against peace in the 2018 plebiscite, defends heavy-handed policies, and enunciates an authoritarian populist discourse related not only to Uribe, but even more so to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. His affinities with Trump are revealed in his corporate projection of politics that celebrates him as a prosperous capitalist. Also, Hernandez’s political advisor, David Lopez, was the one who designed Trump’s campaign to attract the Latino vote. Hernandez’s similarities with Bolsonaro are seen in his electoral strategy through social networks, pragmatically identifying what message he is giving to each sector, and refusing to participate in presidential debates.

His affinity with both Bolsonaro and Trump is evident in his aggressive, belligerent, misogynistic and xenophobic speech that is demonstrated both in his speech and in his attitudes of insulting and violating any different opinion. His physical assault on councilor Jhon Claro, when he was mayor of Bucaramanga, has been widely seen on Colombian television. Hernandez’s authoritarian sensibilities, along with his lack of political experience on the national stage, coupled with his lack of a historical project for the country, in a serious context of crisis and polarization, make up a perfect formula for neo-fascism.

In a country that has one of the highest scales of inequality in the world, which maintains the highest rates of forced displacement and food insecurity (or hunger), in addition to the highest levels of murder of social leaders and trade unionists, the plainly pragmatic and demagogically post-ideological political character of Rodolfo Hernández, combined with his lack of a clear government program, point to the danger of the consolidation of a neo-fascist regime in the event of of winning the elections in the second round on June 19.

Colombia’s historical dilemma in the presidential elections of June 19, 2022 is clearly outlined as one between facilitating the path towards consolidating a neo-fascist regime or cultivating a politics to transform the country into “a world power for life”, as Francia Márquez says for “Vivir Sabroso” (“Living Tasty”). Playing this drum, Gabriel García Márquez, forty years ago, in his memorable speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize in 1982, said, as if prophesying this moment: “We, the inventors of fables, who believe everything, feel we have the right to believe, that it is not too long yet. too late to undertake the creation of the opposite utopia. A new and devastating utopia of life where no one can decide for others even how to die, where love is truly true and happiness is possible, and where the lineages condemned to 100 years of solitude have finally and forever a second chance on earth.”

[1] Francia Márquez, with around 800, 000 votes, came second, after Gustavo Petro, among the candidates for the presidency of the Historical Pact in the March 13 consultation. France came in third place of the candidates of all political parties in said consultation, which placed it as the third presidential force in the Colombian political scene.

[2] Soy Porque Somos which literally translates as “I am because we are”, deliberately invokes the Africana category Ubuntu, that signifies the “good life” in Africana political theory based on a condition of harmony between human beings as well as with all beings including nature and ancestry.

[3] A literal translation of “Vivir Sabroso” will be “living tasty”.

[4] Francia Márquez has taken the expression the “nadies” (which translates as “the nobodies”)” from the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, turning it into a category to signify the excluded political subjectivities that she represents, and whose rise to the center of political power constitutes a kind of political revolution in the country.

[5] The concept of “authoritarian populism” was conceived by the Afro-British intellectual-activist Stuart Hall to characterize the discourse and politics of Margaret Thatcher who attracted wide support in the British citizenry with a harangue of “representing the people” above the interests of the ruling political class. In the broad and diverse debate on Latin American populism there is a consensus that the figure of the caudillo is a common element to populism as a discourse and as a government strategy. In the debates, a distinction is made between right-wing populism, where we place authoritarian populism and left-wing populism.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... st-pillar/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:07 pm

Colombian Police on Alert Over Possible Electoral Violence

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Colombia's police on highest alert over election violence. | Photo: Twitter @New_Narrative

Published 16 June 2022 (1 hours 10 minutes ago)

The Colombian Police is on high alert after detecting plans by radical groups to incite violence during Sunday's presidential runoff.

The director of the Colombian National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, explained on Tuesday that, according to intelligence information, there are plans by some groups to commit criminal acts and incite violence after ignoring the electoral results of next Sunday, June 19.

"We have encountered intentions to generate acts of violence that have been called through social networks, apocryphal profiles, anonymous profiles in the dark web and in the deep web, where they call to commit violent acts and disregard the electoral results," Vargas said.

The general did not present evidence to hold a candidate or a political organization responsible, however, he mentioned the so-called front lines, violent radical groups accused of riots, looting, and acts of vandalism during last year's anti-government demonstrations.

These groups, accused of road blockades and attacks on public transport systems in major cities, are mostly made up of hooded youths who use wooden shields and confront police with stones, clubs and even firearms, security sources indicate.


In recent months, the Colombian National Police has carried out 57 operations, arresting 267 members of the radical groups, including some linked to looting and vandalism carried out during large-scale anti-government protests in 2021, reads a statement issued by the police.

Colombians will go to the polls on June 19 to choose the country's new president between leftist Gustavo Petro and independent businessman Rodolfo Hernandez.

Whoever wins will have to lead the country for the period 2022-2026. In the first round, held last May 29, Petro obtained around 8.5 million votes, and Hernandez 5.9 million.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0002.html

This is so farcical as to be insulting. The revolutionary Left is in tatters, Petro is proly to the right of Bernie Sanders. It is the police, the army and the contra gangs that will endanger the election.

Colombian Court Orders Petro and Hernandez To Hold a Debate

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Colombian Court rules the organization of a debate for the Presidential Candidates within 48 hours. Jun. 15, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@CDN37

Published 15 June 2022 (12 hours 20 minutes ago)

According to the Superior Court of Bogota, the two presidential candidates, Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez, should hold at least two debates until Thursday.

On Tuesday, the Superior Court of Bogota, Colombian issued a titular action requested by a group of citizens, where the two Presidential candidates, Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez, should coordinate a joint plan of at least two debates within 48 hours during non-working hours and on a national TV or radio channel to inform the people about their government program before Sunday's elections.

The ruling establishes that receiving truthful and impartial information is a right of the citizens to be able to know their candidates. The same criticized both candidates for refusing to hold these meetings during the electoral period. The order must be implemented immediately and appeals cannot suspend it.

However, Rodolfo Hernández, candidate for the Liga Gobernantes Anticorrupción, said he opposed the order asserting that participation in the debates is not an obligation for the candidates for the Presidency.

The businessman said that he has previously presented his agenda with clear language and is easily accessible on his social networks. After the first round, the Colombian politician had already announced that he would not attend debates with his rival.

Court orders to organize debate between Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández no later than June 16

The second round of the Colombian presidential elections is scheduled for June 19. After the first round, the first electoral polls indicated that Petro and Hernandez would have a very close result, an almost technical tie.

However, a new poll carried out by the firm Yanhaas for the local channel RCN Televisión, RCN Radio, and the newspaper La República shows that the presidential candidate for the leftist alliance Pacto Histórico leads the preferences for the runoff.

Whoever wins will have to lead the country for the period 2022-2026. In the first round, held last May 29, Petro obtained around 8.5 million votes, and Hernandez 5.9 million.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0016.html

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Who is Gustavo Petro, presidential candidate in Colombia?

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Petro is on the verge of becoming the first president to represent Colombia's progressive and democratic sectors. | Photo: EFE
Published June 15, 2022

The history of the Colombian leader, who is trying for the third time to reach the Palacio de Nariño, has been marked by threats against his life, exile and political persecution.

Economist, public administrator, specialist in the environment and population development, Gustavo Petro, at 62 years old and at the head of the Historical Pact coalition, could become this Sunday the first left-wing president in the history of Colombia.

Petro, who has Francia Márquez as his running mate, will compete in the second electoral round for the presidency of the South American country against the right-wing populist candidate Rodolfo Hernández and the polls give him an advantage in the intention of the vote.

The history of the Colombian leader, who is trying for the third time to reach the Palacio de Nariño, seat of the Executive power, has been marked by threats against his life, exile and political persecution.

Petro was born on April 9, 1960 in Ciénaga de Oro, in the northern department of Córdoba, he is the oldest of three children.

His father Gustavo Petro Sierra and his mother Nubia Urrego moved to the municipality of Zipaquirá, in the department of Cundinamarca, in 1970, the year in which Misael Pastrana won the presidency of Colombia in the midst of irregularities, questions that gave life to the guerrilla of the M-19.

Gustavo Petro attended his first years at the Colegio de La Salle de Zipaquirá, his time was divided between studies and the activities he developed in La Carta del Pueblo, a local newspaper that he had founded with his friends from school.

Petro joined the M-19 guerrilla in 1978. There he carried out political tasks that led him into hiding. He was captured, tortured and sentenced to a year and a half in prison.

In 1990 the demobilization of the M-19 took place. Petro became one of the advisers to the constituents of 1991. Years later he obtained a degree in economics from the Externado de Colombia University.

His political career began in 1981 as a representative of Zipaquirá. In 1984 he was a councilman, he reached the House of Representatives in 1991 and from there he went to the Senate. He was the first congressman to uncover the relations between politicians and paramilitaries.


In 2012, Petro became the mayor of Bogotá, a function from which he denounced the mafias in the garbage business and proposed to change the system.

The execution of the new model, a year later, cost him the dismissal of his position and he was disqualified for 15 years to hold public office.

In 2018, the case reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which declared the Colombian State responsible for the violations of Gustavo Petro's political rights.

Petro, after this journey that he has traveled without pause, is on the verge of becoming the first president who represents the progressive and democratic sectors of the Colombian left.

Government Program.

Petro and Márquez have made the environmental fight the backbone of their government program. If he wins the elections, he intends to make a transition in energy matters and change oil and coal for renewable energies.


In his government program, he proposes to move towards a productive economy based on respect for nature, "leaving behind the exclusive dependence on the extractivist model and democratizing the use of clean energy to generate national capacities that allow us to face the effects of climate change" .

In economic matters, the Historical Pact, if won, will seek "a development of macroeconomic stability at the service of citizens, which implies a comprehensive and functional approach to finances, where employment, distribution and sources of growth have the same importance as the payment of the debt and the control of inflation”.

Petro has synthesized his proposals in this statement: to achieve "the progress, prosperity and well-being of all Colombians."

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0004.html

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 20, 2022 1:55 pm

Colombia: LatAm Leaders Celebrate Petro’s Historic Victory

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Latin American leaders react to the triumph of Gustavo Petro in Colombia. | Photo: Twitter @IRMAFERREYRA1

Published 20 June 2022 (5 hours 37 minutes ago)

Latin American heads of state, former presidents, and public figures congratulate the “historic” victory of Gustavo Petro, Francia Marquez, and the Colombian people in the second round of the presidential elections.

Preliminary results of the electoral pre-count by Colombia's National Registrar's Office reveal that Gustavo Petro has defeated his rival, Rodolfo Hernandez, in the second round of the country's presidential election.

In view of this situation, the high authorities of several Latin American countries reacted to the victory of the leftist leader, among them the President of Colombia himself, Iván Duque.

From Cuba, President Miguel Díaz-Canel described the victory of the Colombian politician as a "historic popular victory", while he expressed his desire to promote "the development of bilateral relations for the welfare of our peoples".


I express my most fraternal congratulations to Gustavo Petro for his election as President of Colombia in a historic popular victory. We reiterate willingness to advance in the development of bilateral relations for the well-being of our peoples.


Likewise, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro congratulated Petro's "historic victory", indicating that "new times are on the horizon for our brother country". It is worth mentioning that during Duque's administration, both nations experienced the rupture of their bilateral relations.


I congratulate Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez for their historic victory in the Presidential elections in Colombia. The will of the Colombian people, who came out to defend the path of democracy and peace, was heard. New times are in sight for this sister country.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, stated that Petro's triumph "may be the end of that curse and the dawn for that brotherly and worthy people", thus referring to the assassination of the liberal candidate Eliécer Gaitán, which led to a violent outbreak that lasted for decades in Colombia.

In Chile, the head of state Gabriel Boric congratulated the Colombian president-elect and encouraged Latin America to unite in facing the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

In addition, Xiomara Castro of Honduras congratulated the brave Colombians for opting for "a historic social change".


On behalf of the people of Honduras, I congratulate the brave people of Colombia for electing the historic social change that the President-elect
@petrogustavo represents today.


Likewise, governments of other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador sent their congratulations. "The triumph obtained by Petro and Marquez fills me with joy", said the Argentinean president, Alberto Fernandez. While Ecuador's Guillermo Lasso reiterated his willingness to "strengthen friendship and cooperation, prioritizing development and integration" between both peoples.

In turn, the Bolivian Luis Arce congratulated the people and president of Colombia on their victory. "Latin American integration is strengthened. We join the celebration of the Colombian people," he said. The Peruvian president expressed his country's support to his newly elected peer, calling Petro's success ”historic" and "democratic".

On Twitter, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, as well as former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed their support for the winner of Colombia's presidential election.


We congratulate the people of Colombia, the brother @petrogustavo, the newly elected president, and the sister @FranciaMarquezM, the first Afro-descendant vice president in the history of that country, for their indisputable victory at the polls. It is the victory of peace, truth, and dignity.

"Latin America in celebration: Gustavo Petro the new president of Colombia. Long live Colombia! Long live the Patria Grande! Until victory always!" wrote Correa.

Lula congratulated Petro and the Colombian nation, "His victory strengthens democracy and progressive forces in Latin America," he said.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0002.html

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President-elect of Colombia: We want the country to be one and not two in the midst of its diversity

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In addition, Petro asserted that it will develop a productive economy that generates employment and enhances the country's development. | Photo: EFE
Published June 19, 2022 (9 hours 45 minutes ago)

"This is a historic day, we are writing a new era for Colombia and Latin America," emphasized Gustavo Petro.

The elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, asserted this Sunday that his new government will be based on dialogue and the construction of a country with social justice based on diversity and plurality.

"This is a historic day, we are writing a new era for Colombia and Latin America (...) The more than 11 million voters opted for a real change, we are not going to betray that electorate, starting today Colombia, it changes, it is another, a real change that leads us to some of the approaches that we had made in these public squares, the politics of love," Petro said.

At the same time, the president-elect insisted on building a country based on reconciliation, "it is not a change to take revenge or build more hatred, our parents and grandparents did not teach what hate means in the history of Colombia, the change consists in leaving hatred behind, sectarianism," he added.


"Change means welcoming hope, the possibility of a future, opening opportunities for all Colombians to hope, that hope can fill all the national territory, it means that the Government of hope has arrived," Petro said.

Alluding to the arrests of demonstrators, Petro asked the attorney general to carry out the procedures for their subsequent release, "the change would not be right, the hope this enormous effort that synthesizes in the polls, a government of life if we did not bring Colombian society to peace," he added.


"I ask the attorney general to restore the mayors to their posts, this is no longer the time for hatred, this government that begins on August 7 is a government of life, which wants to build Colombia as a world power. of life, that if we want to summarize what it consists of in three sentences, I would say: peace, social justice, and environmental justice," urged the president-elect.

Likewise, Petro urged the voters of Rodolfo Hernández to join the new project for the construction of a Colombia in peace, "the central objective that means being able to make peace, that the ten million voters of Rodolfo Hernández are welcome in this Government" , he pointed out.

Economy, climate change and regions
The president-elect asked social leaders to build a common agenda, "we need a regional dialogue that allows us to look at the conflict in its historical, regional specificity, in these regional dialogues, the diversity of Colombia must come, with the majority of peasants, indigenous and women, to be able to build the reforms that Colombia needs," he said.

"The great agreement is to build peace, and peace is nothing more than the guarantee of the rights of the people, that Colombian society has an opportunity, that someone like me or like Francia Márquez can be vice president," said Petro, who He also stated that the national dialogue will be the basis of his Government.


In addition, Petro asserted that he will develop a productive economy that generates employment and enhances the country's development, "we are going to develop capitalism in Colombia, not because we love it but because we must end feudalism in Colombia," he added.

"If we want to redistribute, we have to produce in the field, the industry, based on the knowledge that is what it produces in the 21st century, produce a regulator that does not affect nature, water, the moor, supporting nature that means environmental justice," said Gustavo Petro.

The new head of state asserted that Colombia will be positioned as a flag in the fight against climate change, "science has told us that we can perish in the short term, that the process of unbridled consumption is about to end the very foundations of nature. If science tells us this, it's time to act now," he said.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0036.html

Google Translator

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Colombia Presidential Candidate Rodolfo Hernández’s Miami Yacht Party Sparks Scandal
JUNE 18, 2022

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Footage from Rodolfo Hernández's Pfizer-sponsored yacht party in Miami that has generated scandal in Colombia. Photo: Cambio.

Just days before the second round of the presidential elections in Colombia, a Colombian media outlet released images and video of an exotic party in which Rodolfo Hernández, the candidate of the League of Anti-corruption Governors, participated, with a number of businessmen and several young women on a yacht in Miami. The images generated controversy not only due to the attitude of the candidate, but also because the luxurious party was paid for by the US Pharmaceutical company Pfizer, interested in expanding its business in Colombia.

The images were revealed by the Colombian outlet Cambio which cited a confidential source that stated that the party had taken place on October 9, 2021, when Hernández had not yet revealed, at least publicly, his intention to run for the presidency of Colombia. However, the media outlet drew attention to the fact that “lobbyists interested in doing business with Colombia” participated in the event.

According to the revelation by Cambio, the party was held on a yacht, valued at $4.5 million, and its rental for six hours is about $5,000. On the night of October 9, 2021, the boat made a tour of Biscayne Bay, in Miami, with Hernández, several men—including two of the candidate’s sons—and 11 young women in bikinis.


Cambio also revealed that the party was paid for by Pfizer, which has been lobbying for expanding its business in Colombia. In fact, the video released by Cambio shows several Pfizer executives present on the yacht, including Christopher Ariyan, manager of Pfizer for the Andean countries.


Another participant in the party was Marcio Ramos Pinto, owner of an event management company in Miami, who also works as an “international business lobbyist.”

The images broadcast by the media show the young women dancing and drinking alcohol with Hernández and other men. He also appears dancing with a young woman and, at another point in the video, whispering in the ear of another woman.

Cambio consulted Hernández about who organized the event, who covered the expenses and who the guests were, but he did not respond. However, he later tweeted his displeasure at the criticisms he was receiving for the party, and claimed that his detractors are “desperate” to prevent him from winning the presidency.

Pfizer denied that their employees had met with Hernández “last week” when the candidate had traveled to Miami mid-campaign, but refused to say anything about October 2021, when the party was held.

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-pre ... s-scandal/

'Timing is EVERYTHING'...
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:58 pm

POLITICAL-ELECTORAL ANALYSIS AROUND THE HISTORICAL PACT
THE VICTORY OF GUSTAVO PETRO: MEANINGS FOR COLOMBIA AND THE REGION
Jun 20, 2022 , 1:56 p.m.

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President-elect Gustavo Petro celebrates with his vice presidential ticket, Francia Márquez (Photo: Mauricio Dueñas Castaneda / EFE)

What was expected by the surveys of recent weeks was fulfilled: Gustavo Petro is the elected president of Colombia. The Historical Pact (PH) coalition achieved an unprecedented victory for a progressive political formation, in a country undermined by the violence generated by the social and armed conflict of several decades.

Together with Petro, the first Afro-Colombian woman from the working class, Francia Márquez, who has amalgamated a representation of different popular sectors, among the most historically excluded in the country, reaches the vice presidency.

This political formula undoubtedly contrasts with the figures that have dominated the national government during the 200 years of Colombian republican history (after the separation from the Bolivarian nation), as Márquez referred to in his speech this Sunday, June 19.

In the first electoral round , on May 29, the PH obtained 8 million 527 thousand 768 votes (40.32% of the total). In the second round , it collected 11 million 281 thousand 13 votes (50.44%), increasing its flow with 2 million 753 thousand 245 more votes in favor.

The League of Anticorruption Governors (LIGA) party, led by Rodolfo Hernández and Marelen Castillo, won 5,953,209 votes in the first round (28.15% of the total). For the second round, it incorporated 4 million 627 thousand 203 more to reach a total of 10 million 580 thousand 412 votes (47.31%).

The support of other candidates for Hernández and Castillo, who did not go to the second round in May, was decisive in order to adhere, however, insufficient to reverse a very clear trend in favor of the PH.

It should be noted that Uribismo in its entirety did not come out to vote in favor of LIGA, if we take into account that the Federico Gutiérrez-Rodrigo Lara duo had achieved 5 million 58 thousand 10 votes in the first round. The clear abstention by the supporters of the Democratic Center and other parties allied with Uribismo in favor of the candidacy of "engineer" Hernández paved the way for the victory of Petro and Márquez.

*In the first round there was a participation of 54.91% and an abstention of 45.09% . In the second round , 58.07% of the voters participated, an abstention of 41.93%.

Likewise, the PH consolidated its candidacy during the second round, joining voters in a hostile context in which the Colombian establishment media such as Revista Semana clearly tried to cover the presidential campaign in a biased way against Petro and Márquez.


PERIPHERY AND POLARIZATION

Another important fact to highlight lies in the high vote in favor of the PH in the departments of the Pacific, the poorest areas of Colombia, victims of a greater degree of narco-paramilitary violence and where the "armed strike" of the Clan del Golfo was the protagonist in the first weeks of May.

In Chocó it achieved 81.94%, in Valle del Cauca 63.85%, in Cauca 79.02%, in Nariño 80.91%, in Putumayo 79.67% and in Amazonas 54.61%.

In the departments of northern Colombia (Córdoba, Sucre, Bolívar, Atlántico, Magdalena and La Guajira) he consolidated more than 60% of the votes except in Cesar, where he won with 53%. He also achieved a high number of votes in Vaupés (74.03%) and Guainía (52.51%), in the southeast of the country. In Bogotá, she obtained 58.59%.

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Map of Colombia according to the votes of the second presidential round (Photo: El País)

The image is clear: where the Colombian right and extreme right have dominated, the PH's candidacy did not make a dent, but there was a great call in its favor where the social and armed conflict and criminal economies prevail and affect it to a greater extent , except in Antioquia , Arauca, Norte de Santander, Caquetá and Guaviare.

This in itself shows a map of well-marked polarization, which will also be manifested in the panorama of governability due to a fragmented Congress in which it will seek to seal the existing alliances during the electoral campaign.

The social and economic programs that the PH intends to apply will most likely be counteracted by a parliamentary portion where the politicians of the traditional Colombian establishment stand out, affected by ideology and interests to the oligarchic and Uribe prerogatives.

The polarization would deepen with the role of the hegemonic national communication and propaganda media, which have already chosen the now opposition side since the beginning of the presidential campaign, even before.

Petro-Márquez's policies regarding the historical violence and security, the fiscal tribute, the productive economy, among other issues, will be highly intoxicated in the media and debated with noise and grace in Congress, since the proposals of the PH they differ critically from government actions during the last two decades of Uribeism.

A crucial point is that of compliance with the Peace Agreements, sabotaged and thrashed by the presidency of Iván Duque and his political and media acolytes. In addition, the proposal to hold talks to end the armed conflict with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the main active guerrilla group, would complete a cycle of aspirations for peace and security that the opposing sides will not want to see consolidated. .

According to a report by the Fundación Paz y Reconciliación (Pares), 37% of Colombian territory is undermined by the presence of armed groups, both guerrillas and narco-paramilitaries. Due to the "strengthening" and "expansion" of this scenario in the last four years of the Uribista government, the challenge regarding peace and security in Colombia is historical calculations, after seven decades of conflict supported by the State.

In his speech as president-elect, Gustavo Petro emphasized the desire to carry out a "great national agreement" with different sectors to achieve significant progress in the social, economic, political and environmental proposals of the PH. In addition, he invited the dialogue with his political opponents. The medium and long-term reaction of his counterparts remains to be seen.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE CONTINENTAL PANORAMA
In advance, Petro had announced that his government would resume relations with Venezuela, broken since 2019, in the diplomatic and commercial fields.

The initiative is in the Casa de Nariño, since the government of Iván Duque destroyed all cooperation with the Miraflores Palace due to Colombian support for the United States' "Guaidó Project".

Bogotá has been accused on multiple occasions of having collaborated in regime change operations against the government of Nicolás Maduro, including the so-called Battle of the Bridges in 2019 and Operation Gideon in 2020 . In addition, Colombian territory has served as a refuge and conspiracy headquarters for fugitives from Venezuelan justice for crimes related to politics, the economy, and security, such as Julio Borges.

Hence, the PH has an immediate pending task that would change the way in which Colombia carries out its international relations.

However, the fact that said country has close ties with the foreign and military policy of the United States cannot be correlated with the high expectations that some progressive sectors in Our America have regarding the new Colombian presidency. Although Petro and Márquez represent a left greeted by other continental personalities of the same political-ideological tendency, such as Lula da Silva (Brazil), Luis Arce (Bolivia) and Xiomara Castro (Honduras), polarization and adversity in the future governance play a preponderant political role that cannot be underestimated.

The economic-financial-commercial, military and geopolitical agreements between Bogotá and Washington cannot be damaged without there being an important earthquake in the next Petro government, especially considering that this country is a "global partner" of NATO, without mentioning the interests of local groups that are openly in favor of the good ecosystem of relations between the United States and Colombia.

The steps that the new administration will take regarding relations with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will be the turning point (if there is to be one) regarding the PH's foreign policy, in a scenario where it is intended to politically and ideologically separate the promoter countries of ALBA-TCP, CELAC and UNASUR as a different left ("the troika of tyranny", thus baptized by the American warmonger John Bolton) to the "new progressivism" represented by Alberto Fernández, Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro himself .

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/la ... -la-region

Google Translator

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New Colombian President To Meet With Duque in the Coming Days

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The newly elected President will meet with the outgoing President for the details of the Government transition. Jun. 20, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ConLaGenteRos

Published 20 June 2022 (17 hours 17 minutes ago)

The next meeting between the president-elect and the outgoing president will define the agenda to start the transition of power in Colombia.

Colombian Finance Minister Juan Manuel Restrepo announced Monday that the new-elected President Gustavo Petro would meet in the coming days with outgoing President Iván Duque to begin the transition process before the leader of the Historic Pact coalition assumes power.

Following the historic victory of the Historic Pact coalition candidate, the teams of both parties will meet to make way for a transition of power before August 7, when Petro assumes the Presidency of Colombia.

In this sense, Restrepo said that they "have to give good faith and transparency of the information of the case, that it be a coordinated process."

"For this reason, we are absolutely clear that, once the new-elected president's junction committee is defined, we will hold the corresponding meeting and organize the work tables entity by entity so that this junction process is effective," he commented during an interview with a local radio station.


The outgoing president of Colombia, Iván Duque, said that he would be the guarantor of a "peaceful" and "transparent" transition with the first left-wing government in the country's history after the triumph of the elected president Gustavo Petro.

The minister added that "for the moment what there is a communication between President Iván Duque and the president-elect;" a call on Sunday night in which the president congratulated and acknowledged Petro's triumph in the second round of elections.

"There (in the call), it was agreed that in the coming days, there will be a process, a meeting. The date of the meeting is yet to be defined," he specified.

"It will be the starting point of this important process and in that meeting, surely, the new-elected president will define which will be his junction committee. I will proceed to work with whoever Gustavo Petro designates for that purpose," he added.


"With regard to the teams for the junction, the Government appointed the Minister of Finance, José Manuel Restrepo; the director of the National Planning Department, Alejandra Botero, will also be there and Víctor Muñoz will be part of the presidential team," said Duque a few days ago.

Gustavo Petro was elected president of Colombia on Sunday, in the second round of presidential elections, a day in which the voting margin was extended, and close to 22 million people made use of their right to vote.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/New ... -0014.html

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Left-wing Historic Pact coalition emerges victorious in Colombia

The victory of the Historic Pact is expected to bring an end to decades of conservative and neoliberal politics which have dominated the country.

June 20, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch



The left-wing Historic Pact coalition led by Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez have emerged victorious in the Colombian presidential elections. Petro will be the first left-wing president of the country which for decades has suffered under the rule of pro-US conservative politicians. Many see the victory as part of a broader leftward shift across the region following the period of neoliberal reactionary governments.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/06/20/ ... -colombia/

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Electoral Observation Mission Rescinds AFGJ Credentials–Find Out Why!
June 19, 2022

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Raquel Mogollón visits with community members in Miranda, Cauca, Colombia

The Electoral Observation Mission, a Colombia NGO that monitors elections and is partially funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, has rescinded its accreditation of Raquel Mogollón and other observers representing the Alliance for Global Justice in the heavy conflict area of northern Cauca. They say it is too dangerous. However, Raquel and the other observation and accompaniment team will still be there. Yes, we know about the danger. We have visited this area many times since our first time in 2009. We have cried with our friends and partners after one after another social leader, human rights defender, peace accord signer–and friends– have been murdered in politically motivated assaults. We know this sort of thing is happening all over rural Colombia, the areas most affected by paramilitary violence and most vulnerable to fraud. If observers and accompaniers do not go to the most vulnerable and threatened places, how can we say these elections are truly and adequately monitored? But we believe in, we defend, democratic rights even when it means going where others are afraid to go. That’s what real international solidarity looks like!

Please read the powerful letter that Raquel sent as a response when she learned that MOE had pulled our authorization:

TO THE ELECTORAL OBSERVATION MISSION (MOE):

Thank you for your careful attention to the difficult situation in northern Cauca for the safety and well-being of your volunteer election observers in Colombia. I extend my appreciation and esteem to you for your personal and warm attention in trying to support us by insisting on observing where we felt it was most needed. You should know that we have decided to continue with our commitment in the territories from which you are withdrawing your certification in the vulnerable communities that most need observation and accompaniment.

However, and with all due respect, this “understood” official withdrawal of the MOE cannot pass without saying that it is more difficult for us international observers to understand how Colombia can expect to hold open and fair national elections with free participation of citizens in their right to democratic process, when the observation entities themselves have to withdraw at risk, from a large part of a department like Cauca, historically abandoned by the state in human rights, and in basic social, educational, environmental, services, etc.

What is happening in the villages of Corinto, Miranda, and other municipalities in northern Cauca is an emblematic situation for many rural regions throughout the country. These are the populations most affected by the threats, assassinations, and forced displacement that plague their communities. They are the communities most affected by electoral violence and “irregularities”. And these regions represent the sources of the deepest struggles that have colored every aspect of Colombian life, even in the cities where so many internal refugees live. We are not unaware of the threats in the region. We know personally, for example, Hector Marino Carabali, an Afro-descendant social leader, who was threatened three days before the first round of elections by the paramilitary Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles). We have visited the Elvira collective farm in Miranda several times, where on June 5, an indigenous leader of his community, José Ernesto Cuetia Yajué, was assassinated (by “chance” he was campaigning for the Historic Pact). We know about the explosion that happened the other day in Corinto. We know that situations like this happen all over Colombia. Thus, our commitment to electoral integrity and democracy means that we must go to northern Cauca on June 19, 2022.

The reality of the said Colombian democracy has presented itself in a multitude of “irregular” revelations and of actual outrage for a long time as the more or less accepted “custom” of buying votes, but let’s focus on these last days and weeks waiting for the second round. To note as examples of the general and undemocratic atmosphere:

*The open order to capture a few days before the second round of voting dozens of young political opposition members in several cities, members of the 2021 National Strike’s “Front Line”.
*Several examples of public threats from businessmen or managers to their employees related to consequences that will be suffered by anyone who votes for the Historic Pact, this representing the casualness of such illegal acts as a kind of national norm indicating likelihood of impunity.
*Published threats that continue to come out against human rights defenders and social leaders by paramilitary actors naming “Petristas” as military targets.
*SO MANY assassinations following signatories of the Peace?!
*The same PARAMILITARISM always operating even openly and recorded in concert with the National Police and ESMAD during the National Strike of #28A against peaceful protesters and the now persecuted and repressed members of First Line for thinking differently!

We are talking about the obvious suppression of the vote and these few examples highlight the sad and intolerable truth that threatens an entire brave people who have already endured and excelled against even the most unspeakable traumas to get to this second round with such high hopes and only want to mark their own X for a dignified and just future.

I hope you receive this letter as a serious but respectful challenge to avoid giving undue legitimacy to a terribly inadequate, inconsistent and systematically irresponsible electoral process (including the outrage of not having an impartial and exhaustive independent audit of the privately contracted software!), whose voters deserve and depend on our honest, thorough and extended evaluation with the passion we share for equal opportunity and transparency in full participatory democracy in Colombia and the world.

Sincerely,

Raquel Cristina Mogollón

former international observer for the MOE in Corinto, northern Cauca, Colombia.

from Tucson, AZ, USA

June 18, 2022

Cali, Colombia

https://afgj.org/electoral-observation- ... 6f7a404a02
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:14 pm

Rises to 90 number of Colombian leaders assassinated in 2022

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Indepaz has counted 1,317 leaders and human rights defenders assassinated since the signing of the Peace Accords in Havana. | Photo: EFE
Published June 21, 2022

The victim was a member of the Community Action Board of the village of La Meseta and carried out sports coordination tasks.

The Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) denounced this Tuesday the murder of another Colombian social leader, identified as Jhon Jerson Camacho Barrera, increasing the figure to 90 so far in 2022.

According to the institute, the event occurred on May 29 in the Tame municipality of the department of Arauca (east). Camacho was a member of the Community Action Board of the village of La Meseta, and also carried out sports coordination tasks.

"This leader was assassinated on the road that leads from Puero San Salvador to the urban area of ​​Tame, where he was intercepted by armed men who forced him to get out of his vehicle and attacked him with a firearm, causing his death," Indepaz detailed. .


Previously, the Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation had warned about the fact, asserting that "this new crime clearly shows the condition of risk and vulnerability in which the social leadership of the region and the country finds itself."

Likewise, they reiterated the complaints about the "permanent selective homicides that occur in our territory," and rejected these actions that harm the population.

So far, with this fact, Indepaz has counted 1,317 leaders and human rights defenders assassinated since the signing of the Peace Accords in Havana (Cuba), in 2016.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0030.html

Google Translator

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WELL, ACTUALLY, NO.
DO COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA NEED TO BECOME POLITICAL "ALLIES"?

Franco Vielma

Jun 21, 2022 , 2:38 p.m.

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The new president of Colombia has declared that he will resume relations with Venezuela (Photo: Semana Magazine)

The election of Gustavo Petro as president of Colombia and also of his running mate as vice president, Francia Márquez, is undoubtedly a political milestone in this country, especially considering the long cycle of right-wing conservative governments that took shape of political caste since the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, in 1948.

This event resignifies the regional political picture for many reasons. The irruption of this moderate left current significantly helps to change the regional map and opens up unprecedented geopolitical possibilities in recent decades, since Colombia has clearly been a solid bastion of US tutelage in South America.

The foreign policy that Gustavo Petro will deploy will not be antagonistic to the United States. That is an element that must be taken for granted, seen from the plane of declarations. But in the face of such a political shift in Colombia, questions arise about the type of relations that this country will have with Venezuela.

The Chavista country, a member of the demonized "troika of tyranny" and called by others as "revolutionary dictatorship" , is an inevitable point of reference despite so many absurd qualifications, for being a border country, for some ideological affinities between Petro and Nicolás Maduro , and even because Venezuela is a binding factor in the life of Colombia and vice versa.

The relationship scenario opens many questions, including one that generates expectations on the flanks of regional political laterality. Is there necessarily a "twinning" or "alliance" between the governments of the two countries? Not really.

Ideally, yes, but there should not necessarily be such a thing and, furthermore, it is almost certain that such a thing will not happen. The best scenario within what is currently possible due to the preceding conditions is for Colombia to withdraw from the agenda of harassment, siege and multifactorial suffocation against Venezuela. And that would be more than enough to de-escalate the accumulated tensions.

MINIMUM COORDINATES FOR AN IDEAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA

According to the previous inertia and within the most basic pragmatism, the government of Gustavo Petro could consider just five points to settle an effective policy with respect to Venezuela, within a progressive framework and from current possibilities.

1. Binational security policy. This is a complex issue for Colombia, since it is multidimensional. Petro must necessarily articulate a joint security policy with Venezuela and put an end to the idea that Venezuela is not there or that it does not exist, as was established by way of events through the end of intergovernmental collaboration in this matter, that was consummated in serious ways in the government of Iván Duque favoring the deepening of threats to the security of both countries.

A joint security policy, whose purpose is to build a comprehensive border security framework to contain the construction of a diffuse State on the border and degrade narcoterrorism, which is a historical inertia of Colombia that continues to permeate the Venezuelan side.

The complexity of this for Petro is that his country must recover elementary sovereignty in terms of internal security, since it is under US tutelage.

In other words, and as far as its neighbor is concerned, Colombia must stop being an aircraft carrier against Venezuela, it must give up being a base of operations for destabilization in Venezuela, it must not be a place where assassinations are organized and it must not support more mercenary camps for dispatch to Venezuela .

The multidimensionality of the complex problem of internal security in Colombia is based in a central way on consolidating its internal peace. The peace in Colombia also concerns Venezuela due to the expansion of its conflict on the Venezuelan side.

2. Civilized and elementary economic relations. Venezuela and Colombia do not need an economic "twinning", for now they only need the minimum of basic relations in this matter and this starts from very simple exemptions, such as the return of what was stolen from Venezuela.

The reference goes to the Venezuelan state company Monómeros Colombo-Venezolanos, in the hands of the Colombian government and some Uribe entourage , perhaps to guarantee access to urea for the benefit of the drug trafficking structure. This robbery was carried out in complicity with the fabricated "government" of Juan Guaidó through a political-criminal society of looting sovereign assets of Venezuela outside the country in which Iván Duque was a key actor.

Next, binational trade must be reactivated under normal conditions and under intergovernmental arbitration and regulation, as it is logical that it should happen in countries with a large joint border and with very old commercial relations.

The economic siege of Venezuela is a historic outrage to the lives of both countries and it was Colombia that decided to practice it. That is why Colombia must desist.

3. Return to diplomacy. Petro does not need Maduro as an "ally" and much less does Maduro need Petro in the same way. These caveats must be made, because through the Trump Administration's policy of encirclement against Venezuela, a Manichean relationship formula was imposed on a regional scale.

During these last years, any country that maintained diplomatic relations with Venezuela was considered an "ally" of Maduro, when in reality elementary relations took place within the framework of international law via the Geneva Convention.

In other words, not recognizing Guaidó and not accepting his fake ambassadors was contempt for the State Department and "allying" with Maduro. What a political bogeyman!

That Manichaean formula of international relations cracked de facto. The agenda of the parallel government in Venezuela failed resoundingly, and in strictly pragmatic terms, Petro does not need to continue recognizing the failed Guaidó and prolong the heavy legacy of Uribismo in its relations with Venezuela.

On the other hand, it is necessary to resume diplomatic and consular relations, the channels of institutional communication and the mediation of relevant issues, such as the great historical migration of citizens of both nationalities between the two countries, among many others. This does not refer to an "alliance"; in reality it is a question of minimal elementary relations between civilized countries.

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Maduro and Saints. Although Venezuela played a key role in the Peace Agreement in Colombia, the isolation agenda orchestrated by Washington led to the breakdown of relations (Photo: Reuters)

4. Both countries on the international scene. We do not know exactly what Petro's international agenda will be like. Nothing may change or he may relaunch a new Pacific Alliance in a woke-progress format alongside Boric. We do not know. What we do know is that he will not join ALBA-TCP and that, at this point, is irrelevant.

But it is clear that we can now speak of "common points" between the leaders of both countries, on issues relevant to the region.

In fact, Colombia, due to its vassal heritage, is not a "policy maker", while Venezuela is, and its radius of presence encompasses ALBA-TCP and beyond, in an expanded sphere of relations that has agglutinated to progressivism in governments, in coalitions of governments and in living social forces. There are two angles for political dialogue and, perhaps now, both countries need to strengthen their ties in various directions without being antagonistic to each other.

A minimum of pragmatism between the two countries can put an end to the disastrous record of the use of Colombian diplomacy to trigger recalcitrant and/or exclusive reactions against Venezuela in international forums. For example, the role of Colombia in the Organization of American States (OAS), to name just one repeated case, and the IV Summit of the Americas, where Colombia encouraged the exclusion of Venezuela. Colombia must desist from continuing this record.

Unless the Petro government joins an agenda of the State Department to "flank Venezuela to the left", the ideal for both countries would be a framework of new minimum relations of respect and collaboration from their "affinities" on the scene. regional.

5. It is no longer necessary to talk so much about Venezuela. The words "Venezuela" and "Maduro" are perhaps the most repeated by Colombian media and politicians in recent years in unsettling ways. The campaign against Petro was not exempt from this, it is worth clarifying. They have been key words to develop an entire narrative strategy that has legitimized not only excesses against Venezuela (such as the blockade and flirtation with war), they were also used to stigmatize Petro's own proposal for political change.

These key words, already fixed in a pejorative way in the imaginary of Colombians, are not going to disappear. They will remain on the table thanks to the usual media and now by the leaders of the new opposition in Colombia.

For the Petro government, it is now convenient to suspend the "microphone policy" that has prevailed during these years. In Venezuela we do not need to be named for good. Rather we are fed up with being named in any way (which is usually negative). In Venezuela we don't need help, if they leave us alone, that's enough.

The foregoing refers to a return to sobriety in the field of declarations. This is conspicuous by the absence of him in the House of Nariño since the first years of Álvaro Uribe's first government, and perhaps now there is an opportunity for the return of said sobriety.

In addition, it may not be convenient for Petro to assume a reiterated and exhausting narrative, nor is it convenient for him to be dragged by his opponents into that arena of public opinion, because he could be harmed and here we are talking about the needs of the new Colombian government. Petro will deal with an adverse communicational context that he will not be able to mediate by pleasing the dominant tendencies in the stories.

If Petro needed to see himself as a credible subject as a democrat and had to try to manipulate public opinion by speaking ill of Maduro, he would be lost, since he would alienate some sectors that support him, he would wear down his speech in reiterations that Uribeism had already capitalized on, and also continue to facilitate tensions with Caracas unnecessarily.

As we already mentioned, if Petro decides not to abide by an agenda of the US State Department to continue surrounding Venezuela, its strategy to recover binational relations must be circumspect in all its dimensions. In microphone politics, not haranguing and leaving chavismo alone would be a great advance and, in addition to that, proposing a constructive use of declarations within what is strictly necessary.

Such minimal conditions to de-escalate the deteriorated state of relations can only open the way to new opportunities and meeting points within the clear differences between the leaders. Only from this point is it possible to forge new conditions of trust.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/colo ... -politicos

Google Translator

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CP of Mexico, Democratic capitalism is not a solution for the Colombian people, nor for Latin America
6/21/22 3:29 PM

In the second round of the elections in Colombia, the most reactionary and criminal forces of the Colombian bourgeoisie were electorally defeated. But as long as these forces continue to hold onto their capital, their lands, and their military power, the only peace the people will continue to experience will be the peace of the grave.

The elected president, Gustavo Petro, consistent with what he has been expressing for a few years, ratified the same night of his election that his task is to continue developing capitalism. His government proposals, such as the energy transition, agrarian reform without expropriation and some welfare measures, aim to modify some consequences of capitalism, but leaving intact the exploitation of the working class, the private appropriation by the monopolies of socially produced wealth and the power of the landowners, drug trafficking and mining monopolies in the countryside.

Both Petro, as well as Boric and Obrador, owe their electoral victory above all to large mobilizations of dissatisfaction against the shock policies of capital that have impoverished the peoples. They have mounted large waves of protests, and paradoxically their role is to deactivate them, essentially because they represent the interests of the ruling class, and it is with them that they assume the commitment of social stability to ensure capitalist development in times of crisis and the maximum profit for monopolies.

The recent examples of Mexico, Chile, and even Argentina and Peru, show the great risks for the working class and the popular sectors of going back and submitting to the policy of "social peace" that Latin American social democracy proclaims. Day by day, these governments negotiate and agree with the sectors of the bourgeoisie that they promised to defeat; and they align themselves with one or another imperialist pole, particularly with the United States, as the Summit of the Americas showed. Meanwhile, they pressure and blackmail popular forces to give in, and when this is not achieved, they do not hesitate to use repressive mechanisms to maintain "social peace", like the governments of Boric and Obrador.

Capitalism has generated serious social and economic problems that plague Latin America: the exploitation of the working class, extreme poverty, millions of migrants and displaced persons, unemployment, racism against native peoples and Afro-descendants, oppression against women, destruction of the environment , high crime rates and paramilitary violence. In the last 70 years in Latin America there have been “revolutionary” nationalist governments, old and new social democrats, even self-styled “21st century socialists”, who have not been able to permanently put an end to any of these problems.

Therefore, the Communist Party of Mexico assumes no illusions in the face of these social democratic governments. Faced with the dispute between two sectors of the ruling class, and faced with the two versions of capitalism that they offer, the "savage capitalism" of neoliberal efforts or the "democratic capitalism" of social democracy or progressivism, the only dilemma to the What the working class and the popular sectors are facing is to intensify their struggle and mobilization against capitalist barbarism, or to submit once again to a sector of the bourgeoisie, to the point of disenchantment and disillusionment.



Proletarians of all countries, unite!

The International Section of the CC of the PCM

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Mexic ... ca-Latina/

Google Translator

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Petro Calls for US to Address Disproportionate Carbon Emissions
JUNE 22, 2022

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The new president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro (left), with his vice president, Francia Márquez (right). Photo: Daniel Munoz/AFP.

The winner of Colombia’s presidential election, Gustavo Petro, addressed his supporters on Sunday night with his first speech as president-elect. “There is no doubt that this is a historic day, that what we are writing right now is the history of Colombia,” said Petro. “We aren’t going to betray the electorate, which has shouted at the country, at history, that from this day on, Colombia will change. It’s a different Colombia… What is coming here is true change, real change, in which we challenge our existence, life itself.”

Petro said that as of August 7, when he takes office, “a government of life will begin, a government that wants to build Colombia into a global power for life.”

He referred to three specific areas in which this would be accomplished: peace, social justice, and environmental justice. He also declared in his speech that there would not be vengeance nor sectarianism, and that change involves understanding and mutual comprehension, and the opening of opportunities for all. He also stated that his administration would propose “a great national agreement to construct peace,” in which Colombian society will have “more opportunities.”

“We are going to use power to destroy our opposition,” said Petro. “It means that we must forgive each other.”

Petro also made a request to the attorney general of Colombia to “free our youth,” in reference to the young people who have been detained without justification for their political activism. He also demanded that democratically elected mayors be put back in office. “It is not time for hate anymore!” he said, referring to Daniel Quintero, the mayor of Medellín who was reportedly suspended from his post for supporting Petro.

Achieving peace

“This government won’t make sense if we don’t make bringing peace to Colombian society our central objective,” said Petro. “Peace means that someone like me can be president, or that someone like Francia can be vice president. Peace means that we stop killing each other.”

Petro asked that “weapons no longer be used, that guns no longer be shot, that they stop existing outside of the Colombian state. It’s not about killing each other, its about loving each other.”

“Developing capitalism” to “overcome feudalism”

In another part of his speech, Petro said that “we are going to develop capitalism in Colombia … not because we adore it, but because first we have to overcome the pre-modernity and feudalism, the new slaveries. We have to get over prehistoric ways of thinking linked to that world of serfs which was mirrored by the slave owners. We need to construct a democracy.”

Petro said that his administration will support an economy that can make itself stronger “through connectivity, education, and cheap credit, and from there we will create forms of capitalism that hopefully are democratic and productive, not speculative, new forms of relations with humanity through new technologies,” said Petro. He also called on production to respect nature, through “social and environmental justice.”

Dialogue of the Americas with the US for the environment

“Almost all of the presidents of Latin America have called me, and I think today we can propose, on the grounds of this triumph of the Colombian people, a dialogue in America without the exclusion of any peoples or nation, with all of the diversity that is America,” Petro said. “I think the moment has come to sit down with the government of the US and talk, have a dialogue,” highlighting that the US emits greenhouse gases “like no other country does,” while in Latin America “we absorb it through our Amazon rain forest.

“If over there they emit [greenhouse gases] and here we absorb them, why don’t they stop emitting so much over there?” Petro asked. “I propose that the government of the US and all of the governments of America sit down to talk about energy transition, to construct a decarbonized economy, an economy for life in all of America.”

“I propose to Latin America that we integrate ourselves more decisively,” Petro added. “I propose to Colombia that we look at ourselves as Latin Americans, which is what we are… The races—which is not the word we should use anymore—the ethnic groups led us to think we were the cosmic summary of the planet. Latin America is also Indigenous America, it’s also Afro-America, it’s also Anglo-Saxon America, it’s also multicolored America. It has to find itself in a great dialogue that saves humanity.”

“Stop thinking about social justice” based on the “high prices of petroleum”
Petro called on progressives in Latin America to “stop thinking about social justice, the redistribution of wealth, to stop thinking about a future based on the high prices of petroleum, of coal, gas, because it’s unsustainable for human kind.” Instead he proposed that “Latin America needs to build itself around agriculture, agrarian reform, agro-industrialization, new technologies for industry, and production through re-connection with nature.”

Petro gave his thanks to the Colombian people and said that at times he doubted if this day was going to come.

The mother of Dilan Cruz, the young high school student killed in 2019 during the ESMAD protests, appeared among those supporting Petro and welcomed him as president, asking for justice for her son and other victims.

https://orinocotribune.com/petro-calls- ... emissions/

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Despite the Left’s Victories, Warning Signs of a Fascist Backlash Appear in Colombia & Beyond
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 21, 2022
Rainer Shea

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The decaying colonial regime in Colombia has reached a crisis. Its people, devastated by corporate destruction of their living standards and a corrupt narco regime which has exacted tremendous brutality upon them, has elected a leftist presidential candidate. Not one who represents a radical change, but one who at least represents a break from the fascistic ruling ideology of Uribismo. This could lead to the country being brought out of its misery, and undergoing the kinds of reforms which have uplifted the people of Venezuela and Bolivia. But if the imperialists succeed in their schemes, it could end up provoking an unprecedentedly violent reaction from within Colombia.

An indication of how much leverage the fascists have is that the new leader Gustavo Petro does not have a revolutionary agenda, but a social democratic one. The imperialists at CNN have taken comfort in being able to report that “Colombia’s newest president has also spoken of a desire to create a new progressive alliance in South America. This would likely involve Chilean president Gabriel Boric and Argentinian president Alberto Fernandez, rather than the three authoritarian countries of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.” This largely moderate nature of the pink tide that’s been occurring in Colombia and many other Latin American countries, in contrast to the militant anti-imperialism of those governments CNN vilifies, doesn’t mean these progressive leaders should be wholly dismissed. Any victory for the left means a weakening of imperialism. But in Colombia, and in the other Latin American countries Washington is desperate to maintain control over, the violent desperation of late-stage imperialism could still manifest in a full return for Operation Condor. And Petro’s wary attitude towards the region’s most hardline anti-imperialist states is a red flag that the imperialists could use him to disarm dissent.

Petro aims to negotiate the laying down of arms by Colombia’s revolutionary guerrillas, who’ve continued to wage war since the 2016 peace deal due to the regime’s ongoing crimes against the people. Such a process would necessarily entail him implementing substantial improvements in the people’s conditions. There’s no other way they’ll agree to disarm. But should Colombia’s guerrilla movement finally become a thing of the past, it will leave Petro vulnerable to a coup by the military. A coup which the armed forces will absolutely come to itch for should they not be replaced by loyal new personnel.

What anti-imperialists need to know about Colombia’s military is that it doesn’t just have latent reactionary sympathies, as Latin American militaries have so often had. It’s an entity which is directly led by neo-Nazis. Swastika-displaying Hitlerites guided the armed forces on how to suppress last year’s protests, designing the strategy behind the country’s world-shocking state violence against anti-austerity demonstrators.

This blatantly fascist leading ideology within the military is guided by the concept of the “dissipated molecular revolution,” which calls for treating the general population as enemy combatants so that a future revolution can be preemptively destroyed on a molecular level. This kind of thinking is what’s justified the shooting at civilians from helicopters, the use of paramilitaries to routinely kill off hundreds of political dissidents with no accountability, and the other atrocities Colombia has recently committed against its own people. If given the opportunity, these Nazis within the military will assassinate Petro and his Afro-Colombian vice president, then impose the kind of dictatorship that so many Latin American countries have seen. Colombia’s fascist armed service and law enforcement members hail from the strain of state terror which has defined the country for many decades, and which has carried out a political genocide that’s arguably still ongoing. The fascist paramilitaries are still there, and are still disappearing journalists and human rights activists regularly.

With Petro having a plan to disarm the left, but no plan to disarm the right-wing extremists in control of the military, disaster could easily strike. And even if no coup happens, when a new fascist gets back into office, the left will find itself without arms to defend from the inevitable reactionary terror.

As the region’s other major decaying regime in Brazil sees its power threatened, a similar fascist terror campaign could soon happen there as well, building on the one that’s already been unfolding in both countries. The CIA’s chief has told Jair Bolsonaro not to try to overturn the election if he loses, which shows how tenuous imperialism’s grasp over the region is becoming. It appears Washington hopes that if Lula wins, the U.S. will be able to make Lula into a new puppet, as it partially succeeded in doing when it got Lula to occupy Haiti during his time as president. But the Brazilian anti-imperialist movement could still hold Lula’s opportunistic tendencies in check, resulting in a new government for Brazil that resembles the one of Peru’s Pedro Castillo: not as radical as some would expect, but still one which the CIA wishes to overthrow. And since the CIA has failed at a coup in Peru, it could also fail in Brazil. Control over the region is increasingly uncertain for Washington. But it’s so afraid of further instability that it’s instructing its erratic puppet Brazilian leader not to carry out his own January 6th.

What the CIA wants in Brazil is not for democracy to be respected, but for a violent maneuver against the left that Washington can control. With its coups in the region consistently failing, and its broader geopolitical hegemony continuing to wane, the U.S. empire can only prevent Latin America from utterly breaking free by orchestrating massive destruction within the region. Similarly to how it’s succeeded at destabilizing much of the horn of Africa, it aims to sow such chaos within the American hemisphere, targeting both regions with the aim of preemptively stopping a turn towards multi-polarity. This is why the U.S. has backed Bolivia’s right-wing militias, and has so far succeeded at getting these terrorists to seize control over an economic hotspot market in La Paz. The aim is to make this kind of instability and violence spill over into all the other countries that have succeeded, or may succeed, at breaking free from imperialism.

The danger of fascist backlash is real, perhaps right now in Colombia more than anywhere else within the region. But as always with modern U.S. imperialism’s schemes for wreaking sudden, gargantuan havoc upon its enemies, this is only a spiteful hope for vengeance from an empire that’s losing its actual capacity to deal damage. Despite the centrist leanings of Chile’s Boric, he’s delivering on his promises to dismantle neoliberalism. Mexico’s AMLO has nationalized lithium amid his years-long campaign to end the country’s neoliberal paradigm. Bolivia has been building up its sustainable development and its people’s living standards since the reversal of the 2019 coup. This is in addition to the decades of progress that Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are building upon in their quest to construct societies free from imperialism’s influence. Venezuela has gotten so far that it’s come to have the imperialists begging it for oil.

As Mao warned, the imperialists and their running dogs will never put down their knives. They’ll never stop trying to inflict violence upon those who seek to end their rule, not until their rule is ended for good and they’re made extinct. Whatever future violence they carry out across Latin America and beyond, this won’t prevent their downfall, nor the emergence of the new world that the anti-imperialists are building.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/06/ ... ia-beyond/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:43 pm

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Petro’s historic victory in Colombia tilts Latin America more leftward
June 27, 2022 Alejandra Garcia and Gustavo A Maranges

June 21 — This Sunday, Colombia made history. For the first time, a leftist candidate will become president of this Latin America nation that yearns for a definitive regime change. Gustavo Petro, the former rebel fighter who has promised a profound social and economic reform in that country, is the Colombian people’s best option at this point in time to get them out of the poverty and violence that has shaken them for decades.

With 99.5 percent of the votes accounted, Gustavo Petro held an unassailable lead of over three points, some 700,000 votes ahead of his rival, Colombia’s “Donald Trump” Rodolfo Hernandez.

Another historic moment of the election is the rise of 40-year-old environmental, social and feminist activist Francia Marquez, who will soon be Colombia’s first black female vice-president.

“The great challenge that all Colombians have is reconciliation. The time has come to build peace, which implies social justice,” said Marquez, who was the target of numerous death threats during the campaign.

“Today is a celebration for the people. Let’s celebrate our first popular victory,” Petro, the candidate of the leftist Colombia Humana party, wrote on Twitter.

Quickly after Petro’s words, the billionaire Hernandez acknowledged his defeat by saying on his twitter account. “I hope Gustavo Petro will be faithful to his talk against corruption.”

This victory may be the light in the dark for those who take the brunt of the widespread poverty, rising violence, and many other deep-rooted social issues. Once the result is made official, Petro will succeed the unpopular Ivan Duque who like his mentor Alvaro Uribe, benefited by the enormous drug trade in Colombia and his pit dog like relationship to Washington. Both of them encouraged and allowed attacks on Venezuela that originated in their country and have allowed for nine US military bases on their soil to menace the region. It remains to be seen how Petro will handle all that.

It also remains to be seen how he will be able to get progressive legislation passed in a congress where he has little support and the representatives of the oligarchy are predominate. Petro is not a socialist and he made it clear in his victory speech by saying he was going to fix the country’s problems with capitalism. That gesture from the former M-19 guerilla was an olive branch to calm not just the local oligarchy but more importantly the financial centers of the North.

None of these looming problems can take away from Petro’s openness to engage in closer regional relationships with Latin American countries reflecting this revived trend of the region, but centuries of dependence, colonialism and meddling from the north cannot be swept away in four years, and that will be another of Petro’s major challenges.

The People’s Choice

What really got Petro and Marques elected was their campaign promises to bring peace, stability and prosperity to those that have none. Colombia is sick and tired of the death squads connected to Duque and Uribe that murdered hundreds of union leaders, activists and community leaders, they are tired of the corruption, they are tired of the wrenching poverty that went on and on. They were the refreshing candidates of hope promising ambitious reforms in pensions, taxes, healthcare, and agriculture, as well as changes in Colombia’s fight against drug cartels and other armed groups.

“As of today, Colombia is changing, a real change that orients us toward one of our objectives: the politics of love, understanding, and dialogue,” Petro said from the Colombian capital, Bogota.

The victory of Petro, a former senator and former mayor of Bogota, marked a drastic change in presidential politics in a country that has long marginalized the left-wing for any links they had to the long-standing armed struggle. None of that mattered because this new president could not possibly be worse than what the Colombian people had to endure over the last 4 years under Duque. In his first words, he said that, he will advocate unity and respect.

“Expect no political persecution or legal persecution from my government. There will only be respect and dialogue”, the politician said and added that he will listen not only to those who have taken up arms but also to “that silent majority of farmers, Indigenous people, women, and youth who suffer the consequences of violence with greater force.”

All Eyes on Latin America

Today, all eyes are on Latin America as the peoples of the region remove the ultra-right from power. This was the case in Chile, with the triumph of Gabriel Boric; Bolivia, with Lucho Arce; Argentina, with Alberto Fernandez, and now Colombia.

Up next is the election in Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, where former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads the polls to unseat the ultra right wing President Jair Bolsonaro next October.

According to experts, a Lula victory would mean that all the region’s largest countries, including Mexico and Argentina, are led by leftist presidents. Little by little, justice is appearing for our peoples of Latin America.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... r-22-years

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PPS of Mexico, GREETINGS FROM THE POPULAR SOCIALIST PARTY OF MEXICO TO THE ELECTORAL WIN OF GUSTAVO PETRO, FRANCIA MARQUEZ AND THE COLOMBIAN PEOPLE
6/24/22 2:50 PM

The Popular Socialist Party of Mexico congratulates the Colombian people, the leftist movements in the country and its candidates Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez for the electoral victory obtained today at the polls.

Without a doubt, this victory is the product of a decades-long struggle, with which we have had the honor of accompanying and showing solidarity at every step, our total recognition for this achievement to the current Partido Comunes, which paid de facto the amount of votes received by the Historical Pact; likewise to the Colombian Communist Party, which has always been at the forefront of the struggle for the transformation of Colombia.

We can safely say that Our America is filled with joy because we are advancing in Bolívar's dream, to build the great homeland, so necessary to face the ambitions and violence exerted for centuries by foreign powers, especially by US imperialism.

In Mexico, in 2018 we managed to install our first government after the long period of more than thirty years in which neoliberal and sellout policies prevailed, opposed to national sovereignty and even more so, to popular sovereignty; government headed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and that has resumed the historic struggle of our people, stopping privatizations and restarting, in the energy sector, the policy of nationalizations that allowed us to achieve so much before the arrival of the neoliberals.

It has also recovered the exercise of our traditional foreign policy, based on the principles of non-intervention and respect for the self-determination of peoples, and has shown solidarity with the governments unjustly persecuted by Washington, especially those of Cuba and Venezuela.

We are certain that now, at last, Colombia will be able to walk a path alien to the "Washington Consensus", as its people long for, exercising its independence and sovereignty and will contribute to building the economic and political unity of the Latin American peoples.

Our party, the Popular Socialist Party of Mexico, reiterates its congratulations to you, on behalf of the Mexican working class, and fully shares your joy.



Long live the struggles of the Colombian people!

Long live Latin American unity!

Long live Colombia, finally free and sovereign!

Long live Mexico!



Mexico. June 19, 2022.

For national liberation and socialism”

National Directorate of the Popular Socialist Party of Mexico

http://solidnet.org/article/PPS-de-Mexi ... OLOMBIANO/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 02, 2022 2:09 pm

Colombia: Truth Commission Presents Final Report, Documents 450,000 Deaths Between 1985 and 2018
JULY 2, 2022

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A man looks at a banner carrying photos of some of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in the armed conflict in Colombia. File photo.

On Tuesday, June 28, the Truth Commission of Colombia presented its final report, documenting deaths, forced disappearances, torture and other human rights violations committed by all sides in the armed conflict in Colombia, during the years 1985–2018. Reverend Francisco de Roux, who headed the Truth Commission, presented the report in an official event at the Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Theatre in Bogota. Neither the outgoing President Iván Duque nor any member of his cabinet was present at the meeting; the government of Colombia was represented by the advisor on stabilization, Juan Carlos Vargas. On the other hand, President-elect Gustavo Petro and Vice President-elect Francia Márquez attended the event, and highlighted the importance of the Commission’s report and recommendations.

The Truth Commission has estimated that more than 450,000 people died in Colombia between 1985 and 2018, a period during which the United States provided key support to the Colombian Army and right-wing paramilitaries attacking leftist groups, social justice activists, indigenous leaders and trade unionists.

The Truth Commission report denounced the US-funded drug war in Colombia, stating, “The consequences of this concerted and largely US-driven approach made the conflict harsher, in which the civilian population has been the main victim.”


Reverend Francisco de Roux, on presenting the report, stated, “We ask the government, the security forces, political parties, businesspeople, churches, educators and other decision-makers in Colombia, to recognize the penetration of drug trafficking in the culture, the State, politics and the economy, and face it as a nation, develop the investigative instrument to confront the system of alliances and interests involved, to change the policy of war that attacks the peasants and the most vulnerable.”

The report detailed that during 1985-2018, the main perpetrators of homicide were paramilitary groups, which killed 205,028 people (45% of all deaths). Guerrilla groups are next on the list, killing 122,813 victims (27%). Among the rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were responsible for 96,952 victims, the National Liberation Army (ELN) for 17,725 victims, and other guerrillas killed 8,496. The police and the armed forces murdered 56,094 people, which amount to 12% of all reported deaths.

The report also clarified that, given the fact that 52% of the cases in the original database for which it is not known who are responsible, there is high uncertainty in terms of responsibility. Therefore, “the most probable data in a defined range of uncertainty has been used,” the report noted.

The Truth Commission itself was not immune to the culture of death in Colombia. Two of its members, Alfredo Molano and Ángela Salazar, were killed by paramilitary forces during the course of the Commission’s four years of investigation.

The departments where the highest number of murders were reported are listed as follows:

Antioquia: 125,980 victims (28%)

Valle del Cauca: 41,201 victims (9.1%)

Norte de Santander: 21,418 victims (4.8%)

Cauca: 19,473 victims (4.3%)

Cesar: 16,728 victims (3.7%).

The report added that the decade with the most victims was between 1995 and 2004, a period in which approximately 45% of all the reported murders were committed (202,293 victims).

These data were obtained by the Truth Commission and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), together with the Human Rights Violations Data Analysis Group (HRDAG). The study also included 112 databases provided by 42 State institutions, organizations of victims of violence and their families, and civil society organizations.

In the results of the first compilation of data, 26 million records were obtained. Of those, 12.8 million passed the filters, corresponding to records of individuals with at least the following data: name, surname, year, and region. After eliminating duplicate records, 8,775,884 unique individuals were registered in the integrated database.

This is one of the largest projects that has been carried out to date on human rights violations in the world. In fact, the submission of the final report by the Truth Commission is a historic act, since this is the first time in the history of Colombia that a state-sanctioned body has reconstructed the memory of the armed conflict.

In addition, the Truth Commission report makes two key recommendations to the state in order to overcome judicial impunity in matters of human rights violations: reform of the election of the prosecutor, and limiting extradition to foreign countries, particularly to the US, in order to prioritize investigations in Colombia.

The Truth Commission expressed that the findings and recommendations, which are the result of four years of exhaustive work, will contribute significantly to the dignity of the victims and have a real impact on public policies and on the Colombian population in general.

According to Reverend de Roux, the report represents “a message of hope and future for our hurt and broken nation. Uncomfortable truths that challenge our dignity, a message for all of us as human beings, beyond political or ideological positions, cultural and religious beliefs, differences of ethnicity or gender. We bring a message of truth in order to stop intolerable tragedy of the conflict.”

“We are convinced that there is a way build back everything, working together in spite of our legitimate differences,” he added.

President-elect Gustavo Petro announced that the Truth Commission’s recommendations will be analyzed by his new government, and working together with the most vulnerable communities, those recommendations will be incorporated effectively.

(Resumen Latinoamericano) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-tru ... -and-2018/

This carnage would not have been possible without US guns, money and intrigue. Your tax dollars at work....

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Petro Denounces “Systematic Murders” of Activists

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The Colombian president-elect, Gustavo Petro, conveyed his solidarity with the family of Carlos Hernandez upon his murder. Jun. 30, 3033. | Photo: Twitter/@Populismupdates

Published 30 June 2022

Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro called on the authorities to investigate the murder of activists who supported him during the election.

"There are several cases of murders of militants who supported us. Investigative entities are called to determine the perpetrators of these systematic murders against a civilian group with a political identity," Petro said on Twitter.

This June 30, Colombian deputy for the Liberal Party Carlos Hernández was murdered in the department of Arauca (northeast). The president-elect conveyed via Twitter his solidarity with the congressman's family.

Hernandez was killed by armed men who intercepted him while driving unescorted along the road linking the municipalities of Fortul and La Esmeralda, in a rural area where there is a presence of armed groups, according to local press.

The Arauca Assembly deputy was one of the most recognized politicians in the area. He aspired to the department's governorship, local radio station W Radio said.


The Liberal caucus of Tolima rejects the assassination of the Liberal Deputy of Arauca, Carlos Hernandez. Enough of the persecution and assassinations of political and social leaders. We need guarantees for the exercise.

"The Liberal Party rejects the vile murder of our deputy of Arauca, Carlos Hernandez," the party said via Twitter, rejecting the "the violence that plagues Colombia."

The Liberal Party's President César Gaviria announced in June 2022 his party's support for the president-elect Gustavo Petro.

Two social leaders and activists of the Pacto Histórico coalition, led by Petro, were killed on June 19 in the municipalities of Guapi and El Patía in the Cauca department (west).

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Pet ... -0021.html
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:54 pm

Another peace signer assassinated in Huila, Colombia

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With the death of Ronald Rojas, Colombia adds 22 ex-combatants killed during 2022. | Photo: Caraciol Radio
Published July 5, 2022 (8 hours 9 minutes ago)

According to Indepaz, since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016, 321 Colombian ex-combatants have been killed.

The Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) condemned on Monday the assassination of peace signer and Colombian leader Ronald Rojas, known in the FARC-EP as Ramiro Durán, in Palermo, Huila.

It is presumed that the Colombian ex-combatant was also attacked by a sniper when he was in his home with relatives and, although he was taken to a hospital, he died from the severity of his injuries.

The head of the UN Mission in Colombia and special representative of the Secretary General in Colombia lamented the death of this leader committed to social reintegration and called for "strengthening the security of former combatants and peace leaders."


Meanwhile, the Partido Comunes del Colombia stressed the "systematization of these events that obey a premeditated plan of the outgoing government, which dedicated itself for four years to sabotaging and failing to comply with the Peace Agreements."

Ronald Rojas is the 321st signatory since the signing of the Agreement and the 22nd in 2022, a reason that demonstrates the stigmatization and lack of security conditions suffered by former guerrillas.

In Palermo, Huila, local forces act through outsourcing that encourage a violent environment and persecution in the area.


A few days after the establishment of a new government in Colombia, led by Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez, the population asks outgoing president Iván Duque to stop harassing peace leaders.

Last Sunday, three members of the Awá UNIPA indigenous people were assassinated in Tumaco, and on Thursday the deputy of the Department of Arauca and militant of the Colombian Liberal Party, Carlos Alberto Hernández Sánchez, died.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/asesinan ... -0002.html

Google Translator

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Indigenous Land Defender, Fighter Against Colombian Paramilitary Groups, Killed in Venezuela
JULY 3, 2022

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Graphic showing indigenous land defender Virgilio Trujillo Arana holding a Venezuelan flag. Photo: ORPIA.

Caracas, July 2, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)—A Venezuelan indigenous leader, who fought against incursions by Colombian criminal armed groups and illegal mining groups into the Venezuelan Amazon region, was shot dead on Thursday afternoon, June 30, in the Escondido 3 sector, Puerto Ayacucho, capital of Amazonas state.

Virgilio Trujillo Arana, 38 years old, member of the Uwottujja indigenous people, which has a population of approximately 15,000, was the leading force in the creation of the Sipapo Territorial Guards in Autana municipality, Amazonas state. He started his activism as a land defender at a young age, following into the footsteps of his uncles. He was trained as a territorial indigenous guard with the suport of the Amazonas Indigenous Peoples’ Regional Organization (ORPIA).

Trujillo was the proponent of the creation of a territorial indigenous guard during a community assembly a few years ago, as a response to increasing incursions by illegal mining and the appearance of paramilitary armed groups in Uwottujja territory. His organization accompanied the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) in the latest military operations to expel Colombian paramilitary armed groups (TANCOL) from the Autana municipality, according to a statement by ORPIA.

On Thursday, Trujillo was shot in the head three times by an unidentified gunman who fled to a waiting vehicle. The land defender had reportedly received multiple threats because of his work.

Mainstream media and right-wing influencers tried to use the incident to attack the Orinoco Mining Arc (Arco Minero), a project developed by President Nicolás Maduro’s administration precisely to control illegal mining in the region, the terrible environmental effects of illegal extractivist activites, and to improve the quality of life of local residents.


Mining has been prohibited since 1989 in Venezuela’s southern state of Amazonas, which is not part of the Arco Minero project, a gold mining zone of 111,000 sq km created by decree in 2016, located in the northern part of Bolívar state.

Illegal mining is a plague affecting all the countries in which parts of the Amazon rain forest lie. This illegal activity also brings with itself criminal acts such as corruption, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and criminal armed groups. In the case of Amazonas state, the situation becomes worse as it borders Colombia as well as the south of Barinas state, where narco-paramilitary groups have created chaos for years and the Venezuelan army has been fighting with renovated impetus in the last few months.

The governor of the Amazonas state, Miguel Rodríguez, from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), condemned the murder of the Uwottujja indigenous leader and asked the Attorney General to thoroughly investigate the assassination.

“We cannot remain silent in the face of such an unfortunate event,” said the governor. “We cannot allow the murder of a Uwottujja indigenous brother not to move our deepest feeling against death and violence. We strongly condemn this act.”

Rodríguez called on the Attorney General’s Office, and the police and military authorities to thoroughly investigate this situation. “Amazonas cannot be a territory of outlaws and assassins where these types of inhumane practices imported from the neighboring country [Colombia] continue,” he added.

Relatives, friends and colleagues of Virgilio Trujillo Arana, slain Venezuelan land defender, accompany his funeral cortège, Amazonas state, Venezuela. Photo: ORPIA.
Relatives, friends and colleagues of Virgilio Trujillo Arana, slain Venezuelan land defender, accompany his funeral cortège, Amazonas state, Venezuela. Photo: ORPIA.
ORPIA posted on its Facebook page images from the funeral of Virgilio Trujillo Arana, showing family members, relatives, friends and supporters carrying his mortal remains to his final resting place after authorities released his corpse from the morgue.

By instruction of President Nicolás Maduro, the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) remains deployed in the border states, including Amazonas, to dismantle clandestine tracks, drug trafficking routes and laboratories built and used by the TANCOL.

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 06, 2022 1:54 pm

THE TEST PHASE BEGINS IN RELATIONS BETWEEN PETRO AND THE US
Jul 5, 2022 , 9:45 am .

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Both Gustavo Petro and Joe Biden are entering a trial phase after the former won the presidential elections on June 19, driven by the leftist alliance of the Historical Pact.

With 50.44% of the votes, he won the ballot while Rodolfo Hernández, of the League of Governors against Corruption, reached 47.31% of the votes. After the results were known, the Colombian economist gave his first speech and called on the United States and all of Latin America to dialogue "without excluding any nation" on issues that affect the entire continent, particularly to save the Amazon rainforest, "because saving it is to save humanity."

Even though the Colombian leftist's margin of victory was not that wide, these weeks have shown the solidity of the result because few voices have objected to it and, from Washington, Biden "appreciated the opportunity to discuss bilateral security and anti-narcotics cooperation ", according to the White House.

Some media have assured that Petro would become a "headache" for the Biden administration because it has considered reorganizing relations between Washington and Bogotá, which have had bipartisan approval in the United States for at least 20 years, this because the oligarchy that has governed the Andean country has paid benefits to the US corporate elite by facilitating the inoculation of weapons through the so-called war on drugs, controlling clandestine immigration that is a consequence of imposed neoliberal packages, and sabotaging the revolutionary process that is taking place. out in Venezuela.

The outgoing Colombian ambassador to the United States, Juan Carlos Pinzón, spoke about the aforementioned approval, who resigned after confirming Petro's victory, arguing a matter of "principles." In his resignation announcement, Pinzón urged the team of the new Colombian president to continue working on the basis of the bipartisan relations that Colombia has always maintained with the different administrations of the White House.

Also the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, acknowledged that Washington seeks to "further strengthen" relations with Colombia from this new stage with Petro at the helm. Colombia is a "global partner" and a NATO land carrier in its expansionist plans in Latin America.

WHAT NEW OPPORTUNITIES ARE THERE FOR BOTH COUNTRIES?

A brief analysis of the relations between Colombia and the United States already sheds light on how the great beneficiary in bilateral relations is, as almost always, the corporate establishment that governs in Washington through its political class.

During the phone call to Petro, Biden raised issues such as climate change, health security and the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement. In the latter, Petro has agreed by committing to fully implement what was agreed with the FARC. It should be remembered that the Democratic president has supported the agreement since the Obama administration even though last March he designated Colombia as an "important non-NATO ally" and as "the base of regional security and prosperity."

From Florida, once a decisive state in the US presidential elections, sectors of Latin American origin have asked to closely monitor Colombia's president-elect "before allowing a full embrace," says a report published in POLITICO . Apparently the tactic from Washington has been to keep Petro close instead of isolating him from now on to maintain ties as far as possible with the country that is, today, the most important partner it has in Latin America.

An issue on which Petro considers that it would achieve regional agreement is the urgency of moving towards clean energy to face the ravages caused by climate change. So much so that he highlighted that the priority of his administration's diplomatic policy will be for Colombia to take the lead in the world in the fight against climate change. Hence, he proposed a meeting with Biden to explain the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from US industry that are absorbed by the Amazon rainforest in Colombia and the neighboring countries that share the region.

"I propose to the government of the United States and all the governments of the Americas that we sit down to dialogue to accelerate the steps of the energy transition," said the president.

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The importance of the Colombian Amazon as a carbon sink would be a priority issue for Petro in a dialogue with Joe Biden (Photo: Omer Bozkurt / Flickr)

Arlene Tickner, professor of International Relations at the Universidad del Rosario, pointed out that there are some common points between Petro's program and that of Biden, which are found in ideas related to clean energy and care for the environment, stating that "where There is really sensitivity in the feeling of losing the main ally and partner (of the United States) in Latin America. And this, in neuralgic issues such as the security plan, is something in my view that is disturbing for Washington."

Weeks before the election, a US government spokesman said that "the United States supports Colombia's strong democratic institutions and looks forward to Colombia's upcoming free and fair presidential elections," adding that they were willing "to work with the next Colombian government , whoever the Colombian people choose to be their president.

Colombia's bilateral relations with the United States began when it belonged to the Republic of Colombia founded by Bolívar and have completed 200 years in 2022. The US Congress created a law that includes issues of mutual interest and, precisely, the president of the Commission of Senate Foreign Relations, Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced the United States-Colombia Bicentennial Alliance Act of 2022 last March, which codifies designation as a major non-NATO ally and expands support for economic growth, security, the implementation of the 2016 Peace Accords and "opportunities for women entrepreneurs, Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities," reports El Nuevo Herald .

HORIZON OF TENSIONS AND CHALLENGES

After the call, the economist born in the coastal department of Córdoba commented that Biden aspires to have a "more equal" relationship with his government, however, Petro has questioned the status quo of said links, especially specific aspects such as the forced eradication of coca plantations, the fundamental base of cocaine, due to the criminalization of honest peasants and their ineffectiveness in combating what turned out to be an unprecedented harvest. His proposal is to expand crop substitution programs that provide credit, training and land rights to farmers.

He also criticizes the extradition of drug cartel leaders facing charges in the United States, promising that instead of sending them to that country, his government would prioritize telling the truth and compensating the victims of armed groups.

On oil exploration, he has criticized it at a time when Biden has called on nations to produce more. He has declared against a free trade agreement with the United States and blames these mechanisms for impoverishing Colombian farmers by harming the competitiveness of agricultural activity. He proposed the creation of "intelligent tariffs" to protect rural Colombia from agricultural imports established in a free trade agreement with the United States.

He has described the war on drugs, led by the United States, as a complete failure, which is why he wants a new strategy that consists of partially legalizing drugs and agricultural alternatives for rural areas. Plan Colombia, in which the United States has invested more than 13 billion dollars from the early 2000s to 2016, was implemented to combat drug trafficking and the guerrillas who supposedly financed their uprisings with the transfer of cocaine.

However, illicit crops multiplied and, for example, the export of cocaine to the United States produced 1.88% of GDP in 2018, more than double the wealth produced that same year by coffee beans.

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The United States, together with Uribe governments, proposed eradication as a solution to the massive cultivation of coca, the result was a greater area of ​​coca planted (Photo: Presidency of Colombia)

A complex point in the relationship with Washington is his campaign promise to normalize relations between Colombia and the government of Venezuela, a measure that contradicts the ruling of the United States and will disalign Colombia from the group of satellite countries that have recognized Juan Guaidó as "interim president" of Venezuela. A day after speaking with Biden, it was learned that Petro had discussed with President Nicolás Maduro the reopening of the border between the two countries.

Petro is also likely to face stiff resistance from within Colombia's military, whose influence has increased significantly with US assistance and training. Also a clash with the police establishment, if his government proceeds to reform that security body after the repressive acts in 2021 against the protesters of the national strike.

Until now, Petro has avoided feeding any discord, but he obtained the vote of millions of Colombians fed up with the enormous inequality and social injustice that originate in the long neoliberal night determined by the dictates of the United States and the oligarchy that represents it. The agenda that the former mayor of Bogotá has proposed is defined by the desire to expand social programs and focus on rural development to address the deep social and racial inequality in Colombia, which has only worsened with the pandemic and economic crisis in the region. in recent years.

In the test phase, not only Colombia with Petro at the head is involved, but also the United States in crisis as it finds itself in the midst of a rearrangement of global power. The truth is that the president-elect will not be indifferent to a US bureaucracy that, according to a secret 2016 US embassy cable that was published by WikiLeaks has described him as a radical "populist" "similar to the late Comandante Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez" or a "pragmatist," according to another report.

A country that was repressed with blood and fire during the last national strike of 2021, which experienced the displacement of the war from rural areas to the center of large urban conglomerates, requires time for dialogue that prevents it from falling back into the pit of the civil War.

After what happened to Luis Carlos Galán, murdered in 1989; Jaime Pardo Leal, murdered in 1987; Bernardo Jaramillo, assassinated in 1990; and Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, assassinated in 1990, it is important that the popular sectors find their interests expressed in a government that promotes politics as a means of building a national community. The game is open and it would be necessary for weapons to remain far from this new historical stage in Colombia.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/in ... tro-y-eeuu

Google Translator

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Removing Armed Groups From Colombia-Venezuela Border a Priority

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Colombian president-elect Gustavo Petro predicts the beginning of a new stage in Colombian-Venezuelan relations. Jul. 5, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@joseale36884029

Published 5 July 2022 (13 hours 8 minutes ago)

The fight against illegal groups on the Venezuelan-Colombian border is a priority to rebuild ties between the two nations, Colombia's president-elect Gustavo Petro said.

Speaking to local station W Radio, Petro said, "There are some priority issues: opening trade on the border, recovering the border for both sides, which implies moving, cornering and evicting the armed groups that today are on both sides of the border of an illegal nature."

Petro said that as of August 7, when he takes office, both Colombia and Venezuela must work together towards smoothing and restoring the trade relationship at the border, mainly among small producers.

"Once we take office on August 7, after the inauguration, we will start building the institutions that existed before: there were economic, political and diplomatic ones," the president-elect said.

Petro also addressed the exchange relationship issue at the border. In this regard, he said it is necessary to set up specific mechanisms to exchange Venezuelan dollars for Colombian pesos.


The elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said in an interview with a local radio station that he considers that one of the priorities for getting relations with Venezuela back on course is to combat illegal groups on the border of both countries.

In the interview, Petro made known that shortly after being elected, he had a conversation with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; however, no specific issues were discussed on that occasion, Petro said.

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 09, 2022 2:21 pm

Corruption Scheme Over Peace Funds in Colombia Investigated

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Reporters just revealed systemic, high level corruption of official peace funds that were supposed to fight poverty in conflict zones - including official national accountability institutions. | Photo: Twitter @jonathanfox707

Published 9 July 2022 (5 hours 56 minutes ago)

According to local media, around US$ 120 million destined for peace projects went to mayors, senators and public officials as bribes. These funds were intended to pay for development initiatives in 170 municipalities hit by war and poverty.

The former advisor to the Presidency of Colombia, Emilio Archila, appeared in court this Friday to testify before the Prosecutor's Office, which is conducting a preliminary investigation over alleged irregularities in the management of resources destined to development projects in areas affected by the armed conflict.

According to local media, around 500 billion Colombian pesos (about US$ 120 million) destined for peace projects went to mayors, senators and public officials as bribes.

These funds were intended for the Collegiate Body for Administration and Decision Making (OCAD-PAZ) to pay for development initiatives in 170 municipalities hit by war and poverty, as part of the the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 by the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP).


Archila has insisted that he denounced these irregularities since the beginning of 2021 so that they could be investigated. In this regard, the Attorney General's Office announced on Thursday that it is pursuing 24 disciplinary actions on such irregularities.

The entity specified that it will carry out tests to "verify the occurrence of allegedly irregular conduct of officials that would have affected the correct use of the resources of the General Royalties System (SGR)".

The projects belonged to the Development Programs with Territorial Focus (PDET) in municipalities prioritized for the post-conflict period, mainly located in the departments of Amazonas, Antioquia, Bolívar, Cauca, Cesar, Córdoba, La Guajira, Nariño, Quindío, Risaralda, Sucre, Tolima and Valle del Cauca.


In particular, the Public Prosecutor's Office will analyze 27 investment projects approved by the OCAD-PAZ. According to the agency, it "observed risks and alleged irregularities in the execution of these initiatives that led to the opening of ten preliminary inquiries and two disciplinary investigations".

Recently, a journalistic investigation brought to light that officials of the National Planning Department (DNP), the Comptroller's Office and a group of Colombian congressmen created a scheme to allegedly appropriate more than ten percent of the resources of this fund for peace projects.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cor ... -0001.html

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Gustavo Petro Proposes to Return Monómeros to Venezuela
JULY 9, 2022

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Venezuelan company Monómeros, in Barranquilla, Colombia. File photo.

The president-elect of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has said that he plans to return the administration of the Venezuelan state-owned fertilizer company Monómeros, headquartered in Barranquilla, Colombia, to Venezuela. Petro expressed hope that this will make the company functional again, which would reduce the cost of fertilizers in his country.

“The urea used in our country was produced in the Monómeros company of the Venezuelan petrochemical company Pequiven,” said Petro in an interview with the Colombian radio station W Radio. “Iván Duque caused the loss of fundamental raw material in the Colombian agricultural sector, in addition to financially strangulating the company. All because of the fault of Colombian officials.”

“The majority shareholder of Monómeros is Pequiven,” he added. “The business idea is for Pequiven to produce urea. We lost the urea,” he said, criticizing current President Duque’s actions against the company. Duque, together with self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó and his gang, stole the fertilizer company Monómeros, one of Venezuela’s most valued foreign assets.

Petro noted that it is not even known if Juan Guaidó or Leopoldo López (who fled to Spain) manages Monómeros now, but he did make it clear that the management is not in the hands of Pequiven.

“So, we lost the fundamental raw material for Colombia,” Petro decried. “The company ended up practically closing its operations and lost the market it had in the country, and Colombia is now importing fertilizers from Russia.”

Petro explained that one of the principal aims of his administration will be to restore to the economy, especially the Colombia-Venezuela trade that existed until Iván Duque recognized “interim president” Guaidó and tried to invade Venezuela—under US orders—which ended the Colombia-Venezuela diplomatic relations. “It will be a great responsibility and opportunity for the business community of the northeast,” said Petro. “All of this will serve to offset part of the loss of foreign exchange due to the drop in the global prices of crude oil.”


Luis Fernando Velasco, coordinator of Gustavo Petro’s team for the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic, expressed grave concern regarding the Venezuelan fertilizer company. “Monómeros is still in the hands of Guaidó… It was a disaster, the company disappeared.”

Monómeros is reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy, registering losses amounting to millions of dollars.


(Alba Ciudad) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/gustavo-petr ... venezuela/
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