On August 20, the government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived in Caldono, Cauca, to hear community demands and concerns / credit: Alfonso Prada / Twitter
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
On August 20, the newly inaugurated left-wing government of President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez in Colombia launched the first Unified Command Post for Life (PMU) in the municipality of Caldono, in the Cauca department. The PMU is an initiative that aims to achieve total peace and protect the population affected by violence across the country, especially social leaders, human rights activists, environmentalists and former combatants of the demobilized FARC guerilla group.
The launch was led by Interior Minister Alfonso Prada, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, Labor Minister Gloria Inés Ramírez, and around 30 legislators from across the political spectrum, including the president of the Senate, Roy Barreras, and the president of the Peace Commission of the Senate, Iván Cepeda.
“We have installed the PMU, which is a command post to achieve rapid security in a preventative approach, not in the approach of sadness when we receive the news of the death of social leaders,” Prada said.
Prada explained that the protection plan will cover the 65 municipalities hardest hit by violence in the country, adding that initial emphasis will be placed on “5 to 10 of them, which are in a very delicate situation and are systematically assassinating their leaders.” He said that the state would provide accompaniment and maintain a permanent presence in those 10 municipalities.
The Interior Minister said that the government is particularly committed to the Cauca department. “For us, Cauca is a huge priority… If we achieve integral and total peace in Cauca, I have no doubt that we can dream of having total peace in Colombia,” said Prada.
Prada explained that instructions had been given to the institutions that have powers related to the protection of the lives of social leaders, land defenders, environmentalists, community leaders, peace signatories, land restitution managers, and those who work in crop substitution.
Prada added that the government had already ordered the local authorities to comply with the early warnings issued by the Ombudsman’s Office, especially for the municipalities of Caldono, Buenos Aires and Santander de Quilichao, in Cauca. He also said that the government would strengthen the National Protection Unit (UNP).
For her part, Environment Minister Muhamad stressed that this plan recognizes land defenders as people who make a positive, important and legitimate contribution to the protection of nature and promotion of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Muhamad assured that with the beginning of the plan, the implementation of the Escazú Agreement also begins, pending its ratification by the House of Representatives.
With regard to illegal paramilitary groups, Senator Barreras said that dialogues are the only way that allows peace. “The government and the congress have every desire to allow them to reintegrate into society and these command posts for life are spaces for dialogue and listening, the message that we are sending them is that they take advantage of the opportunity to lay down their arms so that they can join the life of Colombia,” said Barreras.
Iniciamos el Plan de Choque para salvaguardar la vida de las y los Líderes Sociales en Colombia, así como de quienes firmaron la paz .
Comisión del Gobierno Nacional, 20 congresistas y la Comunidad Internacional en defensa de la vida y la paz en los Territorio, rumbo al Cauca pic.twitter.com/sTQgD8i0rD
On August 19, the Ombudsman’s Office released a report in which it reported that between January 1 and July 31, 122 social leaders and human rights defenders had been assassinated in different departments of the country. It also reported that Cauca with 19 assassinations, Nariño with 17, Antioquia with 12, and Putumayo with 11, are the departments with the highest number of cases.
According to the Colombian human rights organization Institute of Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), between January 1 and August 20, 119 environmentalists, land defenders, human rights defenders, Afro-descendent, Indigenous, peasant and social leaders had been killed by illegal armed and drug-trafficking groups operating in the country. Additionally, during this period, 32 ex-combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who were in the reincorporation process, had also been murdered.
Petro and Márquez, during their election campaign, vowed to fight drug trafficking and paramilitarism, and consolidate peace in the country. The day following their inauguration, on August 8, in the first press conference to local media, Petro confirmed the resumption of negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the largest leftist guerrilla group active in Colombia. On August 11, a delegation of the Colombian government, headed by Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva Durán, visited Cuba to establish contact with the leadership of the ELN in order to advance towards peace negotiations. On August 20, President Petro announced that in order to further advance in the dialogue with the ELN, the arrest and extradition orders against the members of the insurgency group were suspended. At the same time, he confirmed the restitution of the negotiation protocols with the ELN that had been signed with the government of former president Juan Manuel Santos.
Atlantans attend a vigil memorializing slain activist Manuel “Tortuguita” or “Tort” Terán on Wednesday, January 18 / credit: Party for Socialism and Liberation-Atlanta
Editor’s Note: Light editing conformed this Peoples Dispatch article to TF’s style.
On June 7, 2021, then Atlanta city councilwoman Joyce Sheperd introduced a city ordinance to lease 381 acres of public land to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police training facility, then budgeted at $80.6 million dollars. “To her surprise,” writes the activist group Defend the Atlanta Forest, this ordinance was met with massive public opposition.
Leading up to a meeting on June 16, 2021 of Atlanta city council’s finance executive committee, Atlanta residents called in 3 hours and 41 minutes of public comments in the form of pre-recorded messages. Most comments were in opposition to the project. Protesters showed up at Shepherd’s house during the meeting itself, chanting “No Cop City! Keep Atlanta green!” The construction of the training facility would cut down part of Atlanta’s South River Forest, which provides environmental protection against flooding and extreme heat. Shepherd quickly arranged to have police cars stationed outside of her home in response to the peaceful protest.
On September 6, 2021, Atlanta residents called in over 17 hours worth of public comment regarding the new training facility ordinance—of the 1,166 comments called in, 70 percent of them were opposed to the project. The Atlanta City Council ignored the overwhelming opposition and voted 10-4 in favor of building what activists have dubbed “Cop City.”
Cop City, if built, will contain a mock city of Atlanta, where police will practice urban warfare tactics. The facility will also include a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad, explosive testing areas, firing range, and an emergency vehicle driving course. The price tag on the project has since ballooned to $90 million dollars—$60 million to be raised by the Atlanta Police Foundation and $30 million coming from the pockets of Atlanta residents.
Atlanta has one of the largest Black populations out of U.S. cities, with almost half of Atlanta residents being African American. 18.5 percent of Atlantans live in poverty, a rate which is higher than that national average of 11.6 percent. “Operation Shield”, another Atlanta Police Foundation project launched in 2007, developed a network of 11,000 cameras and license plate readers, rendering Atlanta the most surveilled city in the country.
Defend the Atlanta Forest, a group which has emerged as a leader of the opposition to Cop City, writes, “At over 300 acres, Cop City will be the largest police training facility in the United States and is slated to include a mock city where police will train with firearms, tear gas, helicopters, and explosive devices to repress protest and mass unrest, much as they did during the 2020 George Floyd protests. Cop City will hyper-militarize law enforcement, equipping police with a site to train for the suppression of Atlanta’s diverse Black and working-class communities.”
I'm not sure people know just how bad the "cop city" project in Atlanta would be. They want a whole mock city to practice police repression. pic.twitter.com/dWTPtO7VIb
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) January 21, 2023
Who’s Backing Cop City?
The anti-police brutality protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 caused a cultural shockwave, forcing the hand of even the most powerful corporations. Companies released statement after statement condemning police violence and racism. Some of those same corporations have become the most significant backers of Cop City.
Six days after the death of Floyd, shipping and retail giant Amazon tweeted, “The inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people in our country must stop.” Private logistics company UPS pledged millions of dollars towards racial justice organizations and historically Black universities following the killings of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. In 2020, Wells Fargo bank claimed that it had paused donations to police foundations.
All of these major corporations have become a part of the corporate network now backing Cop City. Other companies in this network include, but are not limited to, Inspire Brands (which includes Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin Donuts, and others), Waffle House, Chick-fil-a, JPMorgan Chase, and Home Depot. Many top executives at these companies have existing or former ties to police organizations across the country, including the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Activist Dies Fighting Cop City
Many resisting the construction of Cop City have labeled themselves “forest defenders,” in regards to the hundreds of acres of forest set to be destroyed through the building of the police training facility. One such forest defender, Tortuguita, was killed on January 18 during SWAT operations to clear up a protest camp in the Weelaunee Forest, which activists have been occupying for over a year to resist Cop City construction.
Georgia State Patrol (GSP) troopers claim that 26-year-old Tortuguita refused to exit their tent and shot at officers, injuring one. Police then responded by shooting and killing the activist. However, activists are demanding an investigation into the murder, as GSP claims there is no body camera footage and Tortuguita was not known to own or carry a gun.
Tortuguita’s death is not an outlier, and is in fact part of a pattern of criminalization of protest in Atlanta: “forest defenders” have been beaten, pepper sprayed, violently arrested, or otherwise attacked by police since June 2021.
There have been several protest actions following Tortuguita’s murder, including an explosive protest on Saturday, January 21, which right-wing officials slammed as “terrorism” due to incidents of property destruction. Infamous Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Green published a string of tweets demanding that “BLM” and “Antifa” protesters be labeled as “domestic terrorists.”
In 2021, I called for BLM and Antifa to be declared domestic terrorist organizations.
Tonight, with the violence and rioting in Atlanta, I’m renewing that call.
We must treat these thugs just like we treat any other group using political violence to intimidate their enemies. https://t.co/sqPHQeIDbj
One of the accusations hurled at protesters by authorities is an old one: That those demonstrating are in fact not from Atlanta or are not part of the communities most affected by policing. This “outside agitator” conspiracy is identical to accusations against 2020 anti-police brutality protesters: That those opposed to police violence are not genuinely oppressed or working class, instead, they were wealthy white people looking to stir up trouble.
In response, Atlanta activists have dug up an interesting piece of information about Cop City: Almost half—43 percent—of trainees at the facility would be recruited from out of state. A massive influx of police from across the country would convene in Atlanta to learn the latest tactics in police repression. These police trainees are the true “outside agitators,” activists say, and also a reason why anyone in the United States, not only those from Atlanta, has a vested interest in fighting the construction of Cop City.
the majority of trainees at #copcity would come from outside atlanta. the offense is translocal & so our resistance must be. pic.twitter.com/6xJSUg1kQr
— cop city will never be built (@MariahforAthens) January 24, 2023
Editor’s Note: This article was produced by Globetrotter.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other members of the Biden Cabinet are fond of proclaiming the “rules-based international order” (RBIO) or “rules-based order” every chance they get: in press conferences, on interviews, in articles, at international fora, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cocktails. Along with the terms “human rights” and “democracy,” the RBIO is routinely used to claim a moral high ground against countries that they accuse of not following this RBIO, and wielded as a cudgel to attack, criticize, accuse, and delegitimate countries in their crosshairs as rogue outliers to an international order.
This cudgel is now used most commonly against China and Russia. Oddly enough, whenever the United States asserts this “rules-based order” that China (and other “revisionist powers”/enemy states) are violating, the United States never seems to clarify which “rules” are being violated, but simply releases a miasma of generic accusation, leaving the stench of racism and xenophobia to do the rest.
This is because there is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the RBIO.
The RBIO isn’t “rules-based,” it isn’t “international,” and it confounds any sense of “order,” let alone justice. It is, at bottom, the naked exercise of U.S. imperial power and supremacy, dressed up in the invisible finery of an embroidered fiction. The RBIO is a fraudulent impersonation of international law and justice.
There are many layers to this misnomer, to be deconstructed piece by piece.
‘RBIO’ in Contrast With ‘International Law’
First, the RBIO is not “international” in any sense of the word.
There actually is a consensual rules-based international order, a compendium of agreed-upon rules and treaties that the international community has negotiated, agreed to, and signed up for. It’s called simply “international law.” This refers to the body of decisions, precedents, agreements, and multilateral treaties held together under the umbrella of the Charter of the United Nations and the multiple institutions, policies, and protocols attached to it. Although imperfect, incomplete, evolving, it still constitutes the legal foundation of the body of international order and the orderly laws that underpin it: this is what constitutes international law. The basic foundation of the UN Charter is national sovereignty—that states have a right to exist, and are equal in relations. This is not what the United States is referring to.
When the United States uses the term RBIO, rather than the existing term “international law,” it does so because it wants to impersonate international law while diverting to a unilateral, invented, fictitious order that it alone creates and decides—often with the complicity of other imperial, Western, and transatlantic states. It also does this because, quite simply, the United States does not want to be constrained by international law and actually is an international scofflaw in many cases.
The United States as International Outlaw
For example, the United States refuses to sign or to ratify foundational international laws and treaties that the vast majority of countries in the world have signed, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), ICESCR (the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights), CRC (the Convention on the Rights of the Child), ICRMW (the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families), UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), PAROS (the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space), the Ottawa Treaty (the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention), and the majority of labor conventions of the ILO (International Labor Organization). In fact, the United States harbors sweatshops, legalizes child labor (for example, in migrant farm labor), and engages in slave labor (in prisons and immigration detention centers). Even the U.S. State Department’s own 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report acknowledges severe problems in the U.S. of trafficking and forced labor in agriculture, food service, manufacture, domestic service, sex work, and hospitality, with U.S. government officials and military involved in the trafficking of persons domestically and abroad. Ironically, the United States tries to hold other countries accountable to laws that it itself refuses to ratify. For example, the United States tries to assert UNCLOS in the South China Sea while refusing—for decades—to ratify it and ignoring its rules, precedents, and conclusions in its own territorial waters.
There are also a slew of international treaties the United States has signed, but simply violates anyway: examples include the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, UN treaties prohibiting torture, rendition, and kidnapping, and of course, war of aggression, considered “the supreme international crime”—a crime that the United States engages in routinely at least once a decade, not to mention routine drone attacks, which are in violation of international law. Most recently, the AUKUS agreement signed between the United States and Australia violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by exploiting a blind spot of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
There are also a multitude of treaties that the United States has signed but then arbitrarily withdrawn from anyway. These include the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, the Agreed Framework and the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, the Geneva Conventions, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and many others.
There are also approximately 368 treaties signed between the Indigenous nations and the U.S. government; every single one of them has been violated or ignored.
There are also unilateral fictions that the United States has created, such as “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPs): this is gunboat diplomacy, a military show of force, masquerading as an easement claim. FONOPs are a concept with no basis in international law—“innocent passage” is the accepted law under UNCLOS—and it is the United States and its allies who are violating international laws when they exercise these FONOPs. Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) are likewise notions that have no recognition in international law—the accepted concept is “sovereign airspace”—but the United States routinely claims that China is violating Taiwan’s ADIZ or airspace—which covers three provinces of mainland China. These are some examples of the absurd fictions that the United States invents to assert that enemy states like China are violating the RBIO. This is weaponized fiction.
The United States also takes great pains to undermine international structures and institutions; for example, not liking the decisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it has disabled the WTO’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism; it has undermined—and threatened—the ICC (by passing the American Servicemembers Protection Act [ASPA], also known as the Hague Invasion Act), and more recently, sanctioned the ICC prosecutor and her family members; it thumbs its nose at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its decisions, and generally is opposed to any international institution that restricts its unbridled, unilateral exercise of power. Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, in blunt candor, asserted that there is “no such thing as the United Nations,” but this unhinged ideology is quietly manifested in the day-to-day actions of the United States throughout successive U.S. administrations.
Whose Rules? The United States Applies Its Laws Internationally
On the flip side of this disdain for agreed-upon international law and institutions is the United States’ belief that its own laws should have universal jurisdiction.
The United States considers laws passed by its corrupt, plutocratic legislature—hardly international or democratic by any stretch of the imagination—to apply to the rest of the world. These include unilateral sanctions against numerous countries (approximately one-third of the world’s population is impacted by U.S. sanctions), using the instruments of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. legislature and courts, as well as currency and exchange systems (SWIFT). These unilateral sanctions are a violation of international law and humanitarian law, as well as perversions of common sense and decency—millions have perished under these illegal sanctions. To add insult to injury, the United States routinely bullies other countries to comply with these unilateral sanctions, threatening secondary sanctions against countries and corporations that do not follow these U.S.-imposed illegal sanctions. This is part of the general pattern of the exercise of U.S. long-arm jurisdiction; examples abound: the depraved arrest, imprisonment, and torture of journalist and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange—an Australian national—for violating U.S. espionage laws; the absurd kidnapping of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou (a Chinese national) on Canadian soil, for violating illegal U.S. sanctions on Iran (which Canada does not itself uphold); and many other examples, too many to enumerate.
This long-arm bullying is often exercised through a network of kangaroo courts within the United States, which arrogate to themselves unitary, plenipotentiary international powers to police the citizens of other countries. Not surprisingly, the United States also applies its own laws in a similarly corrupt way within its own borders, with its own gulag system fed through these kangaroo courts. The most dramatic examples of the corruption of these courts can be noted in the routine exoneration of police-inflicted murders of civilians, except under the most extreme protest and activism; and absurd judgments, such as the prosecution of Steven Donziger by a Chevron-linked corporate law firm; or the exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse by a judge allowing the accused to run the juror lottery. Note, however, the system itself is set up for conviction: over 99 percent of federal cases that go to court result in conviction; most do not even go to trial: 90 percent of U.S. federal indictments are settled by defendants pleading “guilty” or “no contest” to charges filed against them. The idea that there is any impartial notion of justice is belied by the fact that fair and adequate legal representation is unaffordable for most defendants; that appointed public defenders are so overstretched that they often spend literally minutes on each case, simply counseling defendants to plead guilty—which most do—and individuals, in the rare cases where they do win, are often bankrupted and psychically destroyed by a system that has unlimited resources and finances to beat down its victims. This corrupt system of oppression, despite its obvious injustices and iniquities, is exacerbated within vast gray areas of the justice system where even counsel, appeal, scrutiny, or oversight does not apply, and where a single individual may be judge, jury, and executioner. These include, for example, certain parole and probation systems, review boards within prisons, debt collection systems, immigration proceedings, asset forfeiture systems, and many other quasi-judicial systems of oppression.
Generally, these violations and injustices are excused or erased by the international and national media, which are complicit in maintaining an illusion of impartial, high-standards justice in the United States. This is an illusion without substance: the U.S. legal system, like the U.S. health care system or the U.S. educational system, is essentially a failed system that is designed to work only for the rich and powerful. It delivers substandard, so-called care, if not outright abuse, harm, violence, and death, to the vast majority of people who have the misfortune to enter its sausage-making chambers.
Routine Exemptions, Deadly Disorder
Nevertheless, from time to time, dramatic incidents of the United States flaunting the international “rules-based order”—i.e., international law by the United States—occasionally make headlines (before being rapidly silenced).
One type of recurring violation is the abuse of diplomatic immunity. This type of case is mundane and repetitious: a U.S. (or Western-allied) government employee kills or harms native citizens; the United States immediately claims diplomatic immunity. Sometimes the perpetrator is drunk, out of control, or paranoid; often they are spies or contractors. For example, according to recent reports, Anne Sacoolas seems to have been a drunk U.S. spy who killed a British teenager in 2019. She was spirited away immediately as a diplomat.
Raymond Allen Davis was a U.S. contractor, possibly acting CIA station chief, who shot dead two people in the street in Pakistan. Another person was killed by a vehicle picking up Davis to take him away from the crime scene. Davis was spirited out of the country, no explanations were given, and the murders were erased from media consciousness.
This mindset of exceptionalism and impunity is not anecdotal, but manifests on a general, structural scale in the numerous one-sided U.S. status of forces agreements (SOFAs) in the countries where the United States has troops stationed. These give a blanket immunity similar to diplomatic immunity: the violating U.S. soldier or contractor cannot be arrested and rendered to domestic courts unless the United States chooses to waive immunity; U.S. extraterritorial exemption/immunity can be applied despite cases of murder, mayhem, violence, torture, rape, theft, sexual trafficking, and a host of other sins.
This type of exceptionalism also applies to national health policies and international health regulations. For example, multiple COVID-19 outbreaks have been traced to U.S. violations of domestic public health measures—screening, testing, contract tracing, and isolation—in many territories or countries (especially island regions) where the United States has military bases. For example, several major COVID outbreaks in Okinawa have been traced to U.S. troops entering the island without following local health protocols.
The United States takes the cake for hypocrisy, however, when, in several COVID lawsuits, it accused China—without evidence—of violating UN/World Health Organization (WHO) International Health Regulations by failing to notify the United States and the rest of the world in a timely manner about the outbreak of COVID-19. This is entirely refuted by the facts and the well-established timelines: no other country has worked as assiduously and as rapidly in investigating, ascertaining, and then notifying the world of the initial outbreak, as well as sharing necessary information to control it. The United States, however, has carved out a pandemic-sized exemption from reporting any infectious diseases to the WHO if it deems it necessary for its national security interests. Ironically, this exemption is carved out for the single institution most likely to propagate it—the U.S. military: “any notification that would undermine the ability of the U.S. Armed Forces to operate effectively in pursuit of U.S. national security interests would not be considered practical.”
When the United States disingenuously uses the term RBIO, or rules-based international order, it may be playing at international law, but once its applications are unpacked and defused, it becomes clear that it is a weaponized fiction that the United States uses to attack its enemies and competitors.
If “hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue,” the RBIO is the vicious first tribute that the United States sends to its law-abiding opponents to undermine international order, no less dangerous for its falsehood.
K.J. Noh is a journalist, political analyst, writer and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.
Left-wing presidential candidate Gustavo Petro (bottom left on the mic) addressing a crowd in Colombia / credit: Gustavo Petro
For Francia Márquez, land is life.
The 39-year-old Afro-descendant woman was raised in mountainous territories that have been occupied by generations of Africans in what is now known as Colombia. They are the offspring of people who had escaped slave masters.
“Territory is a space of life and diversity,” said Márquez, who was dressed in white from head to toe and clad in African jewelry. She addressed a standing-room only event held on February 7 at a community center that serves the Spanish-speaking population in Hyattsville, Maryland, on the border of Washington, D.C. “And now, I want to be president of Colombia.”
Militant-turned-politician Gustavo Petro is seen as the inevitable Pacto Histórico candidate in this year’s presidential election in Colombia / credit: Facebook / Gustavo Petro
Many say the upcoming Colombian presidential election looks to be the most consequential in decades. That’s because, while some praise Márquez, everyone Toward Freedom spoke to agreed militant-turned-politician Gustavo Petro is the strongest candidate on the left. The most recent poll shows Petro as the most favored left-wing candidate, with 77 percent of the public’s favor, compared to only 12 percent for Márquez. More interesting is that Petro is the most recognized and favored candidate across the political spectrum, according to Centro Nacional de Consultario, a Colombian think tank.
“With the failure of the government of Iván Duque, the public is really looking for something different,” said Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Under the right-wing Duque presidency, murders of social leaders have continued as the 2016 peace accords to demobilize guerillas remain unimplemented. “Last year’s civil strike, the effects of COVID-19 and the economics of the country have pushed people who normally wouldn’t have run.”
Márquez and Petro are seeking the nomination of Pacto Histórico, a left-wing coalition, during today’s party consultations. These primary-like events will determine who will move on to first-round runoff elections on May 29. A second round would be held on June 19 if no candidate wins at least 50 percent of the votes. While Petro seeks the coalition’s nomination as a Colombia Humana party candidate, Márquez is vying with the support of Polo Democrático Alternativo, a social democratic party.
Aside from Pacto Historico, a center-right coalition, Coalición Equipo por Colombia (Team Colombia), and a center-left coalition, Coalición Centro Esperanza (Hope Center), are deciding on candidates today as well. A few candidates, including the notable former senator and once-exile Ingrid Betancourt, have opted out of today’s consultations and will run against the coalitions on May 29, either on a party ballot or independently.
Left-wing presidential candidate Francia Márquez (left) with members of the Afro-Colombian community in 2018 in La Toma, Cauca department. Márquez seeks the Pacto Histórico nomination in today’s party consultations / credit: Goldman Environmental Prize
Putting Colombia in Context
Colombia is among the top 20 most violent countries in the world. That is partly because the United States has provided $4.5 billion in arms and military training via Plan Colombia, a 22-year-old anti-narcotics program implemented during the presidency of right-wing president, Álvaro Uribe (2002-10). The U.S. military also reportedly has helped build out and now occupies seven Colombian military bases.
Out of 49 million people, 8 million have been displaced since 1985, according to Human Rights Watch. That’s because of decades of struggle between coca producers and traffickers, miners, Indigenous and Afro-descendant people, and those who represent foreign interests.
The Ovejas River in La Toma, Cauca department, Colombia, where a fierce battle has raged over land and displaced millions of mostly Afro-descendants and Indigenous people / credit: Goldman Environmental Prize
The Fear of ‘Becoming Venezuela’
Dan Kovalik got much pushback for announcing in February his support for Petro, who was roundly lambasted for recently saying in a radio interview, “We do not like [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro. We have said it many times. We don’t like what is happening in Venezuela in terms of the extinction of democracy.”
Another attack came on Twitter: “I suggest Maduro stop his insults. Cowards are those who do not embrace democracy. Get Venezuela out of oil, take it to the deepest democracy. If you have to step aside, do it.”
Le sugiero a Maduro que deje sus insultos. Cobardes los que no abrazan la Democracia.
Saque a Venezuela del petroleo, llevela a la más profunda democracia, si debe dar un paso al costado, hágalo. https://t.co/kA8DBwQ3fT
These kind of comments have moved some to call Petro “another Boric,” alluding to Chile’s new president, Gabriel Boric, who recently criticized Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“It might be tactical,” said Kovalik, who teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. “He still represents that [guerilla]. That’s why I still like him. He’s opposed to U.S. imperialism.”
Petro has gotten backing from figures of the international left, including U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. While regional leaders, including Maduro, assailed Petro on Twitter for criticizing Venezuela while it undergoes a process of socialist construction that began in 1998, some understand the rationale.
Sánchez-Garzoli has been working on Colombian issues since 1998 and has been exclusively focused on the country since 2004. She said Uribismo, the far-right ideology of Uribe that helped escalate the drug war, is to blame for the inflamed relationship with Venezuela. That has created a fear among Colombians that their country is “becoming Venezuela.”
“Colombians think of Venezuelans as their cousins,” Sánchez-Garzoli said. “There’s always been good relations, people to people—it’s just been the government that has had this antagonistic approach.”
Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist who co-founded a grassroots organization called the Black Alliance for Peace. He has lived in Calí, a predominately Afro-Colombian city, since 2011, and regularly advises movement and elected leaders in the country. “This spat between him and some figures like Maduro, while it is politically unwinding in terms of regional politics, plays a certain role in Colombian politics.”
Baraka said it is unclear if real ideological differences exist between Petro and Maduro, or if Petro’s statement was a critique from the left, or if it was Petro’s way of creating space between him and Maduro. “It’s understandable, but also opportunistic,” Baraka said.
Sánchez-Garzoli said part of the reason Petro lost the 2018 presidential election was because he wasn’t able to attract more moderate elements of the population to vote for him because of the public’s aversion to anything related to Venezuela.
Baraka said the question is similarly complicated among Afro-Colombians. “Part of it is confusion,” he said. “Part of it is the relative conservatism that’s across the region, unfortunately.”
When a candidate is considered in favor of Venezuela, that reinforces the right wing and the moderates because they fear a public seizure of companies as well as persecution of political and economic elites, Sánchez-Garzoli said. She added the center and the right recently have come together. “They are making alliances [with groups] they’ve never worked with before,” Sánchez-Garzoli said. “It’s very hard to know what that will mean in practice.”
In a region where the left has successfully taken state power, many said it is important for Petro to win to create more stability for the Western Hemisphere’s left pole, which includes Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Perú. “They’re not going to go away quietly,” Kovalik said of Colombia’s ultra-right wing.
James Early, a board member of Washington-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies, also sees potential in a Petro presidency. “Getting rid of this ultra-right Duque government and whoever would become the steward of state power is really the bottom line. This is where the rub comes.”
Left-wing presidential candidate Francia Márquez (fifth from left in the second row) poses in 2018 with members of the Afro-Colombian community in La Toma, Cauca department / credit: Goldman Environmental Prize
The Afro-Descendant Question
Charo Mina Rojas, an Afro-Colombian who supports Márquez’s candidacy, believes it would be a boon if Petro wins the presidency. But that support comes with reservations.
“Gustavo Petro continues to be part of that white supremacist voice that does not recognize diversity and the political power that diversity can have in this country, particularly from marginalized ethnic groups,” said Mina, who is a member of the Proceso de Comunidades Negras, or Black Communities Process, which represents more than 100 Afro-descendant community councils and organizations spread across 4 departments, or states. “Colombia always performs as a Mestizo country, but it’s white people governing.”
Unfortunately, Petro’s campaign did not respond as of press time to Toward Freedom’s inquiry.
Sánchez-Garzoli noted Petro has been known for a more top-down approach, keeping decision making to a tiny circle of advisors.
That is unlike the Afro-descendant tradition, in which every aspect of life is collectivized, attracting many to Márquez’s candidacy.
“She’s fearless—she’s a leader,” said Victor Hugo Moreno Mina, an Afro-descendant who is running for a seat in Colombia’s congress under the Green Party banner. “She has been defending Black communities in the cities, but also in the rural areas.”
Moreno is the Consejo Mayor, or president and legal representative, of the Asociación de Consejos Communitarios del Norte del Cauca (ACONC, or the Association of Community Councils of Northern Cauca). ACONC represents 210 rural communities and 10 municipalities in Cauca department.
Moreno was with Márquez on May 4, 2019, when armed assailants shot at their group as they were preparing for discussions with the government on what they see as negligence. “She defends people who don’t have their basic needs [met] in our communities.”
For Afro-descendants, their ancestral territories dating back to the 17th century have been equated with life itself. They descend from Africans who were kidnapped from the same villages in Africa and sold together, which meant they could communicate in their native languages to outsmart the slave masters. After escaping into the mountainous jungles of Colombia, they established the first African settlements. Their descendants had been able to continue the traditions of their homeland in relative isolation until the drug war in the early 2000s that began mass displacement. Then an influx of mining companies continued the violence in the 2010s.
A poster depicting Francia Márquez features her campaign slogan, “Soy Porque Somos,” or “I am because we are.” / credit: Francia Márquez
Ubuntu, a term with roots in the Bantu languages of central and southern Africa, means “I am because you are and you are because I am.” That is reflected in Márquez’s campaign slogan, “Soy Porque Somos,” or “I am because we are.” Marquez helped organize rural Afro-descendant women in her hometown of La Toma, located in the Cauca department, against foreign mining companies. Eighty women walked 350 miles in 10 days in November 2014 to the capital, Bogotá. That, as well as a 22-day protest in Bogotá, moved the government to end illegal mining activities and convene a national task force. But before that had taken place, the death threats had become too much to bear. On April 5, 2014, she was forced into exile with her two children, landing in the city of Calí. Her efforts caught international attention, winning her the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018.
Left-wing candidate Francia Márquez, who seeks the Pacto Histórico candidacy, seen in 2018 accepting the Goldman Environmental Prize / credit: Goldman Environmental Prize
The collectivism of the Afro-descendant community filters into Márquez’s approach to campaigning for president.
“I don’t have anything to offer. We have to change the logic,” Márquez told a crowd of mainly Spanish-speaking people on February 7 in Maryland. “That’s why we have a mandate.”
Instead of running on a platform, she brings to the public the demands of the Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, which includes distributing land to women, a focus on education, the legalization of drugs, an end to obligatory military service, the right to abortion and an end to the country’s 60-year-old civil war.
“She is contesting these structures from a very clear Black feminist perspective,” Mina said.
A Black woman at the event stood up wearing a Daishiki, a West African blouse-like patterned garment. “You have not let those evil forces touch you,” she told Márquez.
“To see you gives me hope,” said Pedro, an Indigenous Colombian who wound up in the Washington area after fleeing the violence.
“She defends everything with her body and soul,” Moreno told Toward Freedom.
The Afro-descendant population in Colombia is mostly concentrated in coastal areas, as represented by the shades of brown / credit: Wikipedia / Milenioscuro using data from OCHA Colombia’s Censo DANE 2005
‘Tricky Ethical Situation’
Mina said Márquez’s candidacy represents a grassroots process. And the people are patient.
“Nothing is going to change in a four-year period,” Mina said. “But in a long-standing process, we can expect a successful political alternative.”
Petro will need help to not only broaden his base, but to keep his current base excited. That’s where Márquez, who is unlikely to win today, can play a role.
“Francia has really forced the debate on different issues,” Sánchez-Garzoli said.
The 1991 reformed constitution includes a declaration that Colombia is a plurinational state. Unfortunately, that has not played out in giving Afro-descendants and Indigenous Colombians full reign over their lives. That contradiction again has come to a head with the ethnic chapter of the 2016 peace accords not being acted upon, according to a 192-page report Instancia Especial de Alto Nivel con Pueblos Étnicos (IEANPE, or Special High-Level Body with Ethnic Peoples) issued in December. Non-governmental organization Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (INDEPAZ, Institute for Development and Peace Studies) reported murders of social leaders, which includes activists, politicians and journalists, surged to 1,270 between 2016 and 2021. Although forced displacements hit their peak in the early 2000s, as seen in the INDEPAZ chart below, about 100,000 or more people have been displaced every year since the peace accords were signed.
Chart showing how many people have been displaced each year in Colombia / credit: INDEPAZ
“The citizen backing is going to have to be significantly organized to broker deals with whoever emerges,” said Early, who, as part of a delegation, met with militants in Cuba as the peace accords were being hammered out. He said, as the only Afro-descendant at the meeting, he advocated for the safety of Afro-Colombians. “That is the principal question inside Colombia: How will the candidacy of Francia negotiate with the forces who are gathered around Petro?”
Mina takes a more realistic, or perhaps pessimistic, view.
“I don’t think they can change the relationships as they are,” she said. “You need a lot of economic power to do that.”
Mina added Petro has been trying to gain alliances with those in power. She and others saw that as a tough road to walk. More right-wing elements like the Catholic Church may require compromises that can go against a candidate’s positions.
“That is a tricky ethical situation,” Mina told Toward Freedom on a phone call from her Calí home. “If that was just words, that is okay. But that is not just words. When he wins, all those people will come back to cash the check.”
Kovalik said the international left, much of which has not seized state power, should support Petro’s candidacy.
“Even if he’s not openly supporting Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua, he’s not a lackey of the military in Colombia,” he said. “It will be a huge step forward for Latin America to have a president of Colombia who’s not willing to allow Colombia to be a giant military base for the United States.”
