Colombia: News & Updates

In 2019, Francia Marquez survived an assassination attempt by men wielding firearms and grenades – an attack that came on the heels of a string of death threats against the award-winning Colombian environmentalist. Now, three years later, she could become the first Afro-Colombian vice president – a historic development in a country where politics has traditionally been the domain of wealthy white men. She was tapped for the position by leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the upcoming May election. Marquez has focused her campaign on the need for economic investment in conflict zones, environmentalism, and ensuring implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. She has vocally opposed the drug wars in Colombia, known as the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders.

Q REPORTS (EFE) The Latin American economy will grow 2.3% in 2022, estimated this Thursday the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which lowered its outlook for the region three-tenths compared to those calculated six months ago, due to the negative effects of the Ukraine war on the global picture.

sing pandemic-related border restrictions, the Biden administration this month launched a deportation operation to Colombia amid a sharp increase in arrivals of migrants from that country to the U.S.-Mexico border. Since the start of the campaign, which had not been previously reported, the U.S. has expelled several hundred Colombians under a border rule known as Title 42, which blocks migrants from seeking asylum due to public health concerns, the DHS officials said. The rule was first implemented by the Trump administration. Fourteen months in, the Biden administration has continued the Title 42 expulsions, arguing they remain necessary to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 inside border processing facilities. To date, U.S. officials have carried out 1.7 million expulsions under Title 42, over 70% of them under President Biden. In February, 9,600 Colombian migrants entered U.S. custody along the southern border, an all-time high, according to government data. In fiscal year 2022, which started last October, U.S. border officials have already processed 23,985 Colombians — a 287% increase from the previous fiscal year.

She is an Afro-Colombian environmental crusader who has faced down untold death threats and survived at least one assassination attempt to become one of the leading lights of Latin America’s new left. Now, Francia Márquez could be on the verge of becoming Colombia’s next vice-president after the leftist frontrunner, Gustavo Petro, picked her as his running mate – a move that has thrilled progressives and civil rights activists across the region. “Every Colombian, in their diversity, from the regions, from each territory, made it possible for us to be here,” said Márquez, who, if elected in the 29 May vote, would join Costa Rica’s Epsy Campbell Barr as one of only two black female vice-presidents in Latin America. Afro-Colombians make up nearly 10% of Colombia’s population of 50 million, descending from enslaved people brought from Africa to work on sugar cane plantations, goldmines and the large estates of landowning Spanish colonists. They remain under-represented in business and politics.

This spring, Colombia could elect its first progressive president. In primary elections earlier this month—held for left-wing, centrist, and ruling right blocs—former Bogotá mayor and 2018 presidential candidate Gustavo Petro won an astounding nearly 4.5 million votes to emerge as nominee for the left-wing coalition known as the Historic Pact. Petro has pledged to ban new fossil fuel exploration from day one, proposing to "end oil exploration, but not exploitation. The old coffee-growing country has been left behind and sadly we moved into oil and coal. This is unsustainable and will bring about extinction. We need to move away from an extractivist economy and move towards a productive one.” Petro has been involved in politics ever since the M19 pivoted toward the constitutional process, and is no stranger to challenging the right. He called out right-wing government connections to far-right paramilitaries as a lawmaker, consequently receiving death threats, which is no surprise as Colombia is the world’s most dangerous country for human rights defenders and environmentalists.

The West has a historical interest in Colombia, both for trade and for its regional geopolitical importance. Indebted due to financial backing during the independence struggle, Colombia’s sprouting elites were pushed into unequal trading and political relations with the UK and the US. Now, Colombia’s left-wing and progressive coalition, Pacto Historico, has become the country’s most popular political movement following the congressional elections last Sunday. Depending on what happens in May’s presidential election, this win could have global reverberations. Crucially, the West stands to lose the unconditional loyalty of their most stable ally in the region.