Colombia: News & Updates

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.

Two key US Senators have proposed a major reform of US aid to Colombia that would make the US a stronger partner for peace and justice work in Colombia. Their 62-page “United States-Colombia Strategic Alliance Act of 2022″ proposal focuses on such things as rural development, women’s empowerment; protection for labor and peace activists; and the environment rather than on the US’ customary support for military programs. “This legislation underscores the importance of Colombia as our strongest partner in the region, and will support Colombia’s efforts to implement its landmark peace accords, protect human rights, and promote rural and economic development,” said one of the Democratic Senators, Tim Kaine in a written statement.

Dear friends,

The times don’t seem very good for making progress on the climate crisis. The Biden administration provided some great rhetoric during the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow, but then came home and backtracked where it really matters, on policy decisions.

More recently, the terrible news of the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine has had the effect, among many bad effects, of distracting attention from the very important new IPCC report, which should have been a serious warning to governments and people alike.

A Colombian conservationist who saved a rare species of parrot from extinction, a young feminist activist in Afghanistan, and two poets in Myanmar who used words to protest against the military coup were among 358 human rights defenders murdered in 35 countries last year. As in previous years, most killings took place in the Americas and in the Asia-Pacific region. Colombia, where activists are routinely targeted by armed groups despite the 2016 peace accord, remained the most dangerous country to be a human rights defender, with 138 deaths recorded. The majority of those killed, 59%, worked on land, environmental and indigenous rights, where their activities disrupted the economic interests of corporations and individuals in mining, logging and other extractive industries.

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice. IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.