Colombia: News & Updates

Colombia has elected a former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro as president, making him the South American country’s first leftist head of state. Petro’s election marks a tidal shift for Colombia, a country that has never before had a leftist president, and follows similar victories for the left in Peru, Chile and Honduras. During his victory speech, Petro issued a call for unity and extended an olive branch to some of his harshest critics, saying all members of the opposition will be welcomed at the presidential palace “to discuss the problems of Colombia”. Petro’s journey from a fighter in the M-19 guerrilla army in the 80s to president also saw him become a senator and the mayor of the capital, Bogotá. He has a reputation for meandering speeches and high-handedness.

June 19 is the second and final round of Colombia’s presidential elections. The race has come down to two anti-establishment candidates: populist businessman Rodolfo Hernández, who has little political experience, and leftist Gustavo Petro, whose election would end decades of rightwing leadership. As the polls predicted, Petro won the most votes in both the primaries and first round, but Hernández as the runner-up came as a surprise. Perhaps the most surprising outcome of this year’s election cycle, however, has been Márquez’s meteoric rise. Although she failed to garner enough signatures to run as an independent presidential candidate, her star performance in the Pacto Histórico coalition's primaries secured her spot as Petro's running mate. This Sunday, she could become Colombia’s first Black vice president. An Afro-Colombian environmental activist and lawyer, Márquez is new to politics. Since announcing her candidacy, Márquez has become a rallying point for Colombian activists and youth dissatisfied with the status quo. She is only the second Black woman to run for president in Colombia and campaigned on a platform that challenges the traditional powers in a highly militarized, conservative country. Unlike other presidential candidates, Márquez is from a small majority-Black town in southwest Colombia and doesn’t have a political machine behind her. So she did something that other candidates did not: she appealed to the Colombian diaspora.

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, 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, and (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.

The first round of the Presidential elections in Colombia was marked by the real possibility of a triumph of the political left, a stalemate in the peace process, the proliferation of armed groups, and growing violence. Gustavo Petro, former senator and former mayor of Bogota, obtained 40 percent of the votes and Rodolfo Hernández, an emerging candidate, came in second with 28 percent. One of the big questions ahead of the second round on June 19 is whether Hernández will be able to capitalize on the 55 percent of voters who did not choose Petro. In this interview, Gimena Sánchez, Director for the Andes at WOLA and Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight at WOLA, discuss the main challenges the new president will face, the risks of electoral violence, and the implications of Colombia’s new political map for the bilateral relationship with the United States.

There is an ongoing surge of crime across Latin America and the Caribbean, with new research showing that nearly two-thirds of the world’s most dangerous cities for crime are in Latin America, according to the risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft. The study, which used data on crime (such as homicides, theft and property damage), terrorism, civil unrest and conflict, found that eight of the 12 cities that receive the worst possible score for crime are in Latin America. Kabul in Afghanistan and Mogadishu in Somalia are ranked as the world’s most dangerous places when all four security risks were taken into account. Medellín was believed to have turned a corner after being associated with the violence of the 1980s and 90s, when Pablo Escobar’s feared Medellín cartel ruled swathes of the city and terrorised civilians and the police. But it recorded the highest possible risk score in Verisk Maplecroft’s analysis, alongside San Salvador in El Salvador and Chihuahua in north-west Mexico.

Colombia’s upcoming presidential elections on May 29 are taking place at a time of great tension, rising insecurity, economic challenges, polarization, and distrust in government. These elections also mark the first time a socially-progressive candidate, Gustavo Petro, in a country ruled by the right and moderates for decades, has the possibility of winning the presidency. This is an overview of some of the main human rights and security challenges facing Colombia that the next President will need to address, and how U.S. policymakers can support them in doing so.

For more than 15 years, the Cleveland InterReligious Task Force on Central America & Colombia (IRTF) has been writing Rapid Response letters on behalf of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective, expressing concerns about the numerous death threats by paramilitary groups that lawyers from that collective and other human rights defenders in Colombia have received over the years. The organization has also been a victim to illegal surveillance and state intelligence, making their work even more dangerous. Finally, the lawyers' collective got their day in court!