What Petro can achieve in furthering peace will determine whether the enthusiasm that propelled him to victory will quickly turn into disillusionment and whether Colombia’s peace process will sink or swim.
A persistent lack of development in rural areas continues to be a major impediment for Colombia as it seeks to reach its potential for growth in the agricultural sector and achieve its human development goals in the countryside. This reality only underscores the urgent necessity of structural agrarian reform in Colombia, an initiative which no recent government has had the appetite nor the political capital to attempt. As the official commencement of the 2022 electoral campaign grows nearer, rural issues are likely to become even more central to the Colombian political discourse. Will real change finally follow?
Last Friday, the helicopter of President of Colombia Iván Duque was struck by multiple bullets as it approached the airport of the city of Cúcuta, capital of the Norte de Santander region, located on the Venezuelan border. No passengers were injured by the small-arms fire, although Duque’s government released photographs showing the helicopter’s exterior lacerated by bullet holes. The attack occurred in the context of escalating levels of violence in Colombia—as the landmark 2016 peace deal signed with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) lurches unsteadily toward its fifth anniversary—and record-low approval ratings for President Duque.
The death of Javier Ordóñez in Colombia has sparked social unrest that reveals frustrations that go far beyond police brutality.
The reactions to former President Álvaro Uribe’s arrest hints toward deep divisions within the country, the body politic, and within families across Colombia.
The rise of violence in Colombia highlights the complexity of implementing a peace agreement and how the absence of war does not necessarily guarantee peace.
Farah joins the podcast to speak on his recently published report for the William Perry Center on how the Bolivarian Alliance, led by the Nicolás Maduro regime, used legitimate protests in Chile, Colombia and Ecuador to sow chaos in these countries.
Taking advantage of the demonstrations that flared across Latin America at the end of 2019, outside actors worked to push legitimate social protest to violent extremes as a part of a deliberate destabilization strategy.
Since the disarming of the FARC two-and-a-half years ago, the actors, figures and methods have changed. But the conclusion is clear: drug trafficking in Colombia is more alive than ever before.
The ELN may just have destroyed the possibility of peace in the long-troubled country, not just with the ELN but under the peace agreement with the FARC.
