On 29 May the Colombian Presidential and Vice Presidential elections take place. The four-year term limit to the office means that the widely detested incumbent President Iván Duque (of the former Democratic Centre Party) is ineligible to stand. As we go to press, Gustavo Petro, candidate for ‘Historic Pact’, composed of 20 progressive organisations, leads the race to replace Duque. Polls give Petro some 41% of intended votes. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-round votes there will be a runoff on 19 June. Facing the threat of the first president from the political left in Colombia’s history, the ruling class has unleashed a campaign of violent intimidation of voters.
Petro’s opponents are Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez (‘Team Colombia’ for the elites) polling at roughly 27% and outsider Rodolfo Hernández (‘Anti-Corruption League’) at 21%. Historic Pact includes the ex-FARC ‘Commons’ party, Colombian Communist Party, the Democratic Pole, and the Patriotic Union. Petro’s political career began with the M-19 guerrilla movement. He was imprisoned for two years on weapons charges after winning land ownership campaigns with the rural poor. M-19 negotiated its disarmament in the late 1980s, turning to electoral politics by 1990, but was subject to a spate of state organised assassinations. Petro persisted, and, elected to Congress from 2006, he exposed extensive Congressional links to paramilitary groups.
Petro has continued to run the gauntlet of death threats ever since. He was Bogota’s mayor from 2011 to 2015 and unsuccessfully ran for Colombia’s presidency twice. His attacks on the ruling class and promises to boost state involvement in the economy express the popular sentiment and felt needs of the working class. There are high rates of unemployment and inflation exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Malnutrition has increased to levels unseen in a decade. Petro aims to revitalise local farming and use tariffs to keep out cheaper multinational suppliers which are destroying local employment, a direct threat to US imperialism. Petro also aims to resume peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), suspended during Duque’s administration.
Voter intimidation
For months paramilitary groups – either narcotics gangs or shadowy far right partners – have been intimidating the rural population not to vote for Gustavo Petro. State organised assassinations of FARC leaders who have returned to the armed struggle against the state have continued with Gentil Duarte killed on 25 May. The Institute for Development and Peace Studies reports that 76 social leaders and 20 ex-combatants have already been murdered this year alone. On 12 May, the ‘We Are Defenders’ Programme reported 254 attacks and threats against human rights workers. The new figure implies an 89% increase in the number of confirmed attacks compared to the same period last year. 2021 was the most violent year in the last 12 years: 996 attacks against human rights activists were documented, 139 of whom were killed. This year, again, the largest numbers of victims are community leaders (16) and Indigenous leaders (12).
On 19 May 2022, the Ombudsman Carlos Camargo warned that 290 Colombian municipalities are on ‘high risk’ (206) and ‘extreme risk’ (84) alert due to armed actions attributed to the Gulf Clan and ‘other irregular armed groups’. In early May, the Gulf Clan also ordered an ‘armed strike’ in retaliation for the extradition of the narcotics gang leader Dairo Usuga to the US. This affected over 100 coastal municipalities. The deportation of Usaga conveniently removes the danger of Colombian court exposures of the cocaine trade’s links to ‘establishment’ figures, an export trade so pervasive that it keeps Colombia’s economy afloat (see ‘Cocaine capitalism: reloaded’ FRFI 286). Journalists Luis Angel and Luna Mendoza investigating these links for the Brazilian O Globo news outlet were recently detained by police, who warned them they would be investigated. Petro has proposed a peace deal with the Gulf Clan involving reduced sentences in exchange for telling the truth about their crimes and reparations for their victims. This threatens a substantial section of the ruling class and Petro has to campaign surrounded by bodyguards.
The Peace and Reconciliation Foundation revealed that from 13 March 2021, to 13 May 2022, 193 politically active individuals were threatened and 29 murdered in the different departments of Colombia. Public officials are the key target, including councillors, current and former mayors, governors, senators, congressmen, candidates for Congress, political party leaders and journalists. Historic Pact is the chief target.
On 12 May the bodyguards of Historic Pact Senator-elect Paulino Riascos, president of the Afro-Colombian Democratic Alliance Political Party (ADA), drove off three would-be assassins. An explosive device was planted at the ADA headquarters in the municipality of Bello. The electoral campaign formally started on the 13 May. Through a recent public letter to President Duque, 50 Historical Pact Congress members and Senators requested guarantees for the safety of presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, vice-presidential candidate Francia Marquez, other candidates, voters and supporters.
The land question
75% of Colombia’s municipalities are rural, making up 95% of land area. The main victims of many years of land monopolisation and enclosure practices have been Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and peasant communities. On 27 July 2021, the Misak Indigenous community, and other campesinos from the region, occupied Irish multinational paper giant Smurfit Kappa’s pine and eucalyptus plantations in Cauca. Smurfit operates in 35 countries. Since 1986, Colombia is one of its six most important sites; 70,000 hectares overall. In the 20,000 hectares in Cauca it has damaged public roads and the water system. It deforested large portions of tropical forest through clearcutting practices. This land is essential for the Misak to reclaim their history and culture.
During the occupation, the communities denounced the environmental damage caused by the plantations, and the government’s obstruction of the promised distribution of land in compliance with the 2016 peace treaty. The treaty requires three million hectares to be reallocated to the rural population most affected by the conflict and poverty, and to assign legal titles to seven million hectares. Fewer than 250,000 hectares have been assigned titles so far. With the slogan ‘reclaiming the territory to reclaim everything,’ the Pubenenses (indigenous guard) have cut down or damaged around 1,000 hectares of the non-native pine and eucalyptus. The Colombian government responded by deploying the National Army, the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron, and the police force. Activists have reported the indiscriminate use of stun grenades, tear gas, and even live ammunition. With the most unequal distribution of land in the world, the land question is central to the many crises that will face Petro if he wins office.
Alvaro Michaels
