Colombia

The government of Gustavo Petro is seeking to resume peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Havana, Cuba. The first rapprochement took place last Thursday, 11 August. Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva announced that he met with ELN representatives…

In order not to make the same mistakes or fall into the traps that have dehumanised us to death and beyond, Colombia’s children and young people need to know what happened to us, why it happened to us and how…

Gustavo Petro, an economist, former senator and ex-guerrilla of the April 19th Movement (M-19), and Francia Márquez, a black leader and environmentalist from a small rural town in Cauca, took office as president and vice-president of Colombia to promise that…

John Lennon’s famous song “Give peace a chance” has travelled the world since its recording in 1969, chanted by millions of voices as an anthem for peace. In Colombia, death would still thunder for decades, even after a Peace Accord…

The seventh of August was a doubly historic day for Colombia because the first left-wing government took office, with Gustavo Petro at its head, and in the vice-presidency, the first Afro-Colombian feminist, left-wing, activist, lawyer and environmental rights defender, Francia…

Francia Márquez has bright eyes and a deep gaze. The firmness between her eyebrows hints at the absolute correspondence between her life experience and her speech. She takes notes with her left hand in a small notebook that closes with…

18 July 2022, El Espectador It is 6:12 p.m. on Saturday 16 July; I am walking along and I get the first message announcing news as petty as it is absurd: Humberto de la Calle – the only statesman we…

5 July 2022. El Espectador There are days and months full of meaning, like May 68 when students and workers took the spring and the streets of Paris to protest against capitalism and imperialism, and De Gaulle had to anticipate…

Published in Mundo Obrero In the new country scenario, shaped by the popular support for the Historical Pact and by the recommendations of the Truth Commission report, there is room for all classes and ages, all options and looks, all…

Colombia made history this week. Progressive former M-19 guerrilla Gustavo Petro, a current senator and former mayor of the nation’s capital Bogotá, won the presidential election. His running mate Francia Márquez Mina will be the nation’s first Black vice president.…