Execution of trade unionist was a crime against Colombia

“The recent execution of comrade Alejandro Caicedo Gavilán, our brother of so many journeys, at just 41 years old, was a crime against the Colombia that we fought so hard to build. It is a practice that reflects the climate that the fascists want to bring back to power with the election of Abelardo de la Espriella: a country without peace, without wages and without rights”, said Arvey Lozano, vice-president of the National Unitary Union of State Workers (Sunet), sub-headquarters Palmira – about 30 kilometers from Cali -, in the Cauca Valley.

His body could not resist the serious injuries suffered in the attack, especially a neck injury that compromised the carotid artery and caused considerable blood loss.

According to Arvey, after fighting tirelessly for more than four months for his life in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Alejandro died on May 7th, the victim of a gunshot attack carried out by hired killers on a motorcycle on December 30th.

According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), there were at least 187 murders of social leaders and human rights defenders in the country throughout 2025, to which have been added another 67 to date.

Read more: “We will win with Cepeda because Colombia doesn’t want to be gutted”, says Ana Erazo

Close to the elections, the environment of hatred and insecurity is even more driven by the extreme right and its media, aiming to target the government of Gustavo Petro, the Historic Pact and its presidential candidate, Iván Cepeda, in the elections on the 21st.

As a precaution and with the guidance of Sunet’s teammates, I got off the bus for the interview at Palmira Unicentro Shopping, with a lot of people, where Arvey was waiting for me on the road. The saying is similar to ours “don’t give luck to bad luck”. As the vice president told me, he himself had managed to escape an attack “only because the trigger stuck and the gun didn’t fire.” Therefore, on my companion’s recommendation, from there I headed straight to the airport. “For my safety,” he insisted.

“ALEJANDRO STANDED OUT IN THE ANTI-FASCIST FIGHT”

Unfortunately, Alejandro as general secretary of Sunet did not have the same happiness, lamented Arvey, “He was a figure who stood out for always being at the forefront of popular struggles, in readings, commanding the anti-fascist struggle against Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and supporting Petro’s policy of development and expansion of rights”, he described.

“Before this government, having been persecuted in the midst of his youth struggles, Alejandro was threatened with death and had to suspend his university career and leave the country, having passed through Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Finland, Norway and Switzerland. He went to Cuba and Venezuela, and then returned to Colombia, being recognized for his charisma and honesty. This meant that he had a great ascendancy over everyone and projected himself from a union point of view”, he reported.

“I remember that he always participated in the May Day marches, as well as in all the necessary demonstrations that the unionists had to help. He always supported progressive, left-wing candidates, who really served the people. He was always committed to that side, never the other. He was a young communist”, he said.

“DE LA ESPRIELLA IS PURE AND HARD FASCISM”

Faced with the crossroads that Colombia finds itself at, I ask you to draw a parallel between the two opposite paths to follow. “De la Espriella is pure, hard fascism, it is violence, it means eliminating, as he himself said, 40% of the State, leaving people without social protection. When someone openly states that they are going to eliminate the left, talking about disemboweling them, they explain textually that they are going to extract the intestines, the entrails, what are they saying? In other countries this is called terrorism!”, he protested.

Unlike this criminal, described Arvey, “Iván Cepeda is a candidate who represents peace, dialogue, intelligence, social and human beings, a national development project with sovereignty”. “We need, like Petro, a president committed to reducing dependence on imports, especially in food, who invests in science and technology, who is committed to recovering the industry we once had.”

To achieve this turnaround, he argued, “we will need to confront the large media, which are owned by the same corrupt people who governed the country for many years and who took away our resources”, “We need to democratize the media, in the same way as the redistribution of income, and strengthen alternative media. Because today what exists is a disinformation industry that works in a political and ideological way for manipulation, shielding Uribe, fascism and neoliberalism”, he concluded.

*ComunicaSul, from Palmira, Colombia