Petro: “He who kneels to foreigners and drug trafficking does not defend the country”

From Bogotá (Colombia) – “Not even with billions of American dollars to buy votes will they impose on us mequetrefes from Miami, defenders of narco-terrorists. It is sad for the country that thinks to take those who help genocidaires to the Casa de Nariño”, asserted the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, applauded by the crowd that took over María Varilla Square, in Montería, capital of Córdoba, this Friday (5). “Whoever kneels to foreigners and drug trafficking cannot defend the country”, he emphasized.

In the festival marked by the traditional rhythm of the Caribbean coast, the “porro”, Petro presented the numerous advances of Agrarian Reform to peasant communities, remembering that his government acquired one million hectares to incorporate them into the delivery of land to producing families and pointed out that part of them has already been transferred to the hands of rural workers.

In order to put an end to these advances, warned the Colombian leader, the United States government wants to use a puppet “to put an end to everything we have done in these four years and they will despair if it takes eight [com a eleição de Iván Cepeda]” Thus, he warned, “they want to impose on us a young man from Miami who doesn’t know Colombia, who intends to return power to the murderous paramilitaries.”

“Either we fight drug trafficking, or you will take drug trafficking to the White House to pass laws on the people of Latin America with the same drug traffickers,” he added, referring to Trump and Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State.

“The decision of the people of Colombia is the only firm thing. Freedom and life!”, he exclaimed, calling on the population to participate massively in the second round of the presidential elections on the 21st, which pits the progressive candidate and historic fighter for human rights, Iván Cepeda, and the millionaire Abelardo de la Espriella, who made his fortune defending criminals of the worst kind.

“Do we want to bring the ghosts of death and injustice to Casa de Nariño to rule Colombia in darkness? We can’t”

“Do we want to bring the ghosts of death and injustice to the House of Nariño to govern Colombia in darkness? We cannot. If they win, I will be back on the streets, risking my life with my people, defending once again social justice, democracy, people’s power and the achievements we have achieved”, reinforced Petro.

Condemning on Thursday (4) the explicit interference of the US government in the Colombian electoral process, Petro said that “its allies come from the narco-paramilitary regime; they are genocidal and drug traffickers. And I proved this during ten years in Congress.” “What they are imposing is an ideological policy that divides the world between those who think like them and those who think differently, like us. They want to help bring crime to political power in Colombia”, he denounced.

In the statement released by the White House, Trump says that “Abelardo will face a radical left Marxist in the second round, on June 21”, which makes “the results of this election very important for the future of Colombia and its relationship with the United States”. “Due to his enormous achievements in life and his personal political support (the millionaire is a historic contributor to the Republican Party, as well as an American citizen), it is an honor to grant Abelardo my full and unrestricted support”, guaranteed the one who believes he is the president of the world.

“The right uses the tactics of Goebbels, Hitler’s communicator”

Petro considers that it is to build a path of submission and alienation that fascists and neoliberals seek to “guard” us with the manipulation of their hegemonic media, with “lies upon lies, as this was the tactic of Goebbels, Hitler’s communicator to the German people”. “The rest is an invitation to national suicide, to choose the executioners of narco-paramilitarism”, he summarized.

Urging everyone to fight the good fight, Petro clarified that there are no two paths in the next elections, which Colombians must define between “Mussolini or Giuseppe Garibaldi’s brigades”. “We are Garibaldi’s red shirts and not the mafia tombs. Respect Colombia!”, he reaffirmed.

The relationship between drug trafficking and militias, as we know, is tragic and incestuous. The renowned Colombian sociologist Francisco Leal documented that “drug trafficking, hand in hand with paramilitarism, was consolidated in the 1980s, with the permissive view of some elites and sectors of the State and security forces. It later became a political project, based on immense economic profit, the product of criminal actions, population displacement and land appropriation.” This drowned Colombia in a bloodbath that brought the country more deaths in fancary democracies than in the dictatorships of the Southern Cone.

“This mafia political project aimed at controlling the State”, which “materialized with negotiations between the government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and the paramilitaries”, was “not only a phenomenon of social mobility”, but also the “legitimation of illegality and criminality”.

As was evident, Uribe had two tricks up his sleeve and, faced with Cepeda’s imminent victory, he decided in the last few hours to raffle off Paloma Valencia, with whom he had very close relationships. This is how Abelardo de la Espriella took the lead into the second round with 43.7% against Iván’s 40.9%.

Trump’s interventionist policies and extrajudicial executions

On numerous occasions, Trump has turned his batteries against Colombian sovereignty, threatening the use of interventionist policies, carrying out extrajudicial executions against fishermen who were murdered on the high seas – accused by the White House of being “drug traffickers” – and cowardly repressing migrants within the USA. Furthermore, without any proof, he blamed the Colombian leader as a “drug trafficking kingpin”, imposing severe financial sanctions on the people. According to the American gangster, this entire massacre was because the president had not done enough to combat drug trafficking.

All this mountain of false accusations dumped on Petro is accompanied by the cynical support of Trump’s puppet governments such as those of Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa – who, as a neighbor, plays an important geopolitical role -; by Argentine Javier Milei, Chilean José Antonio Kast and Salvadoran Nayib Bukele, whose social tragedies have become increasingly visible realities.

Ironically, lies were used against the Colombian leader after the revelation of the Hondurasgate scandal (which expose US interference in the region’s democracies). The criminal action was the leak of audio recordings linking the current president of Honduras, Nasry Asfura, to former president Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States for trafficking 500 tons of cocaine between 2004 and 2022 – turning his country into a narco-state – and vice-president María Antonieta Mejía, as well as members of the Honduran Congress.

The recordings reveal a plot with international ramifications, in which JOH appears as the main political operator to strengthen US influence in Latin America and “eradicate the left”. One of the most egregious points concerns the creation of a digital structure within the USA to disseminate disinformation against progressive governments in the region.

In one of the recordings it is clear that Juan Orlando Hernández was tasked with creating a digital platform or news vehicle in the United States, which would be coordinated by sectors linked to Trump. The publication of dossiers with the aim of politically attacking the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, and that of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, is also mentioned.

Vexingly, JOH was released from a US prison, with Trump’s pardon on December 1, 2025, exactly 24 hours after the US elected its presidential candidate in Honduras, Nasry Asfura, from the (Anti) National Party.

Uribism, drug trafficking and paramilitarism hand in hand

The renowned Colombian sociologist Francisco Leal documented that “drug trafficking, hand in hand with paramilitarism, was consolidated in the 1980s, with the permissive view of some elites and sectors of the State and security forces. It later became a political project, based on immense economic profit, the product of criminal actions, population displacement and land appropriation.” “This mafia political project aimed at controlling the State”, which “materialized with the negotiations between the Uribe government and the paramilitaries”, was “not only a phenomenon of social mobility”, but also the “legitimization of illegality and criminality”.

In other words, summarizes university professor Carlos Arcila, “De la Espriella, who speaks shamelessly about democracy, was in the past a fervent supporter of the mafia – that is, a supporter of organized crime or the mafia – and this is the candidate who intends to govern Colombia.” “This is not democracy; this is mafiacracy”, he concluded.

With the collaboration of Caio Teixeira

^{This coverage by the ComunicaSul Collaborative Communication Agency was only possible thanks to the support of the São Paulo Bank Workers Union; Writers’ Union of the State of São Paulo; newspaper Hora do Povo; Red; Global South Dialogues; Citizenship Mail; Baron of Itararé; councilor Werner Tempel (PCdoB) of Santa Maria-RS; Professor Azuaite, from São Carlos-SP; Angelim Institute, the Public Services International (ISP) and the Colombian Workers’ Unitary Center, as well as several anonymous contributors.}

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