522: The Last South American Guerrilla

On that note, a little bit of housekeeping, Emily Hart's Colombia briefing will be available only to subscribers this week. That's right, only to subscribers, but you can subscribe on Patreon. You can subscribe for a little or a lot, depending on how you feel. This week we're going to take a little bit of a change again. I'm going to promote, and it would be remiss of me to not promote, some of my own work here.

And you will know that I opened up a small publishing company a couple of years ago called Fuller Vigil. Our first book, of course, was the children's book, El Año Viejo, a celebration of Colombian traditions at New Year's Eve. And my stepmother, Paula McCall, she did the artwork, and Carolina Uribe from Bogota, wrote the story. It has sold well. The second book we brought out, of course, is Better Than Cocaine, Learning to Grow Coffee and Live in Colombia by Barry Max Wills.

And that's an excellent, excellent book, selling incredibly well on Amazon as well and in bookstores in Bogota. So I just ask for the book, it's in Bookworm, Prologo, the Fondo de Cultura Economica, and somewhere else. that escapes me at this moment here in Bogota, but you can get it on Amazon, very easy. And that's where I come in here. Barry, the author, Barry Max Wills, will be in Australia in September 2024..

If you are in Australia, if you have contacts in Australia, if you know anyone who could possibly help, maybe interviewing Barry, maybe getting him on a podcast in Australia or a reading in a coffee shop, Colombians take their, I mean Colombians, well, obviously Colombians, but Australians take their coffee incredibly seriously. This is a book about coffee and life and Colombia. It's a book dispelling the rumors, the gossip, telling it how it is in Colombia for an Australian expatriate here, or Australian, I would say, immigrant to Colombia, because he's been here many years. So I would like for Barry to do some readings, maybe in coffee shops, maybe in independent bookstores in Sydney and Melbourne, because that's where he'll be on both of those cities in Australia. So anyone who has any knowledge of how to get this done or any contacts that can help out with this, please, please, please, let us know.

You can just get in touch, columbiacallingatgmail.

com. So that said, as I said, the publishing company Fuller Vigil, so out online on Amazon, we have my new book, which is called Colombia at a Crossroads, a historical and social biography. Look at Colombia, the politics, Gustavo Petro, Alvaro Uribe, the culture, the society, the geography, everything. It covers a lot, but it is a book with a heartbeat. It obviously comes, because I've written it after 18 plus years here, it obviously comes with a subjective perspective on things.

Of course it does. Objectivity is incredibly difficult indeed. But, as I said, it has a heartbeat. It has contributed essays by other experts. And at the same time, I've tried to slide in a few of my own essays to give it a little bit more feel.

Now we've had great reviews so far, not many, but great reviews so far on Amazon. And you can get it there, the e-book and, of course, paperback, and in a couple of weeks it will be out paperback here in Bogota as well. But for both Better Than Cocaine, Learning to Grow Coffee and Live in Colombia and Colombia at a Crossroads, we are seeking out distributors in, well, the UK, the US and Australia. So any of you who have any knowledge, please get in touch. So I figured what I would do this episode, because we've had a lot of interviews and there's going to be a stream of interviews coming up, but this episode I'm going to read a couple of the essays, one that's sort of more glib and another that's a bit more political, that I put together for Colombia at a Crossroads, hopefully to entice you into, well, buying the book or at the very least, promoting the book or sharing the book to people who you think might be interested.

So this one's called A Chance Encounter, and this took place many, many years ago. I would think probably around 2000.. And well, yes, I wrote it down and it works very well in the introduction of the book. So A Chance Encounter. Be careful here, warned Alejandra.

These places are just for drugs and prostitution. This was nothing new. The more time you spend in less than salubrious digs, the more you come to realize that while these pastimes take place, they can be avoided. I am no Charles Nickel, as detailed in his book The Fruit Palace, an Odyssey Through Colombia's Cocaine Underworld, published 1986.. Just another bum with a vague direction, a half-baked plan, and a dozen money-making ideas.

Thanking Alejandra for her kindness and arranging to meet later for a drink, I headed inside. Already dusk, but still swelteringly hot, I checked into my room, threw my shirt into the corner, slapped the van onto Max, and collapsed onto my bed. ¡Requisa policial! Hammering on my door, police, inspection, open the door. In that half-state of consciousness, due to the merciless Caribbean humidity, I sleep-walked over, flicked back the bolt, and before I could put my shirt on, two heavily armed agents, in fatigues, entered, and behind them, the man in charge.

One policeman stood guard, as if he expected me to scarper, while the other tossed my mattress, pulled the stuffing out of the pillow, tipped the contents of my backpack onto the floor, and then headed for the bathroom. All the while, the chief looked on disapprovingly. Making the perhaps foolhardy decision not to play the dumb gringo, I started answering his questions in Spanish, routine. Where are you from? What are you doing?

I was not guilty of what he hoped, but certainly guilty of apathetic wanderings. All of it unspoken, but quite clearly. behind his eyes was the parental and officious rebuke, get a job and have a shave and get the hell out of my country. He picked up my guidebook, open at the page describing the trek to the lost city, the Ciudad Perdida, and fixing a probing glare directly at me, said, I see that in your passport you have visited Colombia on several occasions, and that you speak Spanish very well. What exactly is it that you do here, Señor McCall?

Well, I have visited Choco, Narino Valle, and the Pianguera communities in the Pacific. Idiotic. The only word that can possibly describe the lunacy of telling him that I had visited regions distributed violently between right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas, the government, and opportunistic cartels. His eyebrows arched in surprise, and perhaps he noted the foolishness of my statement. He thought he had me, and, thumbing the pages in my passport more deliberately, multiple entry stamps and exit stamps from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Central America, he nodded an affirmation to the other agent.

The two of them set about checking above the exterior lintels of the windows, behind the plumbing of the shower, places that I had not even thought of checking upon entering the room. I had heard about set-ups and the like, but I realized, at this moment, if there was anything to be planted in here, these men would find it. Picking up my discarded shirt, the chief held it close to his nose and sniffed, so you smoke? No. Well, this shirt smells of smoke.

You are a marijuanero. Such was the change of climate from the spring-like Bogota to the concrete sauna of this Santa Marta hotel room. I was suffering. I had barely slept the night before, having spent most of the previous evening closing a bar in the capital, bags under my eyes, sweating, and in an unimaginable lethargy. I cut the perfect image of a stoner.

But I could hardly believe that he was smelling my rum, sweat, and smoke-infused t-shirt. The questions were coming thick and fast, and I began to fear that, should the policemen not find any loot, that, having spent so much time on this case, they would make it worth their while with a bribe or an addition to my belongings that would leave me hopelessly stranded and floundering in a tropical cell. I was in Guapi, Buenaventura, and Tumaco whilst researching for an NGO. He remained unimpressed. I was looking into sustainable practices and reforestation efforts, as well as having the opportunity to view the nesting habitats of the incredible sea turtles that make their home in the Sankyanga National Park.

I thought by throwing out some specifics, he might start to take me seriously. Was I mistaken, or did his eyes lose a shade of their degree of inquisition and disapproval and register some interest? "'And you saw the green turtle?' "'Yes,' I said. I saw a mother drag herself onto the beach and lay her eggs. It was breathtaking.' The chief smiled.

"'I too have been there, and it is a thing of beauty.

' He stood up from the chair in the corner. "'In Colombia, we have so much more than cocaine to offer.' This statement came more as a reprimand than an observation. We have the most amazing jungle, and those turtles get to be this big!' As he moved his arms, linked them in a hoop, demonstrating the size of a fully grown green turtle. "'I am glad you have come to see this side of things. What else do you know?

The women?

' He leered enthusiastic. "'The rolas? The paisas? The costeñas?' I could see my exit. "'My heart is broken every day by a Colombiana.' He seemed pleased with this statement.

I continued. "'I am planning on hiking to the Ciudad Perdida in the next few days. This is one of the most unforgettable experiences in Colombia. You will see remarkable birdlife, beautiful jungles, the indigenous people, and the ruins of a great empire. My Colombia is very special in that she has everything.' The chief continued for a further five or six minutes, becoming increasingly enthusiastic as he spoke of the wonders of his country.

He picked up my guidebook and, thumbing the section on his Colombia, dog-eared many of the pages detailing places where he felt I should spend time, and if I had already been there, I should spend more time. He asked for a pen and noted down his number on the inside back cover of my guidebook. should I have any further problems. He smiled. We shook hands and the requisa policial was over.

Passing by the front desk on my way out, I asked as to the frequency of these room searches. "'Ah, yes. The last one happened ten years ago,' the receptionist said. "'And they found?' I asked. "'Ah, cocaine, hand, grenades, and guns,' he shrugged." So that made up part of the introduction of Colombia to the Crossroads, and then we move into more serious things, if you think so.

More serious things, and I get into the presidency of Gustavo Petro, the current president. Why? Well, because he is a talking point, and incredibly important, and symbolically incredibly significant, as the first ever left-wing president in Colombia. Wherever you stand politically, he's still the president. So I've got a section called Colombian Politics Today, President Gustavo Petro, and it really is, the subtitle is, The Last South American Korea.

And we start with a quote from Gustavo Petro's inaugural address on the 7th of August, 2022. "'We cannot fail Colombian society. The dead deserve it. The living need it. Today begins the Colombia of what is possible.

Today begins our second chance.

' And now on to the essay. "'Following a historic election victory and a second-round runoff in June 2022, Colombia's first ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro Urrego, assumed office on the 7th of August before a crowd of hundreds of thousands and a packed Plaza de Bolívar. Amongst his promises, the pledge to bring to Colombia what it has not had for centuries, which is tranquility and peace. And having campaigned on a radical agenda to redistribute wealth, end the war on drugs, and tackle the climate crisis, Petro marked a distinct break with the country's conservative politics. In short, he promised hope for Colombia, at least from the lectern.

Many were wrapped up in the idea and the illusion of change. As any observer of Colombia will tell you, President Petro faces an uphill struggle for his ambitious plans, which will find him confronting political intricacies, societal restraints, and historical contexts. All of this needs to be explained with regards to Colombia's present and past. Having lived in Colombia full-time since 2007 and reported from here in previous years, there has been a distinct pattern of events which have led to this moment and can allow for an ampler view of the first year of Petro's presidency.

A great deal has been made of a new pink tide in South America, with the election of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, or Lula for short, for his third term in Brazil in 2023, President Gabriel Boric Font in Chile in 2022, outgoing Argentine President Alberto Ángel Fernández and the arrival of Javier Millet, embattled Luis Alberto Arce-Catacorra in Bolivia and accidental Peruvian President Dina Ercilia Boloarte-Zegarra, and not including the dictatorial behaviour of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro Moros. However, more than a shift left, this seems to be something more cyclical and a reaction, in part, to the events which occurred in each country during the COVID-19 pandemic. Certainly, the entry of Daniel Novoa as President of Ecuador in 2023 has shown that there is still substantial support for right-wing candidates. And Ratherson then suggests that Gustavo Petro makes up part of this adjacent pink tide would be to overlook and underestimate the internal machinations within Colombia which brought him to power. It's better, then, to see Petro as the last South American guerrilla and position him alone on this winner's podium, for he is the last guerrilla of this type to come to power.

He makes a bold statement in that this is a government of change, presumably one to refresh the democratic system in Colombia in being the first leftist government here, but by starting out with a cabinet and close political allies, made up in many cases with familiar faces, such as Armando Benedetti, the first Colombian ambassador to Venezuela in three years, a significant political chameleon and vote winner in the country's malleable Caribbean region, the respected Columbia University professor, José Antonio Ocampo, as Finance Minister, formerly Finance Minister and Director of National Planning under President Ernesto Samper, 1994-1998, and Agricultural Minister under President César Gaviria, 1990-1994.

. It did not end here either. The Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia López Montaño, who had extensive experience in the government of Ernesto Samper, the Minister of National Education, the centrist Alejandro Gaviria, who served under both President Álvaro Uribe, 2002-2006 and 2006-2010, and was Health Minister for President Juan Manuel Santos, 2010-2014, 2014-2018, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Álvaro Leyva, who served as Energy Minister in the administration of President Belisario Betancourt, 1982-1986, the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, and political heavyweight Roy Barreras, as the President of the Senate. Many of these individuals were already known to the Colombian public, flip-flopping between political affiliations and allegiances to ensure their continued importance and status, but hardly representing a government of change, suggesting that Petro sought, at the beginning at least, not only to reach across the political divide, but also to calm the markets, reassure foreign investors, and steady the boat to defy his critics from day one in power. Predictably, this level-headed cabinet did not last, and by the end of his first year, President Petro had made 29 changes.

So perhaps, when we think of change and the new left, such as Boric in Chile, despite the obvious and public friendship enjoyed between them, there is a distinct difference. Petro hails from a background not dissimilar to that of Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, former President 2011-2016, impeached in 2016, and associated with corruption and deficit and wants of Colina, the Comando de Libertad Nacional, and the Vanguarda Armada Revolucionaria Palmares, the Palmares-armed revolutionary vanguard guerrillas, or José Alberto Mujica Cordano, formerly a high-ranking member of the Tupamarros National Liberation Movement, and who fared much better as president between 2010 and 2015 in Uruguay, or perhaps Chile's socialist president, Michel Bachelet, Heria 2006-2010 and 2014-2018, herself detained and tortured by Augusto Pinochet's DINA secret police outfit in 1975.. Ousted, former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, 21-22 and Petro were on a different plane from one another, and current President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, whilst giving off political vibes akin to that of a substitute teacher, ordered the indefinite return of the government's ambassador to Colombia after Petro's outburst of Twitterocracy, in criticising the transfer of power and leading Boluarte to accuse the Colombian Premier of distorting reality. Petro's rebel in the M19 past puts him shoulder-to-shoulder with the aforementioned group of South American premiers in politics, style and history, rather more as the last guerrilla than the new left, and one cannot help but think he may have been better served, having been in power at the same time as one or the other, more or less, than alongside a pragmatic yet under-pressure Lula or the earnest but struggling Boric, and inevitably being lumped together with the stolid and increasingly dictatorial Maduro in Venezuela. There's no love loss between Petro and Millet in Argentina either, and the Colombian Premier is unlikely to close his account of ex, or formerly Twitter, any time soon.

Of course, Colombia's politics did not lend itself to a shift to the left in the 2000s, with Uribe Izmo at its Senate and with George Walker Bush in the White House, and dare we suggest it, but could Petro have come too late to Colombia? What would have or could have been had he won the 2018 elections versus Iván Duque Márquez, who, well, was president from 2018 to 22?. Then we go into the reality under Petro. If Colombians and observers were hoping for significant change under Gustavo Petro, they would be disappointed. Petro seemed to offer hope in a country very much fixed in her ways, and the news feed emerging from Colombia in the first years of his presidency has not been dissimilar to the messaging from past decades.

Phone tapping scandals, a key witness commits suicide in a corruption case involving Laura Sarabia, one of his closest political allies, accusations levied at Nicolás Petro, Gustavo, Petro's son, from a first marriage, election campaign, funds coming from illicit and dubious sources, continued violence, perceived leniency towards criminal groups, inflation concerns and the cost of living crisis, just a few to mention. Add this to the already vast reservoir of suspicion and unbridled hatred in many quarters directed at the guerrilla president, things do not look good. And given these setbacks, Colombians are increasingly pessimistic about the Petro administration. According to the April 2024 Invermar poll, 70% of voters believe the country is going the wrong direction, 85% believe that security is getting worse, 82% believe that the cost of living is worsening, 74% think the economy is getting worse and 72% think that corruption is getting worse. Just 62% believe the fight against polity is also getting worse.

So it's worth noting that Juan Manuel Santos in his second term and Ivan Duque were also scoring worse than Petro at the equivalent moments during their respective governments. But it's not looking good. So, barely halfway into his presidency and Petro needs a serious and significant political win. His watered down tax reform was passed, but nowhere near to what he had planned. His health care reform was canned and further reforms, including that of labor, is drifting away from him.

So much so that even the Financial Times published an article suggesting that the Colombian peso rally against the dollar is due to renewed confidence in the country for investors and that the government's reforms will not proceed. There is the neoclassical school of thought regarding economic performance, which would suggest that Petro's failures increasing confidence in Colombia is far-fetched and that the peso climbed against the U.S. dollar due to falling inflation in the United States and the Federal Reserve pausing its rate hikes. Again, depending on where you stand politically, is how you might interpret the peso's success. Now that the governing alliance that Petro initially consolidated has run into problems and several coalition parties have distanced themselves from the president, Petro no longer enjoys an absolute majority in either of the two chambers.

Playing to the crowd. in a speech delivered to hundreds of supporters on Labor Day 2023, Petro warned that attempts to restrict his reforms could lead to a revolution. He also called on his supporters to take the debate to the streets, to pressure Colombia's institutions to embrace his reforms. Petro watchers were not surprised by the populist rhetoric and, inciting from the balcony of power. He has shown a preference for Twitter over institutional channels of governance and to his own misfortune in a few cases, not least in announcing the discovery of the four indigenous Huitoto children lost in the jungle, citing a very weak and ultimately incorrect source.

His promises to wean Colombia off fossil fuels is hardly revolutionary, but his messaging went well awry. The reality in the case of Colombia is that it only has proven oil reserves of two billion barrels, which is sufficient for another seven and a half years of production. If oil production is dialed up to pre-pandemic levels of around nine hundred thousand barrels per day, then that falls to under six years. There have been no world class oil or gas discoveries in Colombia since 1993 and no major finds since 1999.. The majority of Colombia's current oil and gas reserves come from the enhanced recovery techniques being implemented for existing reservoirs, not from new discoveries.

That is impossible to sustain over the long term. All of that means that Colombia simply lacks the hydrocarbon reserves and discoveries needed to underpin any new oil and gas projects. This also means the current risk constraints and issues impacting Colombia's oil industry are a matter of geology and not policy. Clean energy needs to be phased in, requires funding and socialization, but also needs to be quietly suggested to companies investing in fossil fuels. It's also worth noting that 80% of Colombia's energy comes from primarily hydroelectric power.

His first minister for mines and energy, Irene Velez, became the target bugbear for the right. Her manner, commentary and lack of experience in the public forum made her the favorite scapegoat and punchbag for the opposition. And after scandals surrounding contracts involving her husband, Velez resigned. Despite all vocal opposition, Petro has said he hoped fossil fuels would make up less than 20% of Colombia's exports within two decades, down from 60% now. All of this said and done, Petro has been empowering the right with his actions and rhetoric.

The likely outcome, which appears to be coming into fruition, is a doubling down of Petro's stubbornness towards fulfilling his desire to enact change, almost at any cost and without striking a conciliatory tone with political parties in order to facilitate his plans, but more likely to force his government into a volatile and dysfunctional three years of accusatory claims and counterclaims. We can expect more saber-rattling from the balcony of the Palacio Nariño, despite gains and advances in terms of human rights, land restitution to displaced smallholders and permitting the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz to continue its work in clarifying some of the most dastardly and nefarious acts during the civil conflict, as well as the unravelling of the Odebrecht corruption scandal, which implicates dozens, if not scores, of high-ranking politicians and businessmen, but there is no way of denying the feeling that this is a government in free-fall. For Colombia and Colombians, this is not a good thing. Colombia's far-right is increasingly enamoured with anti-institutional and authoritarian idealism, as well as embracing radical Christianity and libertarian economic ideas. This follows other far-right candidates in Latin America who are looking to capitalise on the misgivings of the left, including Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, who subverted his country's constitution's non-reelection clause, Javier Millet in Argentina, who has promised to dollarise the debt-ridden country, and José Antonio Cast in Chile, whose party now has the majority in their constitutional rewrite.

At the time of writing, there are still over two years remaining to Gustavo Petro's tenure, and in his mind and on his agenda, there are almost too many issues he would like to address. His perceived arrogance, his tense relationship with the press, the brusque reactionary and petulant management skills will leave him found wanting. Can he claw back the middle ground? It's too early to say, but the government of change may not be change as we know it. Yet more volatility, uncertainty and dashed illusions, a country governed by a premier prone to late-night outbursts on social media.

Indeed, it seems clearer than ever that Gustavo Petro is the last South American guerrilla, and perhaps a key stumbling point is that he imagines that all armed groups are like his back in the day, the M19.

. Can he step out of his echo chamber and become the pragmatic, uniting leader that Colombians crave? His behaviour thus far suggests otherwise. So thank you so much for bearing with me on that. Hopefully that's sparked some interest in my book, Colombia at a Crossroads, a historical and social biography.

And not that, if not that one, read the work of non-fiction by Barry Max Wills, Better than Cocaine, Learning to Grow Coffee and Live in Colombia. It's flattering that anyone should buy either of these books from our tiny editorial publishing company, Fuller Vigil. There will be more books coming out in the future. I myself am working on one very soon to be finished, called The Mompos Project. And André Gómez Suárez, the academic from Colombia but now living in the UK, has a very, very interesting memoir of his upbringing in Pasto, in the south of the country, in a very politically aligned family.

So that will be coming up, hopefully for 2025.

. Anyhow, that's me for this week. Thank you for listening. Thank you for bearing with me. The Colombia Briefing is available only to subscribers this week.

Remember to hit follow wherever you listen to the podcast, so that you never miss another episode. And indeed, please, if you can, consider signing up to patreon.com forward, slash Colombia Calling. Or, at the very least, send us a message at Colombia Calling on X Twitter. So that's me this week. Thank you very much and goodbye.

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