Video still: Abelardo de la Espriella.
The Associated Press reports: “Conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire political neophyte, will be Colombia’s next president after electoral authorities on Wednesday [June 24] declared him the winner of Sunday’s [June 21] runoff election. …Earlier Wednesday, Cepeda conceded the election to de la Espriella and accepted a Senate seat reserved for the runner-up in the presidential contest.”
Canada
On June 25, after this declaration, Global Affairs Canada posted on social media: “Congratulations to Colombia’s new president Abelardo De la Espriella. Canada values its longstanding partnership with Colombia. Canada looks forward to continued cooperation on shared interests such as stable economic growth, expanding trade under our existing free-trade agreement, and peace and security.”
Civil society concerns
Longtime Colombian activist Dr. Manuel Rozental, who lived in exile in Canada for more than 15 years, tells Democracy Now!: “De la Espriella clearly represents a criminal approach to politics: lying, propaganda, coordination and collusion with criminal narcotrafficking, restriction of rights, and money laundering.”
Inés M. Pousadela, a Senior Research Specialist at Civicus, a global alliance of civil society organizations, also comments: “Climate activists, human rights defenders, indigenous communities and peace advocates have the most to lose from the agenda of their next government. …De la Espriella [has promised] resuming aerial bombardments against armed groups… For communities living in territories where armed groups overlap with extractive industries, this is not an abstract political debate. Human rights organizations have warned that returning to an all-out military offensive will be devastating for civilians, particularly environmental defenders and indigenous communities already facing lethal threats. Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for environmental and land rights defenders. The situation is likely to worsen.”
And Lara Loaiza Arias, a Colombian journalist and editor at NACLA (the North American Congress on Latin America), comments: “[De la Espriella] has proposed a ‘Plan Colombia 2.0,’ a remake of the multibillion-dollar U.S.-Colombia security initiative of the early 2000s, which resulted in serious human rights violations by the armed forces and ultimately failed to significantly reduce drug trafficking and violence.”
PBI accompanied organizations
After the first round in this election, the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (CREDHOS) posted on social media: “Less than 24 hours after the presidential elections, a pamphlet attributed to the ACSN [the Association of Self-Defense Forces of Colombia] circulated, declaring several people in the municipality as military targets, including social and political leaders linked to the Municipal Human Rights Committee, CREDHOS, and the Historic Pact.”
Their post adds: “These events are occurring in a context of high political tension and disputes over economic interests associated with extractive projects in the territory, including the possibility of enabling hydrocarbon exploitation through fracking.”
CREDHOS is opposed to fracking, a form of fossil fuel extractivism that de la Espriella supports.
And during a Peace Brigades International-supported advocacy tour in Europe just prior to the second round vote, Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation legal coordinator Andrea Torres Bautista told the publication El Salto: “[If the extreme right wins the election, the Comprehensive Law for the Protection of the Rights of Women Searchers] is not going to be implemented, it is going to remain on paper and there will be no guarantee of protection or recognition of women seekers.”
Bautista further stated: “But also, I think our lives are at stake. In other words, I am personally afraid that if the right wing wins, they will kill us, they will continue to physically attack us, they will continue to persecute us, they will continue to harass us, forced disappearances will increase and the security situation and guarantee to continue doing our work will no longer exist. …[We] feel that there will be no guarantee for the organizations, much less for the women searchers who have denounced the State, who have denounced the military, the paramilitaries, the guerrillas.”
De la Espriella will be sworn into office on August 7 for a four-year term.
We continue to follow the implications of the new president of Colombia on the safety and security of human rights defenders.
