Tomorrow: Orinoco Tribune Editorial Room Talk #3—Colombia: Elections, Internal Crisis & Regional Threat

Editorial note: This is a friendly reminder for the Facebook livestream we have organized for tomorrow, Tuesday, May 31, at 1:00 p.m. EST, when Orinoco Tribune will join forces with Kawsachun News. Colombia’s presidential race has become more complex now that Gustavo Petro was not able to win in the first round, although he received the most votes and will advance to the second round. Petro, who hopes to become Colombia’s first leftist president, will compete in the runoff election on June 19 against newcomer Rodolfo Hernández, who managed to beat Uribista establishment candidate, Federico Gutiérrez, to finish as runner-up in the first round. Please join us and help us spread the world about it. You will receive a Global South perspective on the Colombian issue.

Caracas, May 30, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)—The first round of the Colombian presidential elections took place on Sunday, May 29, with a good chance that Colombia would elect its first center-left president in history. Many observers doubt that Colombia’s oligarchy will allow this to happen.

In the framework of its 3.5-year anniversary, Orinoco Tribune has organized a livestream editorial room chat on this topic. Please join us for “Colombia: Elections, Internal Crisis & Regional Threat,” scheduled for Tuesday, May 31 at 1 p.m.

Kawsachun News’ renowned journalist Camila Escalante will join us from Bolivia. She will share with us her impressions on the different topics we want to discuss, with the intention of providing a bit more of clarity on the complex Colombian reality and its regional implications.

In this dialogue we will evaluate the pre- and post-election environment, the results, congress composition, and potential threats for Colombians and the region. You will be able to follow our debate on Facebook. The livestream will be broadcast directly via the Facebook event. We will be attentive to all questions posted by attendees on the live chat, and we will try to answer them all.

In the context of the electoral results, we will evaluate the prospects for peace within a country mired in civil war since 1948, when leftist presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated. Colombia has struggled with social exclusion, paramilitarism, drug cartel violence, and the mass assassination of social leaders in the decades since. We will discuss the effectiveness of the 2016 peace agreements, and the potential for a political awakening in a country plagued by apathy, exhaustion, and inequality.

We will conclude our debate by analyzing the election’s implications for Colombia’s destabilizing role in Latin America and the Caribbean, where it consistently acts in the interests of the United States, which maintains seven military bases in the country. In 2017, Colombia became NATO’s first “partner” in Latin America. Colombian mercenaries participated in the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, and the highest levels of Colombia’s leadership were implicated in mercenary incursions aiming to overthrow or assassinate the president of Venezuela in 2020.

Join us for this discussion on Tuesday, May 31 at 1 p.m. (EST), and please help us spread the word by sharing this article and our Facebook event.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

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