CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Resisting the Cat-Torturer in the Casa de Nariño

August 7 will be a dark day, for it is when Colombia’s presidential turnover is set to take place. On this day, which marks the anniversary of the Battle of Boyacá – the decisive 1819 battle in which Simón Bolívar’s army defeated Spanish troops to secure Colombia’s independence – outgoing president Gustavo Petro will hand over power to Abelardo de la Espriella, Colombia’s new president-elect.

However, it is dubious whether “elect” is an adequate word to describe the far-right de la Espriella or his triumph in the election runoff on June 21. It was a process that, if not outright compromised, certainly embodied irregularities that, had they crowned an anti-imperialist or Bolivarian candidate, would have faced swift criticism, condemnation and sanctions from the US, its Western allies, and their election observers. Fortunately for these imperial institutions, which mask their ugly faces under the façade of liberalism, Colombia’s new president will not need any of that; rather, he will serve US interests as a de facto viceroy – especially as he himself is a US citizen.

It is no secret that de la Espriella – who proudly flaunts the fact that he voted for Trump in the 2024 US presidential election – lived in Miami for a decade and only returned to the country of his birth to campaign. During his time in Miami, de la Espriella, a lawyer, represented political figures allied with paramilitaries, such as former congresswoman Eleonora Pineda and former senator Dieb Maloof. From 2013 to 2019, he also served as legal counsel to Alex Saab, who was later indicted in the United States on charges including money laundering and operating as a financial agent for the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. You couldn’t make it up.

In fact, during the final days of his election campaign, de la Espriella’s wife, Ana Lucía Pineda, remarked that if her husband lost the election, they would simply return to their comfortable life in Miami. Throughout this campaign, de la Espriella positioned himself in the mould of Javier Milei in Argentina, and Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil: an obedient vassal to the imperial whims of Donald Trump and US hegemony – a Delcy Rodriguez, only without a gun to his head.

He openly leveraged Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for international law and the imperial fervour of the “Donroe Doctrine” in Latin America to scare Colombians away from voting for Iván Cepeda, the anti-imperialist candidate of Petro’s Historic Pact coalition. His campaign was explicitly endorsed by Donald Trump – unquestionably a form of external political pressure, even........

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