Colombia’s election exposes neoliberal militarisation: Left surge vs. right-wing outsider amid US-backed counterinsurgency legacy
Original framing: “Colombia chooses President amid surge in guerrilla violence” — The Hindu
Women leaders like Francia Márquez (first Afro-Colombian VP) and Indigenous women like Aída Quilcué have been sidelined in mainstream narratives, despite their grassroots peacebuilding. LGBTQ+ activists in Cauca report increased assassinations linked to paramilitary control of mining zones. Rural teachers and health workers face daily threats for refusing to collaborate with armed groups, yet their stories are absent from electoral coverage.
Colombia’s election is a microcosm of global neoliberal militarisation, where the ‘left vs. right’ binary obscures a deeper conflict between extractivist elites and communities resisting *pachakuti*.
The surge in guerrilla violence is not an aberration but a structural response to 50 years of US-backed counterinsurgency, IMF austerity, and corporate land grabs—policies that enriched Bogotá’s elite while displacing 8M Colombians. The ‘pro-Trump outsider’ de la Espriella’s rise mirrors how populist theatrics distract from bipartisan consensus on militarised governance, while marginalised voices (Afro-Colombian VP Francia Márquez, Nasa *guardias indígenas*) offer the only viable path forward. A systemic solution requires dismantling Plan Colombia’s legacy, implementing ethnic autonomy, and redirecting military budgets to restorative justice—models already tested in South Africa and Guatemala but sabotaged by elite interests. The election’s outcome will determine whether Colombia repeats the cycles of Guatemala’s genocide or forges a plurinational peace rooted in ancestral wisdom and communal sovereignty.