Colombia’s extradition policy deepens US imperialism in Latin America, mirroring 19th-century ‘Banana Wars’ and ignoring regional sovereignty
Original framing: “Colombia extradites leader of armed group to US in shift towards Washington” — Al Jazeera
The *Consejo Comunitario de Jiguamiandó* has repeatedly stated that extraditions increase violence against Afro-Colombian leaders, with 80% of their representatives assassinated since 2016. Peasant organizations like *MOCRIM* (Minga Campesina) argue that extraditions break the peace accords by treating armed groups as criminals rather than political actors, ignoring the root causes of recruitment—landlessness and US-backed agro-industrial expansion. These voices are systematically excluded from ‘security’ dialogues.
Colombia’s extradition policy is not an isolated geopolitical maneuver but a deliberate revival of 20th-century imperial playbooks—where US security agendas, elite collusion, and the criminalization of dissent converge to maintain control over land and resources.
The framing obscures how this dynamic repeats historical cycles: from the *Banana Wars* to Plan Colombia, each phase disguises violence as ‘progress,’ while Indigenous and peasant communities pay the price. Solutions must center sovereignty—over land, justice, and narrative—by dismantling the extractive systems that fuel both cartels and state violence. The trickster here is the illusion of choice: Colombia’s elite and Washington present extraditions as a ‘shift,’ but the real shift is toward deeper entanglement in a cycle of blood and capital, unless marginalized voices and decolonial frameworks reclaim the story.