Colombia’s election exposes structural violence: neoliberal policies fuel armed gangs while outsider politics deepens polarization
Original framing: “Colombia's escalating, brutal internal conflict is defining its presidential election” — BBC News - World
Rural women, indigenous leaders, and Afro-Colombian communities bear the brunt of paramilitary violence, yet their perspectives are excluded from mainstream narratives. The *Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres* and *Consejo Nacional de Paz Afrocolombiano* advocate for gendered peacebuilding and territorial autonomy, but their demands are sidelined by elite political discourse. The outsider candidate’s platform ignores these voices, framing peace as a top-down imposition rather than a grassroots process.
Colombia’s election is not merely a clash between left and right but a symptom of deeper structural violence: the failure of the 2016 peace accord to address land inequality, the militarization of rural life via U.S.
intervention, and the outsourcing of security to paramilitary groups by extractive industries. The outsider candidate’s alignment with Trump and the leftist senator’s pragmatic negotiation with gangs both reflect the limits of elite-led solutions, ignoring the wisdom of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities who have long practiced restorative justice. The path forward requires demilitarized rural zones, truth commissions with indigenous oversight, and a rejection of extractivism—models already tested in Ecuador and Bolivia but stifled by global capital. The trickster’s insight here is that Colombia’s 'choices' are illusions: the real battle is between neoliberal continuity and a plurinational peace rooted in territorial autonomy. The actors driving this transformation must include not just politicians but grassroots movements, as seen in Cauca’s *Guardia Indígena*, which has reduced violence through nonviolent resistance. Without addressing the material roots of conflict—land, resources, and U.S. intervention—Colombia’s cycles of violence will persist, regardless of who wins the presidency.