On the recordAugust 6, 2022
on August 7, Colombia's newly elected President Gustavo Petro and Vice President Francia Marquez will begin their 4-year term. Their election represents a sharp break from the past. The new government is inheriting every imaginable problem. Regrettably, the country has made minimal progress since the signing of the 2016 Peace Accord that ended five decades of armed conflict with the FARC, and in some parts of the country, narcotics-related violence is worse. The previous government failed to make a dent in the number of assassinations of social leaders or to hold members of the armed forces and police accountable for past atrocities. Compounded by the public health and economic shocks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a flood of Venezuelan refugees, Colombia remains a highly polarized society, divided between urban elites and the impoverished countryside. It will take many years to reverse decades of deeply rooted neglect, discrimination, poverty, and lawlessness. Since 2020, the United States has invested more than $11 billion in a counter-drug strategy in Colombia that was never sustainable and has largely failed, as it has failed in Mexico and Central America.…
