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Columbia and cocaine: President Gustavo eyes decriminalisation
The progressive government’s national drug policy aims to end the US-led ‘war on drugs’ by targeting major traffickers, not small farmers or users, writes WT WHITNEY JR
Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first progressive leader
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A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
COLOMBIAN President Gustavo Petro insists that the “war on drugs has failed,” and is pushing for an approach he calls “phased decriminalisation.” His government is prioritising the initiative, which is part of its far-reaching programme for social and political reforms — all of which face strong right-wing political opposition.
At a big meeting on October 3 of mostly small farmers in El Tambo, in Cauca, where “the coca economy is the main way of life for thousands of peasants,” Colombia’s first-ever progressive president presented his government’s national drug policy for 2023.
The drug plan attends to some of the main features of Colombia’s longstanding social disaster. They include: dispossession leading to consolidation of large land holdings, agricultural underdevelopment, migrations leading to precarious lives often in cities, widespread lethal violence, and great wealth accumulated by top-level distributors and their financial backers.
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With Petro, Colombia has been making huge strides towards peace — but is all that at risk with the elections next year? MARK ROWE reports back after joining a delegation to the Latin American country
Colombia’s success in controlling the drug trade should be recognised and its sovereignty respected, argues Dr GLORY SAAVEDRA
