This month marks five years since I started the Colombia Briefing - a weekly news update I launched during the pandemic!
So, to celebrate the fifth birthday of my passion project, I’m giving 50% off all paid subscriptions - if you subscribe before the end of July.
I’m also taking the paywall down for the whole month, so you can get a feel for what I’m up to - and if you’re still not convinced, you can get free trial and see how you go - unsubscribe any time!
🗞️ President Gustavo Petro has called into doubt the transparency of next year’s elections if logistics are provided by company Thomas Greg & Sons, warning of what he called ‘physical fraud’.
Thomas Greg & Sons have already won the contract for electoral logistics in Colombia, providing technical elements ranging from registration to scrutiny, as well as physical equipment - from paper ballots to the pens used in polling stations. The company has been involved in Colombia’s electoral logistics for more than a decade.
Petro has, mistakenly, claimed that the company took on new responsibilities with this year’s contract renewal. None of the other nine bidders met the conditions of the tender.
The President’s comments have been widely criticised for undermining public confidence in the upcoming elections.
🗞️ Thomas Greg & Sons is in the headlines for another reason this week, as the long-running passport printing scandal may finally be reaching resolution: a contract for passport printing with Portugal is now ready to be signed.
The controversy arose early in Petro’s mandate, when he objected to the continuation of Thomas Greg & Sons’ contract for passport printing, which it had held for 17 years.
As of September, the contract with Thomas Greg & Sons will be terminated and the National Printing Office will oversee the process, which will begin with a ten-year transition period in which the Portuguese Mint will carry out the process.
The management of the passport printing contract has sparked investigations into various officials by the Attorney General’s office, on the grounds of violated principals of planning and responsibility. One of the officials under investigation is Alfredo Saade, recently-appointed Chief of Staff, for overstepping his duties.
Others now under investigation include two former foreign ministers: Luis Gilberto Murillo and Laura Sarabia, who announced her resignation over the issue last month, warning that Colombians could be left without passports if the Thomas Greg & Sons contract is not extended. Following Sarabia’s resignation, Rosa Villavicencio has been appointed to the role.
Another foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva, was also suspended over the issue, having unfairly voided the last contracting process; Leyva is now barred from public office for a decade.
🗞️ This week, Semana Magazine reported critical underfunding of Colombia’s security forces, part of a four-month investigation into alleged lack of investment and financial disarray.
The right-wing magazine reported significant budget cuts for key operations. Sources in the armed forces told Semana that cuts have led to a reduction in troop mobility, a deficit in equipment, delays in aircraft maintenance, and problems in carrying out intelligence work.
Minister of Defence Pedro Sánchez denies that the defence and security sector has been defunded, assuring that in the last three years the overall budget has grown by 5.5% in real terms. The President also issued a public response to the report, calling it ‘simply a lie.’
🗞️ In other security news, illegal armed groups in Colombia have added thousands of members to their ranks and expanded their territorial control over the last three years – this according to an internal security report seen by Reuters.
According to the report, members of armed groups totalled nearly 22,000 at the end of June this year - 45% more than in mid-2022, when the current government took office.
Criminal group Clan del Golfo remains Colombia's largest armed group with around 7,600 members, followed by the guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), which has around 6,200.
🗞️ Miguel Uribe Turbay’s condition is improving, according to a new communiqué from the Santa Fe hospital, where he has now been in Intensive Care for more than a month.
The senator and presidential pre-candidate, who was shot twice in the head and once in the leg in a Bogotá park in June, is still in under sedation with assisted breathing, but is ready to begin neurological rehabilitation to recuperate cognitive and motor function, according to the press release.
Numerous arrests have now been made as part of the investigation into the shooting, but the key question – as to who ordered the assassination - remains unanswered.
🗞️ Rice farmers across five departments have called an indefinite strike, accompanied by major roadblocks starting today. Farmers say that the government has failed to comply with agreements made in March with the aim of mitigating the sector’s rising financial losses; farmers are losing around 2.5 million pesos per hectare of rice.
Across Tolima, Huila, Meta, Santander and Casanare, farmers are calling for the establishment of fixed and fair purchase prices for Colombian rice, more effective regulation of production and commercialisation, and a review of free trade agreements.
🗞️ After last week’s diplomatic scuffle with the United States, in which both Colombian and US ambassadors were recalled, relations are re-normalising between the two countries: both diplomats have now returned.
President Gustavo Petro had publicly suggested that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was involved in a right-wing alliance to oust him from government, statements he later retracted.
Upon return, Colombian Ambassador Daniel Garcia-Peña reiterated that the US government was not involved in a plan to destabilise Colombia or mount a coup against Petro, stressing that the bilateral relationship remains strong.
Interim ambassador John McNamara, however, cited ‘lingering concerns’ regarding Colombian government rhetoric, and said that he hoped to ‘avoid an escalation that harms the interests of both countries, especially those of Colombia.’
🗞️ The trial of former-president Álvaro Uribe has been concluded, with a verdict to be handed down on the 28th July.
Uribe (President of Colombia from 2002 to 2010) is charged with three crimes: bribery, bribery in criminal proceedings, and procedural fraud. Through his lawyers, he allegedly offered bribes to incarcerated paramilitary commanders so that they would change their testimony - which implicated Uribe himself in paramilitary activities.
95 witnesses have testified and closing arguments have now been presented. The prosecution requested that Uribe’s then-lawyers are convicted along with the former-president.
Uribe’s current lawyer spoke to newspaper El País this week saying, "The only explanation for a ruling against [Uribe] is lawfare,“ i.e. a political abuse of justice.
Despite this prosecution and the pending verdict, Álvaro Uribe’s son, Tomás Uribe, published an open letter this week suggesting that his father should be a vice-presidential candidate at next year’s elections, saying that the trial is an attempt to ‘neutralise’ the former-president in the run up to those polls.
🗞️ And in historical justice news, a landmark acknowledgement of guilt from the former FARC secretariat regarding the recruitment of children.
This relates to Case 07 at the Special Peace Tribunal (the JEP): 951 surviving victims of child recruitment testified, along with many relatives of children who are still missing.
The guerrilla group’s then-leaders accepted responsibility for the recruitment of more than 18,000 minors, acknowledging a de facto policy of recruiting children - one third of whom were under 14 years old.
However, victims have rejected the statements submitted to the court, as the secretariat denied responsibility for the myriad sexual crimes against minors with which they are also charged, including rape and sexual slavery. The commanders also refused to recognise responsibility for torture or degrading treatment.
The JEP’s report had outlined widespread patterns of sexual violence against girls, as well as forced abortions when pregnancies occurred: as many as one in five girls recruited were subjected to forced abortion during their time in the ranks of the FARC.
The secretariat denies either a formal or tacit policy which tolerated or promoted sexual violence or forced abortions, saying that victims’ testimony only establishes isolated cases and not patterns.
The JEP will now analyse the FARC’s statements and decide whether they constitute a full acknowledgement of the truth.
The recruitment of children by armed groups in Colombia is not a purely historical phenomenon: a recent United Nations report warned that last year saw 453 children recruited to armed groups - a 64% increase compared to 2023. FARC dissident groups are the main perpetrators.
The impact of Colombia’s ongoing conflict on children is also growing: the same report cited a 42% increase in attacks on children over the last five years, with indigenous and Afro-Colombian children disproportionately affected.
🗞️ The Constitutional Court has overruled indigenous authorities in demanding that access to voluntary abortion is guaranteed in indigenous communities, specifying that respect for cultural autonomy must not be a barrier to the exercise of fundamental rights.
The Court ruled that cabildos, in forcing two people (one a minor) to give birth on spiritual grounds, had failed to recognise the right to access voluntary termination of pregnancy - guaranteed to all women and girls in Colombia.
The ruling recognised indigenous women as full subjects of reproductive rights and specified that indigenous communities cannot deny provision of abortions or impose obstacles for members of their communities - including on spiritual or cultural grounds.
🗞️ Inflation in Colombia has fallen again, down to 4.82% in June - edging closer to the Central Bank’s 3% target and the lowest figure since October 2021. Food and energy prices in particular appear to be stabilising.
🗞️ And last Thursday, 10th July, was Capybara Appreciation Day, known as ‘Chigüiro Day’ in Colombia. Campaigners took the opportunity to protest the government’s new initiative to legalise and regulate the commercial hunting of the animal.
The Ministry of the Environment argues that hunting capybaras is a conservation opportunity, saying that imposing quotas for animals killed will guarantee sustainability, discourage poaching, and empower communities to manage their natural resources.
Video mine - Casanare, 2023
Environmentalists say that the measure could open the door to unsustainable practices, given the difficulty of implementing regulations in the Eastern Plains, where many of these animals live. Congresswoman Andrea Padilla has launched a petition, already with thousands of signatures, arguing that measures should be implemented to control the population of the animal without resorting to commercial exploitation.
Prominent Colombian ecologist Brigitte Baptiste, however, has spoken out in support of the proposal, pointing out that capybaras are a species neither endangered nor considered under threat, saying that ‘it is not insanity to consume them with gratitude and respect.’
The government’s proposal is now under technical and legal review.
Check out this interview with Brigitte Baptiste - exclusive to this Substack:
'There is nothing more queer than Nature' - Brigitte Baptiste on biodiversity, sexuality, and healthy irony
An interview with the inimitable Brigitte Baptiste - on humanity’s place in nature, optimism amid climate change, and the importance of *not* being earnest - or not always, at least.
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