🗞️ Former foreign minister Álvaro Leyva has sought US support to oust President Gustavo Petro, newspaper El País revealed this week.
According to El País, Leyva tried to approach Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, with the intention that Rubio would help to exert "international pressure" that would culminate in Petro’s removal from power. In the meetings, which took place two months ago, Leyva reportedly proposed that Francia Márquez, currently Vice President, would take over the Presidency.
Audio recordings of the meetings have reached the Colombian secret service and the Colombian president himself. The White House, according to the newspaper’s sources, never considered the proposal.
This follows open letters in which conservative politician Leyva publicly accused the president of having a drug abuse issue.
Many have spoken out against Leyva’s actions and criticism has come from across the political spectrum: presidential pre-candidates including Vicky Dávila, Luis Gilberto Murillo, Susana Muhamad, and Juan Manuel Galán, as well as Álvaro Uribe himself, have demanded explanations from Leyva, who has yet to make a public statement on the matter.
🗞️ 57 soldiers have been released, having been kidnapped by farmers in southwest Colombia last week and held for two days.
In the town of Tambo, department of Cauca, soldiers were captured in two separate events during an operation against the Carlos Patiño Front - a part of the FARC dissident group Estado Mayor Central (EMC).
The soldiers were reportedly ambushed and captured by civilians working under pressure from the guerrilla group. 35 people were arrested in relation to these events, but none has been charged.
Also this week, Arnold Rincón, director of community council the Autonomous Corporation of Chocó (Codechocó) was released, two months after being kidnapped by an unidentified armed group in late April.
Governor of Chocó Nubia Córdoba has announced that the 57-year-old is in good health, but under observation. The circumstances of his release remain unknown, and no armed group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Codechocó is one of 33 authorities in Colombia dedicated to the planning, administration, and control of natural resources, as well as the conservation of biodiversity in each region.
🗞️ Miguel Uribe Turbay, the presidential hopeful who was victim of an assassination attempt earlier this month, remains in a critical state in the intensive care unit of a Bogotá hospital. Uribe has now undergone numerous surgeries, though doctors say his condition is improving.
Meanwhile, the government has set up a new committee to analyse security threats against candidates in next year’s elections. The Committee for the Coordination and Recommendation of Protective Measures in the Electoral Process will incorporate the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Defence, National Protection Unit, the Army, and the Police.
Minister of the Interior Armando Benedetti has announced that the national government will provide an additional 1,000 officers and 500 vehicles to reinforce the security of the 41 presidential pre-candidates: a budget of approximately 400 billion pesos has been guaranteed.
🗞️ A landslide in Bello, Antioquia, has killed 25 people. Bello, part of Medellín’s urban extension, has been the site of decades of informal urbanisation by those fleeing violence, areas then neglected by government despite being built on unstable ground and sleep slopes.
Climate change also seems to have been a factor in the tragedy: in the days running up to the landslide, some weather stations recorded rainfall equivalent to 250% of historical averages.
The Granizal neighbourhood was the epicentre of the landslide, where at least eight people are still missing and more than six hundred are in temporary accommodation. Many are now calling for housing solutions for those at risk, and transition strategies for displaced communities.
🗞️ The government pension reform bill has passed through the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Congress) after the Constitutional Court revived the draft last week on the grounds of insufficient debate during its last passage through the Senate.
The bill will now pass back to that court, which will decide whether this new vote remedies the previous procedural flaws, and determine when the new law might come into force.
The reform aims to provide greater guarantees of pension coverage, even for those who have been unable to contribute to pension funds.
The bill would also eliminate competition between state and private pension funds, creating a single system divided into three pillars: the solidarity pillar would support vulnerable older adults in conditions of poverty; the semi-contributory pillar supports people who are in the informal sector and do not meet the requirements to access a pension, but have contributed at certain times; and the contributory pillar will include those who contribute steadily to their pension.
Statutory retirement age in Colombia will not change: 57 years old for women and 62 for men. Caring for children will, however, now be counted towards hours worked in order to reach pension thresholds for women.
🗞️ And the trial of former President Álvaro Uribe is drawing to a close: Uribe is charged with witness tampering and procedural fraud in a case now reaching closing statements at the Supreme Court of Justice.
Part of a case which has run for years, Uribe is accused of using intermediaries to persuade paramilitary commanders to retract legal testimonies which incriminated him and linked him to paramilitary activity.
Though Uribe has long argued he was unaware of his lawyer’s actions, prosecutor Marlene Orjuela is requesting a full conviction, arguing that he not only had knowledge, but actively promoted and supported actions to pressure the witnesses. She further argues that intercepted communications evidence that participation.
"The evidentiary structure deployed in this hearing... has left no doubt that the defendant devised, promoted, and supported a strategy aimed at manipulating the course of the criminal justice system," said Orjuela in her final statements.
Judge Sandra Heredia, whom Uribe’s defence team attempted to have removed earlier in the case, will soon hand down a verdict, noting the statute of limitations expires in early October.
🗞️ 67% of the world's coca crops are in Colombia, according to the annual drug trafficking report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which also reported that global cocaine production grew by 34% during 2023 (the year being reported on) - but grew by 50% in Colombia. 253,000 hectares of coca leaf cultivation are located in Colombia.
According to the report, 25 million people used cocaine in 2023, up from 17 million a decade ago. In addition, although Colombia continues to lead in production, cocaine trafficking has expanded to new markets
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