Colombia is a country, like others in Latin America where the power of the fair-skinned ruling class, reinforced by the simpering complicity of the traditional Catholic church, has been unassailable. This situation results in the periodic eruption of revolutionary “left-wing” movements, such as the “successful” revolutions in Nicaragua and Cuba and the armed guerilla movements in Colombia. Colombia claims the distinction of having the longest running civil war, or armed insurrection in the world, which continues to this day, despite the peace process for which a former president, Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.
Historically, assassination was the technique used to prevent a leftist political leader from taking power democratically in Colombia, with the most infamous examples being Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948 and Luis Carlos Galan in 1989 along with a horrendous litany of less remembered murders before, between and after. This was why there was much excitement and expectation when Gustavo Petro managed to win the Presidential elections in 2022 and also hold onto his own life. And it is also the reason that there is a great sense of disappointment now amongst the general population, after 2 years of his incumbency. Apart from his ill-advised bro-tweet to Donald Trump at 3 in the morning after several stiff whiskies, his greatest mistakes seem to be the colleagues he has surrounded himself with.
Just to take one entertaining example: Laura Sarabia is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia at the ripe old age of 30. The pleasant-looking Ms Sarabia was previously Petro's head of office and no-doubt earned a healthy salary in her role. At some point, a large amount of money (possibly up to US$40000 in cash) that was stored in her house went missing and she decided that her son's nanny, Marelbys Meza, was the culprit. She became so enraged by the nanny's trenchant denials that Laura induced the nanny to get into her government provided armoured car with Ms Sarabia's two personal body-guards in the early hours of the morning and drive to the Presidential palace where the nanny was asked to take a lie-detector test to prove her innocence.
The nanny failed the test which in any case has no legal force, and was understandably taken-aback by her treatment and filtered to the press various interesting details about Laura's life. Firstly, it became apparent that Ms Sarabia had not been paying the Colombian equivalent of super-annuation nor the obligatory health insurance for her employee but perhaps worse still, was the large quantity of cash that had gone missing from the house (and that had prompted the lie-detector test). To this day, Ms Sarabia has never explained why there was so much money in cash in her house, nor where it came from.
None of this seemed to perturb the President of Colombia, Petro, in the slightest and his reaction was to give Ms Sarabia a short holiday, followed by a series of important posts and roles culminating in the great distinction and honour of becoming the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Colombia.