Colombia: Presidential candidates shield themselves against fear of assassination

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Fear palpitates in a crowded square. On the stage, the Colombian candidate Gustavo Petro, wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by an army of bodyguards who exchange nervous glances, can barely peek his head through three armored shields.

The specter of assassination is haunting the campaign for the May 29 presidential elections, in which, for the first time, the left has a chance of coming to power with the help of this senator and former guerrilla fighter. In the past, bullets have changed the course of an election in Colombia.

Amid fears, the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla declared a unilateral ceasefire from May 25 to June 3 throughout Colombia “so that those who wish to vote may do so in peace”.

Throughout the 20th century, five presidential candidates were assassinated by opponents, drug traffickers, or right-wing paramilitaries with the help of state agents: three leftists, one of them a former guerrilla like Petro, and two liberals.

Although no longer a violent country, Colombia still faces the threat of drug trafficking and is slipping in efforts to consolidate peace after several peace accords with rebels and paramilitaries.

In February, Petro told Agence France-Presse that “the specter of death accompanies us (…) It never ceases to appear as a flash, when I mingle in the crowd; when I am on a stage and there is a full square, that anywhere someone could shoot”.

It was before his team denounced a plan to kill him. Faced with the threat, the also former mayor of Bogota had to take the stage practically armored on May 5 in Cucuta, on the border with Venezuela.

Since then, his escort system of 60 bodyguards has been strengthened, without counting the troops that the security forces reserve for him on his trips.

Felipe Botero, professor of Political Science at the Universidad de Los Andes, believes that an assassination in 2022 “is a very real risk”.

“Not only will they kill Petro as a candidate, but it is also highly possible that they will try to assassinate him if he wins the presidency. That is a scenario equally or more worrisome,” the analyst said.

Francia Marquez, the black environmentalist accompanying Petro’s vice-presidential ticket, also denounced threats, while the rival campaign of right-winger Federico Gutierrez has expressed concern for his own safety.

FEAR OF THE LEFT

Three shots, Bogotá, 1948. Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán collapses on a central avenue. His assassination set the city on fire and ignited an internal conflict that has yet to be extinguished half a century later.

Four decades later, in a bloody sequence, the communist Jaime Pardo Leal (1987), the liberal Luis Carlos Galán (1989), and the leftists Bernardo Jaramillo and Carlos Pizarro (1990), all presidential candidates, were also assassinated.

Alexander Gamba, professor at the Universidad Santo Tomás, lists three reasons why aggression against Petro “is possible”: first, in Colombia, there are “professionals of violence” with the capacity to carry it out, such as the twenty or so mercenaries who participated in the assassination of the president of Haiti in 2021.

Second, certain sectors present an eventual triumph of Petro as “a great national hecatomb” and created an “environment” in which “such an action is patriotic”, said the sociologist. And finally, the country “has not had a political alternation” that gives room for the left, associated with armed rebellion in conservative sectors.

The candidate’s campaign considers this may be a strategy to remove him from the public square, where he is very active.

However, for the government of Iván Duque, Petro is “one of the most protected people” in the country, and the suspicions of an attack have not been validated.

“To deny credibility to a death threat in a country where hundreds of people are assassinated annually for their political ideas seems to me short-sighted at best,” Botero criticized.

But it is not only Petro who fears for his life. “Watch out for Federico Gutiérrez’s safety,” tweeted former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) in recent days, who suggested “having serious information” related to a possible plot.

In 2002, Uribe himself escaped unharmed from an explosive attack perpetrated by the then FARC guerrillas, who tried unsuccessfully to stop him from running for the presidency. In his biography, Uribe claims to have escaped 15 attacks.

Gutiérrez is Petro’s main rival. When he was mayor of Medellín (2016-2020), he won followers with his hardline policies against organized crime.

Polls anticipate a runoff between the two on June 19, so Colombia will have to hold its breath for another month despite the real threat of wanting to govern it.