Thinking Citizen Blog — Latin America (Part Five) Colombia I — What Should Every Thinking Citizen Know?
Thinking Citizen Blog — Monday is Foreign Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Latin America (Part Five) Colombia I — what should every thinking citizen know?
Too much to know. Too little time. So far in this series we have covered Brazil and its socialist president Ignacio Lula da Silva (1945 — ), Mexico and its first female and first Jewish president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (1962 — ) of the left-wing, populist Morena Party, Argentina and its “anarcho-capitalist” president Javier Gerardo Milei (1970 — ), and Haiti, a country which has not had a government since its last elected President, Jouvenel Moise was assassinated in 2021 and which has been rated a Level Four (“Do Not Travel” by the US State Department due to its “kidnapping, crime, unrest, and limited health care.” (There are 20 Level Four countries — including Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Mali, and North Korea. A special passport validation is required for travel to North Korea.)
Today, Colombia. Are you Colombian? Have you lived or worked in Colombia? What do you know about Colombia that the rest of us should know but might well not?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY — third most populous country in Latin America at 53 million, (after Brazil 212 million, Mexico 127 million, ahead of Argentina at 45 million)
1. The only other South American country to have both a Pacific and Atlantic coast is Chile, but Chile’s Atlantic coastline is almost non-existent while its Pacific coastline is 4000 miles long. Colombia’s Atlantic coastline is 994 miles long and its Pacific coastline is 808 miles).
2. The five geographic regions of Colombia are: the Andean region (the most populous), the Pacific coastal region, the Atlantic lowlands (second most populous), the llanos (“plains” — tropical grassland,), and the Amazon rainforest.
3. The Andean region includes the country’s three largest cities (Bogota, Medellin, and Cali). And about 70% of the population.
NB: The Atlantic lowlands, the location of European colonial settlements, include Colombia’s major ports of Cartagena, Baranquilla, and Santa Marta and account for about 20% of the population.
The llanos and the Amazonian rain forest account for two thirds of the land area but a tiny percentage of the population.
GUSTAVO FRANCISCO PETRO URREGO (1960 — ) first Colombian left wing president. He is a former member of the M-19 guerrilla movement.
1. “He was arrested in 1985 and tortured by the army for his affiliation with the M-19. After the peace process between the Colombian government and the M-19, he was released and then elected to the Chamber of Representatives in the 1991 Colombian parliamentary election.”
2. He was a Senator from 2006–2010 and from 2018 to 2022. He was Mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2014 and again from 2014–2015. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1998–2006.
3. He won the Presidential election of 2022 by a margin of 50.4% (11.3 million) to 47.4% (10.7 million).
The victory was described as part of a “new pink tide” with the triumphs of other left wing candidates across Latin America such as Lula in Brazil and Sheinbaum in Mexico.
NB: In 2023, he re-established ties with neighboring Venezuela. Relations had been severed in 2019 “over that country’s crackdown on democracy.” However, more recently he boycotted the inauguration of Venezuelan president Maduro after the recent fraudulent elections there.
TRUMP’S DEPORTATION OF ILLEGAL COLOMBIAN MIGRANTS, PETRO’S REJECTION, TRUMP’S THREAT, PETRO BACKS DOWN
1. “Colombia has accepted deportation flights from the US in the past. In 2024, 124 planes carrying deported migrants from the US landed in the country.”
2. “But President Petro appeared to object to the return of deportees on military rather than civilian planes — and to the way the migrants may be treated on those military flights.”
3. “In his posts on X, Petro referenced a news video showing migrants deported from the US to Brazil, who had been handcuffed and had their feet restrained during the deportation flight. He said he would “never allow Colombians to be returned handcuffed on flights.”
NB: Trumped threatened 25% tariffs and raising it to 50% if Colombia did not accept the flights. Petro backed down.
What were the crimes of the deportees other than being illegal migrants? Were there in fact any? Who cares? Who should care? Whose facts would you trust?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Colombia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Petro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Colombian_presidential_election
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/19/world/colombia-election-results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_of_April_Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia%E2%80%93United_States_relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Colombia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tide
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/26/politics/colombia-tariffs-trump-deportation-flights/index.html
Colombia backs down on deportation flights after Trump tariffs threat
Trump deported 200 Colombians. None were criminals, Colombian officials say.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH — Have you made your own Bible yet?
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
Here is a link to the last four years of posts organized by theme: (including the book on foreign policy)
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest or most important thing you learned in the last week, month, or year related to foreign policy.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in our life related to foreign policy.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your
