Colombia President-elect Gustavo Petro's promise of sweeping change in a country that has long been a bulwark of regional stability has many in Washington on edge — even if his victory was embraced by millions fed up with enormous inequality.
But while Whitaker is skeptical of Petro’s motives and effectiveness as a leader, he said he couldn’t be in more agreement with his campaign’s overarching focus: boosting the presence of the state, not just security forces, in the long-neglected countryside.
Then there are the criminals themselves, who are unlikely to stand by idly if their profits are threatened. Despite being enshrined in a 2016 peace accord with the country’s largest rebel groups, voluntary crop substitution accounted for less than 1% of the 130,147 hectares of coca fields eradicated in 2020 — a sign of just how tenuous the state’s presence remains outside urban centers.
The U.S. has been similarly restrained, touting the fact that Petro’s victory came on the 200th anniversary of the day Colombia became the first former Spanish colony to be recognized as an independent state by the U.S. That in part reflects what, until recently, had been the limited prospects for the left in the socially conservative country. But the 2016 peace deal lifted many activists’ fears and breathed life into new demands by younger Colombians less burdened by the bloody conflict.
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