Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella.
Colombia's new president has ties to paramilitaries and drug traffickers, but Trump's endorsement swept his crimes aside as he embraces Washington's agenda, including enhancing relations with Israel and ending relations with Cuba and Nicaragua.
Originally published in Struggle-La Lucha.
On August 7, a shadowy figure took office as president of Colombia. He has been implicated in various drug trafficking and money laundering scandals, but because he is a friend of the convicted U.S. president, Donald Trump, and other far-right figures in that northern nation, his crimes were swept under the rug.
On June 2, Trump congratulated Abelardo de la Espriella on securing a slim majority of votes in the first round and added on his Truth Social account: “As president, Abelardo would be tremendously successful in leading Colombia to grow the economy, create jobs, promote trade, stop illegal immigration, crack down on crime and drugs, and restore law and order.”
“Given his tremendous achievements in life and his political support for me, it is personally an honor to give Abelardo my full and absolute endorsement,” he added.
In response, De la Espriella stated: “We are going to forge a partnership with the Washington administration and with President Trump unlike any Colombia has ever had with any other U.S. administration.”
With those bold declarations, the die was cast. Through fraud or by whatever means necessary, the far-right candidate had to win the election.
His first actions have been deplorable: he announced that he will sever diplomatic relations with Cuba and Nicaragua; that the Colombian embassy will be moved to occupied Jerusalem; and that he will recognize Israel’s “right” to take over the Syrian Golan Heights; he will recognize Morocco as the “owner” of Western Sahara despite the Sahrawi people’s years of anti-colonial struggle and the support given to that brotherly people at the United Nations.
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the matter, stating: “If this decision—which lacks even the slightest justification and does not serve Colombia’s national interests—is carried out, it would expose the clear subordination of Colombia’s next government to the policy of division and confrontation between our nations, long promoted by the United States, as well as its ties to the most infamous and vulgar aspects of anti-Cuban politics in that country.”
Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?
Dr. Diana Carolina Alfonso, an international analyst, describes him in the pages of Diario Red as “an individual whose name appears time and again in voluntary statements by former paramilitary leaders, in court records, in journalistic investigations, and in testimonies that, although they did not always result in convictions, do paint a disturbing picture. This legal entrepreneur built his career where the law intertwines with dispossession and politics is cooked up in mass graves, estates, and civil foundations.”
He was born in Bogotá in 1978 into a well-to-do family. Between 2001 and 2002, his father, also named Abelardo, coordinated Álvaro Uribe’s regional election campaign in Córdoba; Uribe was elected president despite his murky ties to drug traffickers and paramilitary groups.
Uribe’s administrations (2002–2010) were characterized by divisive neoliberal reforms and the systematic repression of all civil society forces he considered “internal enemies” guilty of “subversion,” including opposition political parties, labor unions, and human rights organizations—which is why he is labeled a fascist.
Like Uribe, De la Espriella has extensive ties to paramilitary groups. During the Uribe administration’s demobilization process with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)—the country’s main paramilitary federation—Abelardo served as an advisor to the group. He also served as legal counsel to politicians involved in “parapolitics” scandals, such as Eleonora Pineda and Dieb Maloof.
Based between Bogotá and Miami, De la Espriella made a name for himself as a defense attorney for paramilitaries, businesspeople, and politicians accused of corruption. In 2007, he represented former Justice Minister Alberto Santofimio, who was suspected of involvement in the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán. He later defended David Murcia Guzmán, a Colombian businessman who, through a pyramid scheme, defrauded tens of thousands of low-income people, stealing their life savings and laundering drug trafficking profits.
De la Espriella founded the Foundation for Peace Initiatives (FIPAZ), which gave paramilitary commanders a platform at university forums and campaigned to ban extradition requests. In 2008, Ernesto Báez, a paramilitary who had participated in FIPAZ events, stated that the AUC “sought out students, through Abelardo de la Espriella, as a channel to justify the war.” In 2011, the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia stated that FIPAZ “did not promote peace while self-defense groups were carrying out massacres, disappearances, murders, and torture, but rather sought to project itself politically through university students.” The Court ordered an investigation into De la Espriella for conspiracy and money laundering, but it was blocked by the Attorney General’s Office, then headed by Mario Iguarán, a friend of De la Espriella. Several paramilitaries have testified that Iguarán’s appointment to the position came after his opponent was paid to withdraw from the race.
Abelardo maintains a particularly close relationship with the imprisoned former paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, whose forces carried out some 10,000 forced disappearances and caused more than 40,000 displacements. The two attended the same school in Montería, and when the Uribe administration extradited Mancuso to the United States (which some believe was done to prevent him from testifying about the links between politicians and paramilitaries), De la Espriella defended his friend, saying, “Mancuso is from my town and took on a struggle that all of us from Córdoba should have waged,” implying that the killings and violence were somehow justified.
Like other far-right leaders, De la Espriella uses militaristic symbols and language. He has promised to intensify violent confrontation with illegal armed groups as part of what he calls a policy of “renewed democratic security.” His Air Force cap and military salutes reinforce the narrative of a “iron-fisted” security approach, which seeks to exploit public concern over violence and crime.
These are just a few of the countless “fascist-like virtues” of Colombia’s new president, who will join other new Latin American leaders who have come to power with the backing of White House chief Donald Trump.
Dr. Jemima Pierre is a Black Agenda Report contributing editor and a Professor of Global Race in the Institute of Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) at the University of British…
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