Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

U.S. Takes Aim at President Gustavo Petro, but He's Akin to a Rock Star in Colombia
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Dan Kovalik
25 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article

All eyes are now fixed on the US-Israeli War on Iran, so there's been little attention to US moves to undermine Colombian President Gustavo Petro. These could, at worst, see Petro in a US prison alongside Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the US kidnapped on January 3rd. I spoke to attorney and author Dan Kovalik, President Petro’s legal representative in the US and in international courts. We agreed that, as peace and justice activists, we need to understand this as another front in a global war to crush dissidence and re-establish the hegemony of neoliberalism and US empire. He said that President Petro is akin to a rock star in Colombia where huge crowds turn out to meet him in public.

Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann@anngarrison.com. You can help support her work on Patreon.

Daniel Kovalik is a lawyer focusing particularly on human rights and a prolific author. He taught International Human Rights Law at the University of Pittsburgh from 2012-2023. His most recent books are "The Case for Palestine: Why it Matters and Why You Should Care," and "Syria: Anatomy of a Regime Change."

Colombia
Gustavo Petro
Venezuela
Nicolas Maduro
Neoliberalism
imperialism
Latin America

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: O.A.S., Roque Dalton, circa 1970
28 October 2026
“The President of the United States is more/ the President of my country/ than the President of my country.”
Francy Natalia Mosquera Garcia , Caroline Shenaz Hossein
Afro-Colombian Women and the Making of the Black Social Economy
28 October 2026
Colombia's constitution recognizes Black communities as collective rights-holders, but extractivism and dispossession have undermined
Ricardo Vaz
Western Media Accept Trump’s Plundering of Venezuelan Oil as Business as Usual
28 October 2026
Venezuelanalysis editor Ricardo Vaz exposes how the media establishment presents no principled opposition to the imperialist predation of Venez
Geraldina Colotti
Lula wins in Brazil, but the far right won’t back down
28 October 2026
Lula's narrow runoff victory over Flávio Bolsonaro preserved Brazil as one of the last bulwarks against the far right in Latin America, a victo
Jacqueline Luqman
The World Rises Up Against the U.S. Neoliberal Order
21 October 2026
The protests spreading across Spain, India, France, Chile, and other countries are responses to the global neoliberal order of auster
Belen Fernandez
Israel’s Lebanese Land Grab
21 October 2026
Under the guise of a farcical “pilot zone” project to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy whi
Joshua Reaves Charmelus
At the "Foro Internacional Por La Paz," delegates from around the world demand an end to US Interference in Latin America
21 October 2026
Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, and Costa Rica have all elected right-wing presidents in the past year, and most are open T
Orinoco Tribune
Colombia’s First National Strike Against De la Espriella Met With Police Crackdown
21 October 2026
Thousands of people took to the streets across Colombia on Wednesday in the first national strike against President Abelardo de la Espriella’s
Issa G Shivji
Positioning Pan-Africanism In The Geopolitical Turmoil
21 October 2026
As we are experiencing a world order in disorder, with war and conflagrations and a shifting balance of power, Issa Shivji calls for a Sovereig
Stephen Millies
Don’t Let Them Kill Cilia Flores!
14 October 2026
While Trump pardoned an actual drug lord president, he keeps a kidnapped Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, First Combatant Ce

More Stories


  • Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective
    AISC Red Paper #2: The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism
    26 Aug 2026
    The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) offers an analysis of the Ramadan War and the multiple fronts of Iranian anti- imperialism. It uses anti-imperialist methodology, grounded in…
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Declaration of a Zone of Peace
    26 Aug 2026
    From the blockade of Cuba to the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, U.S. imperialism is recolonizing the Americas, and the only answer is a Zone of Peace built through popular struggle and anti-…
  • Pamela Colloff
    Florida Is Executing Prisoners at a Record Pace, Even as Most of the U.S. Abandons the Death Penalty
    26 Aug 2026
    Early last year, Governor Ron DeSantis began signing death warrants at a faster rate than ever before. What followed was the most intense period of executions the state has carried out in more than…
  • Omar Zahzah
    Michigan 8 case is part of a broader pattern of repression
    26 Aug 2026
    Eight student activists in Michigan face decades in prison for advocating that their university divest from genocide. It is clear the goal of the indictment is to terrorize the Palestine solidarity…
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio August 21, 2026
    21 Aug 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss U.S. control over Venezuela and its resources, and the Venezuelan people's response to their loss of sovereignty. But we begin with a report on the police killing…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us