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

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
29 July 2026
Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
Carlos Aznárez
Zionist Expansionism in Latin America
22 July 2026
Free trade deals, water contracts, and military training programs are quietly binding one Latin American government after another to Tel Aviv.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The White Supremacist Imperative on Violence: A Black Radical Perspective on the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination
15 July 2026
The U.S.-EU-NATO axis remains intact, and its commitment to militarism represents an existential threat to the world.
Gary Wilson
Pentagon Turns Earthquake Into Occupation of Venezuela
15 July 2026
The same U.S.
Hanna Eid
Sovereignty and Strategic Depth
08 July 2026
The U.S.
Jacqueline Luqman
Disaster Capitalism In Haiti Gives A Glimpse Into the Imperialist Shock Doctrine That Could Rattle Venezuela Long After The Earthquakes
01 July 2026
The U.S.
Clau O'Brien Moscoso
Fujimorismo 2.0: The Age of Keiko Fujimori: The Hard Right Advances in Latin America and the Caribbean, strengthening the Shield of the Americas
01 July 2026
Keiko Fujimori won the Peruvian presidency with help from the U.S. ambassador. Her victory solidifies the U.S.
North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights
Resisting U.S. Human Rights Barbarism: The Arrest of Alyssa Philip In Trinidad and Tobago
24 June 2026
A protest leader in Trinidad was arrested during Labour Day celebrations for the crime of demanding justice for a paralyzed shooting
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Sportswashing: How Capitalism Kills the Game for Poor and Working Class People While Normalizing How Imperialism Oppresses and Kills Them
17 June 2026
A single working mother could once take her child to a Yankees game for $40, but today that money would not even cover the online ser
2026 Casa Ben Linder Bluefields Delegation
Nicaragua and The Miseducation of the People of the United States
17 June 2026
Nicaragua is a living example of anti-imperialist resistance and people-centered development. The job of those in the U.S.

More Stories


  • Black Women's Movement in Brazil
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Women's Movement in Brazil
    26 May 2023
    Members of Brazil’s Black Women’s Alliance will be in New York at the United Nation’s forum on Afro Descendants.
  • Advocacy for Expungement of Criminal Records
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Advocacy for Expungement of Criminal Records
    26 May 2023
    Jay Jordan is CEO of Alliance for Safety and Justice and he also serves as Co-Founder and National Director for the program Time Done, whose 200,000 members have advocated for more than 8 million…
  • The Durham Report and the FBI
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Durham Report and the FBI
    26 May 2023
    Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Sputnik program, The Critical Hour, with co-host Garland Nixon. They discussed the Durham Report and the FBI’s history of violating the law.
  • Biden's Debt Ceiling Betrayal is a Democratic Party Tradition
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden's Debt Ceiling Betrayal is a Democratic Party Tradition
    24 May 2023
    Joe Biden is continuing the ignoble tradition of colluding with republicans while pretending to fight them. The latest debt limit drama is another betrayal of the people.
  • INTERVIEW: Amy Jacques Garvey, 1973
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: Amy Jacques Garvey, 1973
    24 May 2023
    In one of the last interviews before her death, Amy Jacques Garvey provides a powerful riposte to those contemporary revisionists that would seek to dismiss the power of the UNIA and Garvey movement…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us