The fiery rhetoric of the Cold War returned more fiery than ever to Bogota. “Great first day of the I Foro Madrid Regional Meeting! Wherever Freedom, Democracy and the Rule of Law are under threat, there we will be united to defend them”. With this celebration, Vox finally made foot in Latin America. His arrival had been announced last October. The motley Latin American far-right sheltered him with an eye on the elections of Brazil and Columbiawhich may represent the return of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to power and the historic victory of Gustavo Petro in the other country.
The objective of the meeting that ended this Friday at the Radisson Hotel in Bogotá was more than fulfilled, according to its organizers. There they found the emerging leaders of the most conservative groups from Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Argentina, among others. Together with Vox, they agreed on the need to alert regarding “an eventual electoral victory of the allies of the Sao Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group”, which have brought together, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, different expressions of the left and the center left, respectively. For the Madrid Forum, Colombians face a “dilemma” at the polls on May 29: “or they opt for a model that defends private property, the division of powers, alternation in power and freedom; or back to the communism“.
The Brazilian electoral scene was also painted in an apocalyptic key despite Lula’s explicit turn to the center. The leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) is seeking an alliance with Geraldo Alckmin, his rival in the 2006 elections. Despite his right-wing ancestry, Alckmin currently appears as a “moderate” who would join forces with his former opponent once morest the possibility of a re-election of Jair Bolsonaro.
In the luxurious Bogotá hotel, the admonitions of Francisco Tudela, the last vice president of the Peruvian autocrat, Alberto Fujimori, resonated with force; Ernesto Araújo, who served as Bolsonaro’s foreign minister, with an agenda almost similar to that of Steve Bannon, and the current Argentine deputy, Javier Milei, who obtained 14% of the votes in the legislative elections last November. Predictably, the hosts were represented by the hard-line wing of the Democratic Center, former president Álvaro Uribe’s party.
At this time in Bogotá, the far-right narrative was encountering problems not contemplated by the Madrid Forum. Almost two months following his capture, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, alias Otoniel, the maximum leader of the Clan del Golfo, demanded to be welcomed by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) that was born as a result of the agreements between the State and the FARC , in 2016. The former powerful drug trafficker requested that benefit “as a third-party collaborator of the Armed Forces and promoter and financier of paramilitary groups.” At the same time, the ex-narco, on whom two extradition requests to the United States weigh. he said he participated in actions harmful to human rights in “complicity with high command of the Army”like General Leonardo Barrero Gordillo.
Incidents
The far-right meeting ended amid incidents. A group of young people surrounded the facilities of the Radisson to the cry of “they will not pass” and “Bogotá will be the tomb of the fascism“. The hotel was jealously guarded by police. The protest had been organized by RASH Bogotá and the Antifascist Coordinator in rejection of Vox and its “xenophobic, sexist and classist practices.” Its organizers pointed out that “Colombia has the possibility of changing course and having a new political project.”
The statement came from knobs to Hermann Tertsch, the Vox MEP, who, without evidence, related the episode to Petro, the progressive candidate who leads the polls with a view to the Colombian presidential elections.
