By Rodrigo Uprimny, EL ESPECTADOR, September 28, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
I share a lot of the points in Petro’s recent speech at the United Nations: his condemnation of the genocide in Gaza and the United States’ and Europe’s responsibility in the face of Netanyahu’s crimes; his criticism of the worldwide inaction on climate change; his rejection of the criminalization of migration, and the return by the United States to an extreme and unilateral war on drugs. Nevertheless, in spite of those right answers, his speech was unfortunate and a lost opportunity.
It was unfortunate for at least three reasons: first, his proposal for a military operation to stop the genocide in Gaza, for its approval by the General Assembly and not by the Security Council, was bold and might even have legal support in Resolution 377 of 1950 that’s being pushed right now, paradoxically, by the United States. But the proposal seems to have no political or practical viability, so it’s really just a distraction. I think the alternative is to increase political and moral pressure on the United States and Europe, so they stop Netanyahu. They are the ones that can do that.
Second, his use of Bolívar’s slogan “war to the death” is unacceptable. Many of Bolívar’s ideas deserve to be reclaimed, but “war to the death” is not one of them. It was the worst moment of his heroic career; in 1838 he proposed killing every Spaniard, even those that hadn’t committed any crime or supported royalist troops. Only save those who actively supported independence, those who, in fact, were betraying their own country. That had horrible consequences: thousands of innocent Spaniards were executed. Bolívar himself abandoned that strategy and agreed years later with Pable Morillo to regularize the war, for the purpose of avoiding those atrocities. So it’s surprising that Petro, who says he is leading a government of life, would bring back Bolívar’s atrocious “war to the death”.
Third, the speech was long, personal, and aggressive.; it was directed more to galvanizing his base in Colombia than for an international setting like the United Nations, and therefore did not receive much notice. You need only compare it with Lula’s speech; he, with clarity, dignity, and vigor, said things that were similar, but in language more at home in the setting, and thus was received more favorably. That style, and Brazil’s greater power, gave Lula the international leadership of the Global South in those areas, while Petro lost that possibility.
All of that was unfortunate, but it’s much more serious that Colombia squandered a great opportunity to have an impact on a transcendental matter: international regulation of drugs. Petro focused on criticizing the unilaterality of decertification against him and on the bellicose extremes that Trump has brought to the war on drugs. He’s correct in that, but in reality, this speech, as I pointed out in my last column, reinforces the prohibitionist paradigm, which is the root of all the tragedies associated with the drug traffic. The word “prohibition” didn’t even appear in his speech.
So the biggest paradox is that Petro was wasting the opportunity to promote the successes of his own administration in this area. Thanks to the efforts of his then-Ambassador to Vienna, Laura Gil, Colombia achieved something historic: that the CND, which is the United Nations Agency in charge of the subject of drugs, ultimately recognized that that prohibition is not working, and it created a committee of experts that is to re-examine international drug regulations and make recommendations to the United Nations. This advance is enormous, but it looks as if Petro doesn’t want to reap the benefits, because he didn’t even mention it in his lengthy speech. Sad and astonishing.