Gearóid Ó Loinsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 1-October-2025.
The recent speech by the Colombian president to the UN general assembly quickly went viral and rightly so. The speech was direct and spoke various truths to Trump and Netanyahu. It was well received by the majority of those in attendance and enraged the spoilt child in the Whitehouse. He dealt with various issues during his intervention, but perhaps the two most outstanding were Palestine and the eternal issue of drugs, both of which I will deal with.
Due to its style and also content, it would seem that Petro was conscious that this speech formed part of his political legacy as president of Colombia and was also cognizant of the setting. Though there are certain demagogic elements to what he said, there are also various truthful aspects but as usual mixed in with inaccuracies that ignore his own past and political positions that he adopted.
First of all, Petro raised his voice in defence of Palestine when he said:
There is some hyperbole mixed with messianic visions but one would like to think that there was a chance of such an army being raised, but those countries are not going to do it. Sooner or later their governments will return to realpolitik. They have been mute witnesses, silent, timid and fearful of the oppression of the Palestinians when they are not directly participating in it through their companies, business deals and agreements.
[1] Gustavo Petro (23/09/2025) Intervención del presidente Gustavo Petro en el 80 Periodo Ordinario de Sesiones de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas.
[2] Ibíd.
[3] See.
[4] CDC (1999). National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol 47, No.19.
[5] CDC (1999). National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol 47, No.19.
[6] Gustavo Petro (17/09/2025) Alocución del presidente de la República, Gustavo Petro Urrego sobre la descertificación del gobierno de Estados Unidos a Colombia.
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Photo: Petro as Clinton’s chauffeur in Colombia 2013. |
The recent speech by the Colombian president to the UN general assembly quickly went viral and rightly so. The speech was direct and spoke various truths to Trump and Netanyahu. It was well received by the majority of those in attendance and enraged the spoilt child in the Whitehouse. He dealt with various issues during his intervention, but perhaps the two most outstanding were Palestine and the eternal issue of drugs, both of which I will deal with.
Due to its style and also content, it would seem that Petro was conscious that this speech formed part of his political legacy as president of Colombia and was also cognizant of the setting. Though there are certain demagogic elements to what he said, there are also various truthful aspects but as usual mixed in with inaccuracies that ignore his own past and political positions that he adopted.
First of all, Petro raised his voice in defence of Palestine when he said:
There is no master race, gentlemen. There is no chosen people of God. It is not the USA nor Israel. Ignorant right-wing fundamentalists think like that. God’s chosen people is all of humanity.[1]
Thus, he compared, rightly so, Zionism with Nazism. He also called to raise an army and bring the genocide to an end and free Palestine. It is unlikely to happen, though that is not reason enough to criticise it, as a president declaring the Israeli state to be an enemy of humanity is progress and says a lot about the deterioration of Israel’s image. Like it or not, Petro legitimised a certain approach to the USA and Israel, whilst we know that on his own Petro is not going to do much.
Humanity cannot permit one more day of genocide nor that the genocidaires of Netanyahu, nor his allies in the USA and Europe be allowed go free. The UN should enforce the decisions of the international tribunals of justice, international law which is the basis of civilisation and the wisdom of humanity condensed in history and should make their sentences enforced.
Palestine has to be freed. I call upon the armies of Asia, of the Slavic peoples that so heroically defeated Hitler, the Latin-American armies of Bolivar, of Garabaldi who had one in Italy, of Martí, Artigas and Santa Cruz… they are not just going to bombard Gaza, not just the Caribbean as they are already doing, but all of humanity that cries out for freedom, because Washington and NATO murder democracy and rekindle tyranny and totalitarianism around the globe.[2]
There is some hyperbole mixed with messianic visions but one would like to think that there was a chance of such an army being raised, but those countries are not going to do it. Sooner or later their governments will return to realpolitik. They have been mute witnesses, silent, timid and fearful of the oppression of the Palestinians when they are not directly participating in it through their companies, business deals and agreements.
Petro also has an erroneous view of the UN Peace Keepers. He says that the army that he wants to raise cannot be like them, it has to be well trained etc. First of all, he believes that the UN missions in the Arab world have failed and it is due to a lack of professionalism and military capacity. The UN missions in Lebanon are comprised of professional armies, amongst them China, Indonesia, Nepal and member states of NATO such as France, Spain and Italy, this last one being the country that has sent most troops.[3] They didn’t fail due to a lack of military ability, in fact they didn’t fail. Their formal mission was to help the Lebanese government restore its mandate in the area and monitor the cease fire with Israel, something it never does when Israel decides otherwise. And its real mission can be summed up as Contain the Resistance. And that they do comply with. It is worrying that Petro does not understand the reach and real goals of the UN missions when it comes to raising an army that he naively believes will do something different.
Though there is an army that could be raised, despite the political and organisational problems to do so: the working class. Italy demonstrated the power that a national strike can have. That is the only army that can be trusted, that could block all trade with Israel from one day to the next, but for decades we have seen the trade union bureaucracy demobilise workers and sign disadvantageous deals with the bosses and so we find ourselves at a point in which unions have little voice and less to say and do regarding a live streamed genocide. Politicians such as Starmer have blood on their hands due to their complicity, others due to their silence and in the trade union movement there are also those who have their hands stained with blood. In Ireland, for example, Shay Cody the former general secretary of one of the biggest unions in the country, Fórsa, sits on the Central Bank Commission. No union has said anything despite the sale of Israeli bonds to finance the genocide by this bank. When they are not silent, they take part.
In any case, Petro’s speech guaranteed him at the very least a footnote in the history of the UN. When he turned to the issue of drugs at the UN and in his later statements the reality and weakness of Petro is to be seen. Tough talk, but in practice, what exactly?
He denounced murder on the high seas by Trump and rightly pointed out that they never attack the real drug traffickers who are Trump’s neighbours, that live in the USA. This is true, but it was also so under Biden, Obama and his dear friend Bill Clinton - and Petro never waved that argument against them. He once again rightly asked what moral authority Trump has to decertify Colombia in the war on drugs. It is a good question, but Petro won’t like the answer. In the moral sense of the word, Trump is nobody. In the legal sense, well certification is US policy and it is sovereign when it comes to evaluating Colombia’s efforts, though it is still an imperialist act of interference in the affairs of the country. But Trump has the same moral authority, or lack thereof, as Obama, Biden, and Bush who certified Colombia and also the same moral authority as Clinton who decertified Colombia in 1996.
Clinton later in the name of the war on drugs launched Plan Colombia on the basis of false Trump-like figures. In a message to the Colombian people, he claimed that drugs killed more than 50,000 people per year in his country,[4] when the reality was that in 1997, 15,973 died from the abuse of All drugs including the abuse of pharmaceuticals.[5] They were the most recent data that Clinton had to hand when he lied like he was Trump. When Clinton visited Colombia as a private citizen in 2013, the person who offered to be his chauffer was none other than Petro himself. It is fine for him to say the US has no moral authority on the issue, but did Petro whisper in the ear of his platonic love, Bill Clinton, when he drove him around and about? If Petro is serious, then he has to act seriously against all of them and not just a few and implement policies that back that up and not limit himself to speeches at the UN when there are little more than six months to go for the Congressional elections in Colombia. Of course, if we reject the moral authority of the world’s biggest drugs consumer, or we decertify it, if you prefer, there are economic consequences to that. But when you fight, you fight.
Petro speaks of dignity
Well, that is not quite true. Of course, all those that lived through the loss of Panama are dead and the same for those who saw Colombia lose parts of the Amazon. But nowadays, I wonder whether Colombia is sovereign and does not bow the knee to anyone as Petro claimed. The reality of his presidency says otherwise. Following Petro’s election it received no end of visits from high-ranking US military officers. Less than a month after his swearing in as president he met with the head of the Southern Command, General Richardson, and shortly after Colombia received a Military medical mission from the US in Cartagena. If he bows the knee to no one, then
Those bases will be the launching pad for an invasion of Venezuela; they will be used against neighbouring countries and even represent a danger to the internal security of the country. Petro likes to talk a lot about the desires of the putrid Colombian right to overthrow him, and it never occurred to him that at some point those bases could play a role.
Let’s move on from nice words, and they were nice, to beautiful bold acts, shut down the bases! Do not let the Yanks have control of the Amazon! And reverse the decision on the Gorgona island!
Dignity starts at home.
Though there is an army that could be raised, despite the political and organisational problems to do so: the working class. Italy demonstrated the power that a national strike can have. That is the only army that can be trusted, that could block all trade with Israel from one day to the next, but for decades we have seen the trade union bureaucracy demobilise workers and sign disadvantageous deals with the bosses and so we find ourselves at a point in which unions have little voice and less to say and do regarding a live streamed genocide. Politicians such as Starmer have blood on their hands due to their complicity, others due to their silence and in the trade union movement there are also those who have their hands stained with blood. In Ireland, for example, Shay Cody the former general secretary of one of the biggest unions in the country, Fórsa, sits on the Central Bank Commission. No union has said anything despite the sale of Israeli bonds to finance the genocide by this bank. When they are not silent, they take part.
In any case, Petro’s speech guaranteed him at the very least a footnote in the history of the UN. When he turned to the issue of drugs at the UN and in his later statements the reality and weakness of Petro is to be seen. Tough talk, but in practice, what exactly?
He denounced murder on the high seas by Trump and rightly pointed out that they never attack the real drug traffickers who are Trump’s neighbours, that live in the USA. This is true, but it was also so under Biden, Obama and his dear friend Bill Clinton - and Petro never waved that argument against them. He once again rightly asked what moral authority Trump has to decertify Colombia in the war on drugs. It is a good question, but Petro won’t like the answer. In the moral sense of the word, Trump is nobody. In the legal sense, well certification is US policy and it is sovereign when it comes to evaluating Colombia’s efforts, though it is still an imperialist act of interference in the affairs of the country. But Trump has the same moral authority, or lack thereof, as Obama, Biden, and Bush who certified Colombia and also the same moral authority as Clinton who decertified Colombia in 1996.
Clinton later in the name of the war on drugs launched Plan Colombia on the basis of false Trump-like figures. In a message to the Colombian people, he claimed that drugs killed more than 50,000 people per year in his country,[4] when the reality was that in 1997, 15,973 died from the abuse of All drugs including the abuse of pharmaceuticals.[5] They were the most recent data that Clinton had to hand when he lied like he was Trump. When Clinton visited Colombia as a private citizen in 2013, the person who offered to be his chauffer was none other than Petro himself. It is fine for him to say the US has no moral authority on the issue, but did Petro whisper in the ear of his platonic love, Bill Clinton, when he drove him around and about? If Petro is serious, then he has to act seriously against all of them and not just a few and implement policies that back that up and not limit himself to speeches at the UN when there are little more than six months to go for the Congressional elections in Colombia. Of course, if we reject the moral authority of the world’s biggest drugs consumer, or we decertify it, if you prefer, there are economic consequences to that. But when you fight, you fight.
Petro speaks of dignity
Colombia will not hand over its sovereignty. Liberals and conservatives that signed a communiqué today, surrendered that sovereignty when they sold Panama, when they handed over the Amazon jungle, when they handed over large parts of the Caribbean Sea, but we are not that class of people.[6]
Well, that is not quite true. Of course, all those that lived through the loss of Panama are dead and the same for those who saw Colombia lose parts of the Amazon. But nowadays, I wonder whether Colombia is sovereign and does not bow the knee to anyone as Petro claimed. The reality of his presidency says otherwise. Following Petro’s election it received no end of visits from high-ranking US military officers. Less than a month after his swearing in as president he met with the head of the Southern Command, General Richardson, and shortly after Colombia received a Military medical mission from the US in Cartagena. If he bows the knee to no one, then
- Why did he propose to Biden that the US take care of the Colombian Amazon jungle?
- Why are there still seven US military bases in Colombia?
- Why is Petro going ahead with the building of a military base that will be used by the DEA, amongst others, on the Gorgona Island, a national park and a place of great ecological importance and biodiversity?
Those bases will be the launching pad for an invasion of Venezuela; they will be used against neighbouring countries and even represent a danger to the internal security of the country. Petro likes to talk a lot about the desires of the putrid Colombian right to overthrow him, and it never occurred to him that at some point those bases could play a role.
Let’s move on from nice words, and they were nice, to beautiful bold acts, shut down the bases! Do not let the Yanks have control of the Amazon! And reverse the decision on the Gorgona island!
Dignity starts at home.
References
[1] Gustavo Petro (23/09/2025) Intervención del presidente Gustavo Petro en el 80 Periodo Ordinario de Sesiones de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas.
[2] Ibíd.
[3] See.
[4] CDC (1999). National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol 47, No.19.
[5] CDC (1999). National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol 47, No.19.
[6] Gustavo Petro (17/09/2025) Alocución del presidente de la República, Gustavo Petro Urrego sobre la descertificación del gobierno de Estados Unidos a Colombia.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.