We are running this dignified response to Trump from Colombian president Gustavo Petro after he refused to allow 2 US military planes loaded with Colombian nationals deported in shackles from landing in the Latin American country. Trump in his anti immigrant crusade responded by threatening Colombia with tariffs of 50% on all Colombian products coming into the US if there wasn’t compliance. As of last night a tentative agreement has been reached between the two countries and Petro has sent Colombian planes to return them in a humane way. The corporate media is saying that Petro backed down but if you read this you will see a defiance against this anti immigrant revival of the Monroe Doctrine. How much indignity are the countries of Latin America supposed to endure? –editor
January 26, 2025
“I don’t want slave drivers on Colombia’s side, we already had many and we freed ourselves”
“Trump, I don’t really like traveling to the US, it’s a bit boring, but I confess that there are meritorious things, I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, there I saw an entire fight once in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like bullshit to me, because they should unite.
“I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller.
“I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, in the history of the USA, are memorable and I follow them. They were assassinated for being labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists that are inside the USA as well as inside my country.
“I don’t like your oil, Trump, you’re going to end the human race through greed. Maybe one day, over a drink of whisky which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk about this frankly, but it’s difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I am not, nor is any Colombian.
“So if you know anyone stubborn, it’s me, period. With your economic strength and your arrogance you can try to stage a coup d’état like they did with Allende. But I die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don’t want slavers alongside Colombia, we’ve had enough of them and we freed ourselves. What I want alongside Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can’t be with me, I’ll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn’t understand that. This is the land of yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the Aureliano Buendía colonels, of whom I am one, perhaps the last.
“You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which comes before yours, in the Americas. We are the people of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and freedom.
“You don’t like our freedom, okay. I don’t shake hands with white slavers. I shake the hands of the white libertarians who are the heirs of Lincoln and of the black and white peasant boys of the USA, before whose graves I have cried and prayed on a battlefield, wherever I may end up, after climbing the mountains of the Italian Tuscan and after saving myself from Covid.
“They are the USA and I kneel before them, before no one else.
“Kneel for me, Mr. President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.
“Colombia, now stop looking north, look at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Córdoba, the civilization at that time, of the Latin Romans of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, the democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resisters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory in America, before Washington, in all of America, there I take refuge in its African songs.
“My land is of gold and silver work existing in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.
“You will never dominate us. The warrior who rode through our lands, shouting freedom and who is called Bolívar, is opposed.
“Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat shy, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us by violence. Two hundred heroes from all over Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, present-day Panama, formerly Colombia, whom you murdered.
“I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if I am alone, it will continue to fly with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President immigrant in the USA.
“Your blockade does not frighten me; because Colombia, as well as being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and it will give you its sweetness.
“COLOMBIA AS OF TODAY OPENS ITSELF TO THE WHOLE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.
“I have been informed that you are charging a 50% tariff on our fruits of human labor to enter the US, I will do the same.
“May our people plant the corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.”
Source: Cubadebate translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English