Can Colombia’s mercurial president bring “total peace”?
Gustavo Petro, the country’s first avowedly left-wing leader, has big ambitions
At Hacienda Pontevedra, a remote ranch in the coastal department of Córdoba, a few campesinos (small-scale farmers) are camped out in a copse. The ranch once belonged to a drug-trafficker who is locked up in an American prison. But he has agreed with the government of Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first avowedly left-wing president, to hand over 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of land to 100 landless campesinos who had been growing coca in a national park near Tierralta, the unofficial capital of southern Córdoba.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “The revolutionary v the pragmatist”
From the February 11th 2023 edition
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