Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

U.S. Takes Aim at President Gustavo Petro, but He's Akin to a Rock Star in Colombia
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Dan Kovalik
25 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article

All eyes are now fixed on the US-Israeli War on Iran, so there's been little attention to US moves to undermine Colombian President Gustavo Petro. These could, at worst, see Petro in a US prison alongside Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the US kidnapped on January 3rd. I spoke to attorney and author Dan Kovalik, President Petro’s legal representative in the US and in international courts. We agreed that, as peace and justice activists, we need to understand this as another front in a global war to crush dissidence and re-establish the hegemony of neoliberalism and US empire. He said that President Petro is akin to a rock star in Colombia where huge crowds turn out to meet him in public.

Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann@anngarrison.com. You can help support her work on Patreon.

Daniel Kovalik is a lawyer focusing particularly on human rights and a prolific author. He taught International Human Rights Law at the University of Pittsburgh from 2012-2023. His most recent books are "The Case for Palestine: Why it Matters and Why You Should Care," and "Syria: Anatomy of a Regime Change."

Colombia
Gustavo Petro
Venezuela
Nicolas Maduro
Neoliberalism
imperialism
Latin America

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights Critique of “An Open Letter to Iran’s Political Prisoners”
26 August 2026
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework rejects the liberal abstraction that makes a false symmetry between Iranian authoritarianism and U.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
U.S. Liberal Media Literacy Guide: The World Bank and the IMF
26 August 2026
The IMF and World Bank are not subjects the corporate media cover in any real sense.
Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective
AISC Red Paper #2: The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism
26 August 2026
The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) offers an analysis of the Ramadan War and the multiple fronts of Iranian anti- imperi
Black Alliance For Peace
Declaration of a Zone of Peace
26 August 2026
From the blockade of Cuba to the kidnapping of Venezuela's president, U.S.
Kimberly D. Miller
Beyond the "Delcyification" of Analysis
19 August 2026
Siege, survival, and the dialectics of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Hedelberto López Blanch
A Shady Figure Will Preside Over Colombia
19 August 2026
Colombia's new president has ties to paramilitaries and drug traffickers, but Trump's endorsement swept his crimes aside as he embraces Washing
Luis Britto García
Venezuela Is Not Iran
19 August 2026
Venezuela is not Iran or Cuba, but those nations teach us that sovereignty is not given but is obtained through resistance.
Orinoco Tribune
‘To the Victor Belong the Spoils’: Trump Flaunts US Plunder of Venezuela
11 August 2026
The U.S. is not shy about proclaiming its control of Venezuela and its resources.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Venezuela, Memory, and the Long Arc of U.S. Imperialism
29 July 2026
Memories of a sovereign Venezuela collide with the reality that it is now a U.S. vassal state.
Carlos Aznárez
Zionist Expansionism in Latin America
22 July 2026
Free trade deals, water contracts, and military training programs are quietly binding one Latin American government after another to Tel Aviv.

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    No Kings and the Lure of Spectacle
    22 Oct 2025
    The most recent No Kings march will hopefully be the last. A Democratic Party get out the vote effort is a show that obscures and obstructs the real work of organizing. 
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada Together We Shall Win, Maurice Bishop, 1980
    22 Oct 2025
    “Long live the Grenadian revolution! Long live the militant unity and solidarity of workers internationally!”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    A Tale of Two Ceasefires: Gaza and DRC
    22 Oct 2025
    The US has negotiated ceasefires in Gaza and the DRC’s eastern Kivu Provinces, but the killing, displacement, and devastation in both continue.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Did you see an infantile, juvenile flight of fancy?
    22 Oct 2025
    "Did you see an infantile, juvenile flight of fancy?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Stuck in a Neutral Gear of Watered Down and Whitewashed Prefigurative Politics: How “No Kings” Takes the “Move” Out of Movements
    22 Oct 2025
    You cannot defeat a king with a parade. The failure of "No Kings" is the refusal to build real power beyond a single day of protest.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us