In June of 2022, a slight majority of Colombian voters elected Gustavo Petro as president. To say that they ignored numerous warning signs would be an understatement.

Petro began his public life in the late 1970’s as a member of the M‑19, the bloodthirsty urban guerrilla group that—among its many acts of terrorism— stormed the Ministry of Justice in November of 1985, held its magistrates and hundreds of employees as hostages, and ultimately caused the violent death of 111 people.

In 1994, a mere two years after the M‑19’s final official amnesty, which coincided broadly with the introduction of a new constitution in 1991, Petro—then a congressman—invited Hugo Chávez to Bogota, where he hosted him for over a week. At the time, Chávez himself had been recently amnestied, having been sentenced for leading a failed and bloody coup attempt in Caracas in 1992.

Reflecting on his time with Chávez in the Colombian capital, Petro said: “We found an ideological understanding in the fight against corruption and in the Bolivarian discourse.”

This editorial originally ran April 19 in the Cato Institute Blog. It is generously shared under a Creative Commons license. The original can be read here.

Chávez became president of Venezuela in 1999. By 2003, Petro was boasting to a Colombian magazine, which described him as “one of Chávez’s closest advisors on the new model being implemented in Venezuela,” about the country’s change of tack. “We are in a transitional stage,” Petro said, “from a neoliberal model to one that I would call ‘neo‐​populism.’”

Eventually, under Chávez’s price and currency controls, food and basic goods in Venezuela became scarce. So too did Petro’s public statements about the Chavista model. “Neo‐​populism,” it turned out, had been a euphemism for old‐​fashioned socialism. And Petro tried to distance himself from the consequences that he had helped bring about. While running for president in March of 2010, he tweeted:

“We are socialists of the 21^st century and Chávez is a 20^th century socialist. I don’t expropriate the workers’ property.”

But Petro later deleted said tweet.

When Chávez died in 2013, Petro, who was then the mayor of Bogota, attended his funeral in Caracas. At the time, Petro claimed that Chávez had been “a great Latin American leader.” On Twitter, he posted a photograph of a supermarket shelf full of goods, adding a denial that food was scarce in Venezuela, as it had already been for some time.

During his stay in Caracas, Petro spoke to Telesur, Venezuela’s state‐​run media agency, of his initial encounter with Chávez. According to the Bogota mayoralty’s website, Petro said that, in 1994, he and Chávez had sworn to carry out “a Bolivarian integration” of Latin America. “We pledged to fight for that goal,” he said.

Nonetheless, in the run‐​up to the 2018 presidential election, which Petro lost, he once again tried to downplay his close ties to Chavismo. Petro continually claimed that, since he opposed all future oil exploration in Colombia, his economic policies had nothing to do with Chávez’s model for Venezuela, which was oil‐​dependent.

Petro’s radical, even apocalyptic, environmentalist rhetoric helped him to win the 2022 election. His not too subtle pivot from traditional statist to climate change alarmist went largely unopposed. Petro’s political rivals, the news media, and center‐​left opinion leaders meekly allowed him to change the axis of political debate.

It fell to a foreign journalist, Mexico’s Jorge Ramos, to provide the only memorable exception. In a 2018 CNN interview, Ramos asked Petro whether he thought that Chávez had been a dictator. After eluding the question for around 40 seconds, Petro said: “I think that international politics is sharply divided by the issue of climate change.” The following exchange ensued:

Ramos: “No, no, no. Was Hugo Chávez a dictator or not, Mr. Petro? […] We can talk afterwards about climate change if you would like.”

Petro: “Hugo Chávez was elected by the people several times.”

Ramos: “Do you think that Chávez was a dictator?”

Petro: “I think that there was no doubt about his elections according to the information I have.”

Ramos: “But you have not answered me whether Chávez was a dictator or not. [Ramos proceeds to quote Petro’s 2013 tweet praising Chávez as a great leader]A great Latin American leader? He had political prisoners, caused many deaths, censored and controlled all news media. Is that a great political leader?”

Petro: “I think that Chávez died and, since his death, a part of Venezuela admires him and another part does not admire him.”

Ramos: “But you, Mr. Petro […] Many Colombians fear that you will do the same.”

Petro: “I cannot do the same for two fundamental reasons. First, because what I propose for Colombia is to separate the economy from oil and coal….”

Ramos: “But you have not wanted to answer me. It is very simple. For you, was Chávez a dictator or not?”

Petro: “I think that he was elected by the people.”

Petro eventually admitted—with an evident lack of conviction in his body language—that the Venezuelan regime had become authoritarian, but only under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, and that Cuba’s statist economy harmed democracy. But Ramos’s pushback had exposed his rhetorical tactic: to claim that Venezuela’s economic and humanitarian collapse was not due to Chávez’s socialist policies, which Petro had celebrated and promoted, but rather to the primacy of the country’s oil industry.

Hence, Petro claimed that his center‐​right opponents, who did not intend to shut down oil exploration and production in the country, were the true proponents of Chavismo in Colombia. Not Petro himself, the one Colombian politician who had helped to bolster Chávez’s power in Venezuela.

Petro got away with his sophistry. Also with his claim that, despite earlier statements about the supposed need to change the constitution, he did not plan to summon a constitutional assembly if elected, as Chávez had done in Venezuela in 1999. Thus, leading politicians and opinion leaders of the center‐​left allowed themselves to be convinced that Petro was a democrat and, as such, represented no menace to Colombia’s republican institutions. In other words, Petro was no Chávez. Nor was Colombia, South America’s longest‐​running democratic republic, as institutionally weak as Venezuela had been when Chávez took over.

A pillar of this theory was the formidable opposition that Petro could face from Congress, where Petro’s party did not hold a majority. But this overlooked the longstanding Colombian tradition of a pro‐​government Congress, whose members are always susceptible to the patronage of a powerful presidency.

Indeed, as Petro was preparing for his inauguration, he formed a coalition not only with the center‐​left Green Party. It also came to include the Liberal Party, a member of the Socialist International since the 1990’s, the nominally center‐​right Party of National Unity, and even the Conservative Party. The formidable opposition theory collapsed even before Petro was sworn into office.

By November of 2022, Petro’s coalition had already approved a tax law that raised rates on formal sector employees and businesses, reinstated a national wealth tax, introduced a sugar tax (which falls most heavily upon the poorest in society), and forbade mining companies from deducting royalty payments from their income taxes. Petro’s “tax reform” really meant hefty tax increases (although this was already the norm in Colombia well before Petro came to power).

More recently Petro has garnered support from the Liberal Party and from Conservative senators for his sabotage of the private pension system. Petro aims to end workers’ ability to choose between the private and public pension alternatives for their mandatory retirement savings; the private system consists of individual retirement accounts, whereas the public version is an unsustainable, pay‐​as‐​you‐​go system that is subsidized through the national budget. Workers in the formal sector are currently free to choose between both models. Petro seeks to force all workers into the state‐​run system, leaving private funds as a voluntary alternative for those earning over three times the minimum wage.

Liberal and Conservative politicians are supporting Petro’s statist pension scheme despite their parties’ official exit from the government. Petro’s original, “National Agreement” government only lasted until the first half of of 2023, when it dawned on the political class that Petro truly intended—as he had said all along— to uproot private sector involvement in the healthcare sector.

Last March, Congress refused to approve Petro’s bid to expand state control of the healthcare system at the expense of private health insurance companies. Petro’s government responded by taking control of the administration of one of the largest private insurance companies, which manages the health funds of 5.7 million members. Petro also announced that it was time to summon an extralegal constitutional assembly since Congress could not “rise to the challenge” of implementing his agenda in full.

When it came to healthcare, the opposition finally became formidable. And Petro moved to make it futile. Analysts had failed to consider that, when push came to shove, Petro did not intend to respect constitutional protocols.

While the current constitution allows the creation of a new constitutional assembly, it requires both chambers of Congress to vote in favor by a majority, followed by the approval of the Constitutional Court and a majority of voters in a plebiscite, after which an election to choose the assembly members must take place. But Petro says that none of these requirements are necessary to change the constitution.

Petro argues that the “constituted” power that emerged in 1991 has been corrupted, while the “constituent” power is “the people,” which he claims to represent. “The constituent power is not summoned,” he said in an interview. “It is the people, which summons itself to decide the country’s fundamental questions. That is the constituent power.”

Petro has hinted that “the people” will express their support for a new constitution through a series of cabildos or town hall meetings that the government will summon across the country.

He thus claims that he can bypass Congress, the courts, and the need for a legal plebiscite to usher in a new constitution. Its pillars, Petro says, should include “the struggle against climate change” and “the decarbonization of the economy.” This implies a constitutional mandate for Petro’s ongoing war against Colombia’s hydrocarbon industry. Petro’s constitution also would include “a monetary policy that prioritizes employment and production.” That is, a takeover of the nominally independent central bank.

Petro’s attempt to create a new, statist constitution is reminiscent of Hugo Chávez’s own methods, replicated by Latin America’s “21^st Century Socialists” Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Like Petro, who implies that Colombia’s 1991 constitution is obsolete, Chávez affirmed that the Venezuelan constitution was “moribund” when he was sworn in as president.

But even Chávez’s opponents admitted that, in 1999, his constitutional convention “began as a democratic process that in its origins did not involve the rupture of the previous political regime.” Petro, on the other hand, is attempting a full rupture with the established order. He aims to bypass all existing checks and balances to his power.

Petro’s plan is more akin to Nicolás Maduro’s spurious constitutional assembly of 2017, which nullified the power of the National Assembly, where the opposition held a majority since its victory in the election of December, 2015. In that sense, the commentators who still claim that Petro is no Chávez are correct, albeit for none of the reasons they put forth (such as the strength of Colombian institutions).

Rather, Petro’s contempt for the rule of law is arguably greater than that of Chávez during the initial stages of his rule. Then again, whereas Chávez sought to conceal his true intentions during his campaign for the presidency in 1998, Petro campaigned while offering Chavista recipes openly. There were, for instance, his threat to expropriate specific companies, his ambiguity on his intention to change the constitution, and his defense of Marxist doctrine, such as the labor theory of value.

In 2022, a small majority of Colombian voters acted against their better judgment and allowed Petro to hold power. A large majority is now firmly opposed to his government. The question is whether the republic itself will withstand Petro’s imminent constitutional onslaught.

A Colombian national has been extradited from Chile to the United States to face charges related to kidnapping and assaulting two U.S. Army soldiers who were on temporary duty in Bogotá, according to the US Department of Justice.

According to charging documents, 47-year-old Pedro Jose Silva Ochoa, also known as Tata, of Bogotá, along with co-conspirators, targeted, incapacitated, and kidnapped two U.S. soldiers in Bogotá in order to rob them of their valuables. On the evening of March 5, 2020, the two victims went to an entertainment district in Bogotá to watch a soccer game.

Per the Department of Justice, they visited a pub, where one of Silva Ochoa’s co-conspirators incapacitated the two victims by putting drugs, including benzodiazepines, in their drinks. Silva Ochoa’s co-conspirators then escorted the victims into a waiting car driven by Silva Ochoa, kidnapped them, and took their wallets, debit cards, credit cards, and cell phones. Silva Ochoa and his co-conspirators used one victim’s credit card and the other victim’s debit card to make purchases and withdraw money. The two victims lost consciousness until the following day, by which point they had been separated.

Silva Ochoa is charged with kidnapping an internationally protected person, conspiracy to kidnap an internationally protected person, assaulting an internationally protected person, and conspiracy to assault an internationally protected person. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

READ MORE: 3 Colombians Charged with Drugging and Attempting to Rob U.S. Soldiers

One of Silva Ochoa’s co-defendants, Jeffersson Arango Castellanos, was extradited from Colombia to the United States in April 2023 and pleaded guilty in January to the charges outlined in the indictment.

The FBI is investigating the case and escorted Silva Ochoa from Chile to the United States, where he has already made his initial court appearance in Miami.

In this week’s Colombia Business News Recap:

Click above to watch the video

• Canadian Sacha Lemaire Lepage facing Narcotics, Firearms & Wildlife Abuse Charges In Colombia
• Jimmy Carter’s Colombia Blacklist Revealed
• Colombian Kidnapper Hiding In Chile Captured & Sent to US
• WOM is bankrupt
• Ruta-N and SAP Announce Alliance To Support Entrepreneurship and Investment in Medellín
• The Feria 2 Ruedas motorcycle conventionreturns to Medellín May 2-5, bringing commerce, fun & learning opportunities.

 

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Colombia’s attorney general’s office announced Friday that it has legalized the capture of Canadian citizen Sacha Lemaire Lepage for drug trafficking and illegal possession of firearms. The Prosecutor’s office was caught “in flagrante delicto” (red-handed) on a rural property in El Peñol, Antioquia near the Guatapé tourist and vacation area.

Prosecutors elaborated that Lepage invited foreigners and Colombians to the property to for sex, drugs, and gunplay. Colombian magazine La Semana reported that Lemaire already had legal trouble in Colombia, accused of property damage in 2022, illicit appropriation of natural resources (2023), threats (2023), and now with these charges, firearms and drug trafficking. News daily El Tiempo reports that Lepage marketed his parties in Canada saying tourists could “be a narco for a day,” charging $5,000 for the experience, complete with women and wild animals.

In addition to Lepage, four of the ten people present in the house during the police raid had criminal records, according to the police.

#Antioquia/ CAPTURADO ” SASHA O EL GRINGO ” EXTRANJERO CANADIENSE POR MÚLTIPLES DELITOS.

en la ultimas horas la captura en flagrancia de un ciudadano de nacionalidad canadiense en el municipio de El Peñol, conocido bajo los alias de “SASHA” o “EL GRINGO”, por los delitos de… pic.twitter.com/e0KsE4khL8

— Denuncias Antioquia (@DenunciasAntio2) April 18, 2024

With regards to the wild animals, Colombian regional natural resources agency Cornare has urged prosecution of Lepage for trafficking in Colombian wildlife, a serious crime. In a statement issued by Cornare (translated here):

The evidence obtained confirms that the presumed offender is Mr. Sacha Lepage Lemaire, identified with foreigner cédula (national ID) 9 705 528, residing in Medellín, the (apartment complex) Plaza Oviedo without more data, and in total had 4 animals captive, including a cougar cub (puma concolor), two cariblanco monkeys (cebus sp.) and a blue and yellow macaw (Ara ararauna).

In the operation (where Lepage was arrested) none of the wild specimens from the operation is the same that was registered in the images and videos.

We cannot count on information regarding the destination or where the macaw or monkey seen in the videos are being kept.

It is important to initiate legal environmental proceedings against Mr. Sacha Lepage Lemaire, identified with foreigner cédula 9 705 528 for the illegal possession of wild animals as evidenced in the attached photos and videos in this report, and for the mistreatment of the cited animals. Also to link the process against Mrs. Estefania Restrepo Metrio, identified with citizen’s cédula 1 037 639 660 for her participation in this activity that gravely affects Colombian wildlife.

Estefania Restrepo Metrio is a Colombian DJ who goes by the monicker Metrioz WithZ on Facebook and Instagram. Restrepo had posted photos of herself playing with the baby cougar, at Lepage’s residence, but has since removed the posts.

Thursday morning, SAP’s President for the Northern Region of Latin America and The Caribbean, Marcela Perilla was present at Ruta-N, Medellín’s municipally owned business incubator to announce a new initiative designed to support small businesses affiliated with Ruta-N along with companies in the area with solutions that may synergize with SAP software.

“This alliance reflects our shared commitment to promote economic and social development through technology,” said Perilla, accompanied by Ruta-N’s executive director Carolina Londoño.

“This strategic alliance represents a unique opportunity for the more than 460 companies in Medellín and the digital talent that today makes up our ecosystem, providing them access to world-class resources and knowledge,” said Londoño.

Companies that have participated in Ruta-N’s development and entrepreneurship programs will have the opportunity to receive mentoring in innovation through a program called Startup Innovation Journey, which is designed to support the growth and expansion of startups through access to technology and market opportunities offered by SAP.

SAP is Europe’s largest enterprise software provider and produces enterprise resource planning (ERP) software along with other business software solutions for global companies, including human resources, supply chain, and customer experience solutions.

This article, written by Peter Appleby, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

A wastewater analysis has indicated that in Europe, cocaine from South America is now being consumed in smaller towns, as well as major urban areas.

Photo: A dismantled cocaine laboratory in Tolima, Colombia. (Credit: Colombian Air Force)

The report, published on March 20 by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), is the institution’s latest annual overview of drug residues used to estimate cocaine consumption across participant cities in Europe. This year, the report analyzed results from approximately 90 cities and towns, though several major cities, including London, Madrid, and Berlin, did not participate.

It found that the Belgian city of Antwerp, a vital port for the arrival of drugs from Latin America to Europe, remains the continent’s cocaine consumption capital, while eastern European states — particularly the Czech Republic and Slovakia — continue to dominate in methamphetamine consumption, though that is changing slowly.

The report also looked beyond the European Union for the first time to compare residues at a global level, including cities in the United States and Brazil in its analysis.

Researchers tested the cities’ sewage systems for indications of how much cocaine the population is consuming, which they estimate in milligrams per 1,000 inhabitants per day (mg/1000p/day).

Wastewater studies measure only drugs that have been consumed, not those that were dumped, João Matias, a scientific analyst at the EMCDDA and one of the authors of the study, told InSight Crime.

“Once inside our bodies, the drug is metabolized. Once excreted to the sewage system, researchers can take samples before the water is treated. We look for the metabolites produced after the use of a specific substance,” said Matias.

Here, InSight Crime analyzes the report’s findings on the increasing prevalence of cocaine and methamphetamine outside of major cities in Europe, as well as new data from non-EU cities.

Disparities Between Urban and Non-Urban Consumption Dissolve

This year, researchers noted that differences in residue readings between urban and non-urban settings in Europe no longer exist, suggesting that traffickers have flooded the continent with cocaine, and it is now available almost everywhere.

“Contrary to previous years, in most countries with multiple study locations, no marked differences were found when comparing large cities to smaller locations,” according to the report.

Record coca cultivation and cocaine production in nations on the supply side of the cocaine trade have enabled this spread.

Authorities in Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer, seized 739.5 tons of the drug in 2023, an increase from the 659 tons seized in 2022. Peru saw a 4.4% drop in seizures of cocaine but 53% more cocaine base, while Bolivian seizures jumped by 62%.

The Colombian government’s announcement in March that it would reduce eradication efforts to 10,000 hectares, half of 2023’s target, is likely to see coca cultivation increase still further this year.

Even with these record seizures in Latin America, seizures in Europe also continued to climb. Europe’s traditional entry points — Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain — all increased their seizures. Sweden and Russia, countries not known for receiving cocaine, saw large single seizures of 699 kilograms and 460 kilograms respectively, while Norway made its largest-ever cocaine seizure of 800 kilograms.

The report also found that cocaine residues have doubled since 2011 among the seven cities that have participated in the study each year.

From 2011, the daily value of cocaine residue across Antwerp in Belgium, Zagreb in Croatia, Milan in Italy, Eindhoven and Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Castellón and Santiago in Spain, rose from 341 mg/1,000p/day to 747 mg/1,000p/day in 2023. Last year, the rate in these cities was slightly higher, at 800 mg/1,000p/day.

The increase in consumption is “definitely related to the increased availability [in Europe] and the increased production of cocaine in South America,” Matias said.

Methamphetamine’s Slow Spread

The report also found that methamphetamine use has spread into new areas of the continent, while seizures of the drug both in Latin America and Europe have made the news.

“Methamphetamine use, generally low and historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, now appears to be present also in Belgium, Cyprus, the east of Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey and several northern European countries,” said the report. However, overall, the study found that the amount of methamphetamine consumed remained stable.

“One of the highlights of last year’s report was that we were seeing an increase in methamphetamine use over most of Europe,” said Matias. “This year we found use in many countries, but we didn’t see the same increase in use we saw in the previous years.”

Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug, has traditionally been supplied to the European market by local actors, including in the consumption heartlands of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

However, in 2019, multiple arrests of Mexican or other Latin American methamphetamine cooks in the Netherlands and Belgium suggested that the “Mexican method” — the production of methamphetamine used in Mexico which produces a high-quality drug — was being learned by European producers. Since 2019, there have been no other arrests, implying that a transfer of knowledge has taken place.

The vast majority of methamphetamine production in Mexico usually takes place in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, and is then trafficked to the United States. Significant amounts of methamphetamine have arrived to European shores recently, though the majority was intended for onward travel.

In February 2024, Ireland made its largest-ever methamphetamine seizure of 546 kilograms, worth some $35 million. The drugs had come from Mexico and were on their way to Australia, police said. The shipment was traced back to the Sinaloa Cartel.

At the beginning of September, Mexican authorities discovered 20 tons of suspected methamphetamine aboard a ship in Veracruz, on Mexico’s Atlantic coast, according to a press release. The ship was headed for Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Non-EU Cities Rival European Cocaine Habits

For the first time, the EMCDDA report included wastewater results from non-European Union cities. Cities in the United States, Switzerland, and Brazil “show similar levels of use as the cities in Europe with the highest loads,” found the report.

Seattle in the United States recorded a daily mean of 647 mg/1,000p, while Geneva in Switzerland recorded 812mg/1,000p. The northeastern Brazilian city of Recife had a daily mean of 670 mg/1,000p.

These results are around the same as European cities like Utrecht (744), Paris (616), and Barcelona (619), but still far below the big hitters like Antwerp (1,722), the highest of all participant cities by a distance, or Amsterdam (1,210).

While cocaine consumption may be entrenched in many regions of the world, Oceania remains relatively untouched, according to residue findings. The daily mean of 102 mg/1,000p across Australia’s 55 sites suggests a dearth of the drug, and provides plenty of reasons for organized crime groups to continue, and perhaps even increase, their attempts to move cocaine to this untapped market.

This article, written by Peter Appleby, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

If there is one thing — beyond a dysfunctional congressional system — that Colombia has inherited from the United States, it’s the capacity to assign blame wherever possible.

On this occasion, it is regarding the impact of El Niño.

Both water and energy are in short supply, and suddenly it needs to be the government’s fault. Reservoirs have fallen below 30% — approaching critical levels. While the weather is slowly turning more rainy, it’s not happening quickly enough.

Blaming the government is both pointless and inaccurate. If anything, El Niño has been milder than expected, so what were they meant to want about? Let’s not forget that months before the drought even started, Colombian President Gustavo Petro was trying to implement special measure to protect the worst impacted regions — and these measures were blocked by the courts.

Now, in order to save water and energy, today has been named a “Civic Day” in Colombia where effectively there is no obligation within the public sector to go to the office or study. It’s a drop in the bucket — or reservoir — but perhaps this is better than doing nothing during a crisis.

Every journalist is now a climate expert, producing articles about Colombia needing more solar power in order to produce counter-cyclical energy. This is very true, and Colombia has been disastrously slow in building out solar energy. But that isn’t on Petro. In fact, this is a government that have discussed green energy since the day they began, in the face of heavy criticism, while overseeing the highest oil production in eight years. Fortunately, solar farms are now starting to appear all across the country.

In economic news, Fedesarrollo released its April survey, which saw no change in the 2024 inflation estimate (5.51%) but an increase in year-end overnight interest rate expectations from 8.00%-8.25%, which doesn’t quite compute. Meanwhile, the organization’s GDP estimate was also unchanged, projecting growth of 1.3% in 2024 and 2.5% in 2025.

Estimating GDP is a tricky business. Last week, the the World Bank also lowered its 2024 estimate for Colombia to 1.3% (down from 1.8%), but they are now looking at growth of 3.2% for 2025. Meanwhile, this week the International Monetary Fund estimated 1.1% and 2.5% for the next two years, respectively. Of note: the IMF expects Venezuela to be the fastest-growing economy in the region at 4.0%, which can only be good for Colombia.

The real sector continues to struggle according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). February saw retail sales (-1.8%) and manufacturing production (-2.2%) both struggle, much as expected. Interest rates may have begun to fall, but Banco de la República has yet to get the message fully across to the market and consumers.

The reform process is crawling forward. There have been advances on both the pension and education sides — but there’s still a distance to go.

Finally, the Colombian peso has been stable this week despite Middle East events, while the COLCAP is slipping after a good start to 2024. That said, volumes for the index are at least more healthy than they wore in 2023.

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Colombia won’t be the only country watching its currency after the events of the weekend in the Middle East.

If Brent oil prices spike due to concerns over oil supply, then logically the Colombian peso should shift back down below 3,800 to the US dollar once again. If the concerns over an escalation increase, however, then we may see a flight to dollars and the peso may come under pressure.

This won’t be a question for today, but for the coming days — and even weeks — depending on how the story develops. Thus far, the reaction appears calmer than expected.

But the situation is still in development mode.

On the weather front, El Niño front may have abated somewhat, with April opening with a deluge of rain. But there are still huge concerns over the lingering effects and some of the mixed messaging over recent weeks.

Predicting the weather in a country such as Colombia is impossible due to its proximity to the equator, two oceans and the fact that it is covered with mountains. The authorities, IDEAM Colombia made it clear that the country would take time to normalize — and that has proven the case.

Bogotá is suffering from water rationing, reservoirs have dropped to record lows, and there are concerns again about energy shortages.

On Saturday reservoirs hit a record low of 29.96%, and the government has stated that 27% would be a critical level. The energy minister is urging the country’s thermal generators to work full throttle in order to guarantee that we don’t suffer from electricity outages. XM had urged caution last week in terms of consumption — although, unfortunately, only a few weeks ago they were telling us there would be no outages. Now, the tone has changed somewhat.

Finally, politics is never far away in Colombia, with President Gustavo Petro and the congressional president still at loggerheads due to the collapse of the health reform.

While we await further developments regarding the pension reform, where the opposition parties have refused to attend, Petro should be on safer ground with education reform.

In reality, this is perhaps where he should have concentrated his efforts since 2022. While all these areas need some sort of reform , it is education where the need is most critical.

Remarkably, for a country that has ambitions of grandeur, education in Colombia is not a right. It depends largely on where you are born — and to who. Those days need to be condemned to the past and, hopefully, by the time Petro leaves office, he will have committed huge recourse to the problem.

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Canadian mining company Aris Mining Corporation (TSX: ARIS) (NYSE-A: ARMN) produced just over 50,000 ounces of gold in the first quarter of 2024, according to the firm’s latest operating results announcement.

“In line with our budget, our mines produced 50,768 ounces of gold in Q1,” said Neil Woodyer, CEO of Aris Mining, in the results announement. “Plant throughput was slightly reduced in Q1 because of planned maintenance at the Segovia processing facility and we achieved averaged processed gold grades of 9.4 g/t, consistent with our Segovia mine plan.

He added that the company expects gold production to rise next quarter, particularly as its Segovia mine advances, and reach between 220,000 and 240,000 ounces for all of 2024.

The top end of the range would outperform the 226,000 ounces of gold that the Vancouver-based company produced in 2023

“We are pleased with the progress of the expansion projects at the Segovia and Marmato mines,” said Woodyer. “Following completion of the expansions, Aris Mining is targeting 500,000 ounces of production in 2026.”

The Segovia expansion project calls for growing its processing capacity from 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes per day, with the eventual output projected to increase to more than 300,000 ounces per year.

“Geotechnical studies for the plant area have been finalized, engineering and design is well underway, and preparations for the new installations are progressing smoothly,” said the mining firm in a statement.

“At the Marmato Lower Mine expansion project, the access road to the new processing facility area is now complete and earthworks in the plant area will commence soon,” added Aris. “The contractor for the new portal and decline is fully mobilized and cutting of the portal face has commenced. Once complete, the Marmato Upper and Lower mines are expected to produce 162,000 ounces per year over a 20-year mine life.”

Photo: Neil Woodyer, CEO of Aris Mining. (Credit: Aris)

With recent data showing $1.756 billion USD in foreign exports of non-mining and energy goods in February, Colombia has now recorded a 10.3% jump in non-mining exports over the first two months of 2024 compared to the results seen in January and February of 2023, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).

February, which had a year-over-year growth of 9.8%, saw growth in volume as well as value. Colombia shipped a total of 758,133 tonnes across the world in the month — a 23.2% increase compared to February 2023.

The positive news, which was compiled in an analysis from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism (MinCIT), is largely driven by exports to six key trading partners. The United States tops the list, with nearly a third all all non-mining and energy exports, including year-over-year growth of 5%. Next up come Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela.

Luis Felipe Quintero Suárez, Colombia’s deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, noted the back-to-back monthly figures as a significant development. “We are working toward the re-industrialization and diversification of the supply of goods from our territory,” he said in a statement.

Among the top-growing exports so far in 2024 are: large vehicles, bananas, Hass avocados, polyvinyl chloride, sugar, chocolates, candy, and medicine.

As for the products most outstanding for their growth and boost to non-mining energy exports, they are: vehicles for more than 10 people, whose exports grew 526.2% in the two-month period; bananas, with an increase of 160%; hass avocados with 84.1%; polyvinyl chloride, whose foreign sales increased by 42.9%; sugar, which had a variation of 15.3%; chocolates, candies and candies with 15.3% and medicines with 10.5%, among others.

(Photo credit: Colombian Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism)