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Colombia’s Petro Government Once Again Shows Rest of World How to Respond to Israel’s Naked Criminality

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If a mid-sized country in South America can take such strong action against arguably the world’s most dangerous rogue state, why can’t others that are far more powerful?

Israel, once again, has done what it does best: it has flagrantly broken yet another raft of international laws, this time by “intercepting” the Global Samud Flotilla in international waters and abducting the crews of the flagged vessels that were trying to bring in much needed food and other basic supplies to the starving people of Gaza. The Western media are once again doing their bit to help (pun intended) muddy the waters:

At least this time, no crew members appear to have been killed in the process (so far).

Meanwhile, on social media there are all sorts of interpretations of what is happening…

Committing Crimes Against 46 Nations

The former British diplomat Craig Murray helpfully lays out how Israel’s latest act of international piracy, including the illegal seizure of boats in international waters and the abduction of their crews, contravenes international law. They are also crimes within the domestic jurisdiction of the 46 sovereign nations represented:

I write as former Head of Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
and Alternate Head of UK Delegation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Prepcom.

1) The flotilla is on the High Seas and not in Israel’s 12 mile territorial sea. Israel has no jurisdiction.

2) The Israeli maritime blockade has been in place for 17 years and is an intrinsic part of the long term occupation found illegal in the ICJ advisory opinion

3) It is therefore not a short term measure in time of armed conflict as specified in the San Remo manual

4) In any event the San Remo rules explicitly state that humanitarian supplies may not be blockaded

5) The UN Commission of Inquiry has already determined that Israel is committing genocide. The blockade is plainly a part of the machinery of such genocide.

For reasons 1 to 5 the Israeli attack on the flotilla is plainly illegal.

6) On the High Seas, the law applying on each ship is the law of its flag state. An attack by a state military warship on a vessel on the High Seas is an attack on the flag state of the vessel attacked.

7) Acts of illegal possession of vessels or abduction of crew on the High Seas should be pursued by each flag state as crimes within their domestic jurisdiction, not only in international law.

8) So the Metropolitan Police and DPP have an obligation to investigate and act over the abduction of persons from UK flagged vessels on the High Seas.
This applies to each flag state mutatis mutandi.

Below is an infographic showing all the countries represented by the flotilla. Note that it’s not just westerners on the flotilla but also citizens of “Global South” nations who were able to travel on a second passport. Delegations critical to the mission include those with with nationals onboard from Turkey (56), Tunisia (28), Malaysia (27), Algeria (17) Brazil (14), Mexico (7), Morocco (7), South Africa (7) and Palestine.

A world map highlighting countries with participant counts for the Samud Freedom Flotilla. Flags and numbers are marked next to each country, such as Turkey with 56, Spain with 49, Italy with 48, France with 33, Tunisia with 28, Pakistan with 2, and India with 0. The text "497 PARTICIPANTS FROM 46 COUNTRIES" is prominently displayed in blue at the bottom.

Israel’s actions have already sparked large public protests in many of the countries affected, including Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, Jordan, Tunisia and Mexico.

In Italy, a country with a pro-Trump, pro-Israel government, the two largest unions have announced a general strike for today (October 3rd), following through on their threat to bring the country and Europe’s economy to a standstill if Israel attacked the Gaza flotilla. The strike will apparently involve all sectors, both public and private. Here’s yesterday’s update on developments from Italy-based NC reader DJG, Reality Star:

The demonstrations and strikes have already started in Italy, with a general strike called for Friday, 3 October. Here in Torino, there is already a demo called for this evening — and I saw a report that there was a dustup at the Stazione Porta Nuova this morning. I’m not sure about that — and I live only a few blocks from the train station.

Here is a report on who is on the boats. From Avvenire, a Catholic daily. Cardinal Zuppi, head of the bishops’ conference, has been outspoken.

https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/flotilla-attivisti

One Eurodeputy from the Partito Democratico. One member, PD, of the Camera dei deputati. One Eurodeputy from the Italian Greens (who are most definitely not the German Greens). One member of the Italian Senate from 5Stars. This is going to get interesting — because about 50 of the 450 people on the boats are Italian. And Italy has more active parliamentarians involved than other countries.

When I was in Palermo on 4 September, I reported how I had walked out of a theater after an afternoon performance of Sicilian puppetry into the back of the demonstration in support of the launch of the Flotilla. Keep in mind that after the Barcelona contingent left, another large group of boats mustered at Catania in Sicily. They then moved to Siracusa and Augusta before joining the Barcelona group on the journey to Crete.

The support here is widespread: Culturally, denizens of the Anglosphere have to keep in mind that Sicily is some 80 km from Tunisia, that the route from Sicily to Crete is ancient one, that Italians have ancient ties to the Levant. In a sense, there is nothing exotic about the Flotilla.

Most of the governments of the 46 affected countries, whether Western or otherwise, will respond by mouthing empty platitudes while doing next to nothing — or worse, intensifying their support of Tel Aviv. Much will depend on the scale of local protests. As Murray notes, if the UK’s Labour government does anything, it will be to Israel’s overall benefit.

Germany has responded in typical jackboot fashion:

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez appears to have reverted to type after momentarily shaking the world a few weeks ago by pledging his government’s support for the nationwide protests against Israeli participation in the La Vuelta cycling race that ended up bringing the race to an early end on its final stage. As we noted at the time, Sánchez had little choice in the matter:

[P]ro-Palestine sentiment is strong across a broad cross-section of Spanish society, with 82% qualifying Israel’s acts in Gaza as genocide, according to a recent survey. Plus, Sánchez is facing myriad scandals at home and appears to have decided, wisely, that the Gaza crisis makes for a useful diversionary tactic, especially given the opposition’s unwavering support for Tel Aviv.

In recent days, normality appears to have returned. Sánchez called on the flotilla not to enter Israel’s designated no-fly waters, noting that the military vessel his government had sent to assist them would not accompany them that far, prompting accusations of betrayal from the Flotilla’s Spanish crew members and members of his coalition government. He also lent his full backing to Donald Trump and Tony Blair’s neo-colonial reconstruction project for Gaza.

If European governments do end up taking strong action against Israel for its latest crimes, it will be because they will have been dragged into doing so kicking and screaming by their respective populaces.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, accused Israel of “brutality” in boarding the aid flotilla, and has promised to convene an emergency inquiry into Tel Aviv’s latest actions. But rather than taking meaningful action against Israel, as he has been threatening to do for the past two years, he has instead imposed sanctions on… Iran.

It’s the same, sad story with the Arab states in the region, especially the monarchies, as well as most of the BRICS member states, including China. As we reported in June, Beijing, while denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza, has sought to intensify its trade with the Jewish State in recent months. The same goes for Brazil whose exports almost doubled year over year in July while its president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva used his speech at the UN General Assembly to condemn not only the genocide in Gaza but also the complicity of those who can prevent it.

The old adage “actions ultimately speak louder than words” is particularly true with regard to  the world’s most televised genocide. Unfortunately, precious few of the UN’s 193 Member States can hold their heads high over their response (or lack thereof) to Israel’s criminal behaviour.

The few that can include Iran and its evolving axis of resistance in the Middle East (the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon…) as well as the US’ axis of evil in Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which Washington hopes to regime change in the none too distant future.

But those countries or parties already had strained or non-existent relations with Israel when the genocide began. Cuba has had no formal relations with Israel since 1973. Venezuela cut its ties with Tel Aviv in 2009. Nicaragua did the same in November 2024, but relations between the two countries had already soured long before that.

It’s a very different story with Colombia. For decades the Andean nation had been not only the US’ most important strategic (vass)ally in South America but also a key partner for Israel in the region. According to the Mexican-Lebanese geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife, the Israelis control Colombia’s spyware and help train its soldiers and paramilitaries” — a situation that had been going on for decades, as we documented on October 17, 2023:

[In the late ’80s], Rafi Eitan, a former Mossad chief who had courted fame for leading the operation to capture Adolf Eichmann,… was hired by the Colombian President Virgilio Barco (1986-90) to help end the guerrilla conflict in the country. His involvement in Colombia’s civil war was kept secret for 36 years, for obvious reasons: one of Eitan’s recommendations, which was enthusiastically embraced by Barco, was to exterminate the political leaders of the Patriotic Union (UP), the left-wing party that emerged from a peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla.

What followed was a brutal years-long assassination campaign that took the lives of 3,122 members of UP, including two presidential candidates, five sitting congressmen, 11 deputies, 109 councilors, several former councilors, 8 current mayors, 8 former mayors and thousands of other activists. According to data presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the total number of victims is more than 6,000, including murders, disappearances, torture, forced displacements and other human rights violations.

Putting the World to Shame

Despite concerted pressure and criticism from Israel, Washington (under both Biden and Trump), the Jewish community and the domestic and global media, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro government has not only spoken out against Israel’s naked criminality in Gaza from the very start; it has consistently turned those words into actions. And in so doing, it has put much of the rest of the world to shame.

The Petro government severed formal ties with Israel in May 2024. It then imposed a ban on the export of Colombian coal to Israel in late August of the same year as well as on the purchase of Israeli weapons, becoming one of the first, if not the first, country in the world to impose unilateral sanctions on Israel since the genocide began.

Enforcing the ban on Colombian exports of coal to Israel was hampered by the fact that two global mining companies — Swiss-based Glencore and Birmingham, Alabama-based Drummond — refused to comply. Both companies featured prominently on the list compiled by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese of the global businesses facilitating Israel’s genocide.

Now, following Israel’s abduction of GSF delegates, including two Colombians, the Petro government has tightened its economic sanctions on Israel by suspending Colombia’s 2006 free trade agreement with Israel. It has also ordered the immediate expulsion of Israel’s diplomatic mission from Bogota.

“The head of state warned that this constitutes yet another international crime committed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government,” Petro’s office said in a statement. “In light of this situation, decisions were made to protect all Colombian citizens, strengthen national sovereignty, and condemn violations of human rights.”

Colombia’s announcement of additional measures against Israel comes just days after Petro delivered a scathing critique (in Spanish) of the actions of both  the Netenyahu regime and the Trump administration in what will almost certainly be his last address to the UN General Assembly. A few choice cuts:

  • On the parallels between the genocide in Gaza and the recent developments in the Caribbean: “Those of who don’t have bombs or big budgets are not listened to here. But now, four years [after my first speech here], the horrific situation in Palestine has led me to believe that the same thing could happen in Colombian’s Caribbean region, where 17 unarmed young people were killed by missiles in the open seas under the pretext of stopping drug trafficking… Perhaps a Global Stone Age has descended on mankind.”
  • On Trump’s role in Gaza: “Trump is an accomplice to genocide.  This forum is a mute witness to a genocide.”
  • On the global scale of today’s polycrisis: Now we confront a different situation, one that is perhaps more global. Barbarism todays falls on the planet, on all humanity. The missiles on 17 unarmed young men, including perhaps Colombians, in the waters of the Caribbean Sea.The persecution, imprisonment, chaining and expulsion of millions of migrants. The missiles that fall on the 70,000 people in Gaza and kill them.”
  • On the real reasons behind Trump’s offensive in the Caribbean: They need violence to dominate Colombia and Latin America. They need to destroy dialogue and impose themselves by launching killer missiles on poor youth in the Caribbean. The anti-drug policy is not to stop the cocaine from arriving in the United States but to dominate the peoples of the South in general.”

Later on in the week, Petro gave a speech to protesters at an anti-genocide rally in New York in which he once again likened Israel’s genocide in Gaza to the holocaust and called on US troops to disobey President Donald Trump.

“I ask all soldiers in the US military not to point their rifles at humanity,” he said. “Disobey Trump’s order. Obey the order of humanity.”

Isolated at Home and Abroad

That was a step too far for the Trump administration, which has retaliated to the “incendiary” remarks by revoking Petro’s visa in a move that has set off alarm bells in Colombia, a country with at least seven US military bases. US Secretary of State (and fervent Zionist) Marco Rubio has previously threatened to revoke the visas and legal status of anyone who engages in activities contrary to the national interest and oppose US policies.

It’s worth recalling that Washington also decertified Colombia as a trusted partner in its “fight” against the drug cartels, a move that was already purportedly contemplated in a foiled plot to topple Petro in a soft coup led by his former foreign minister.

At the same time, the pressure at home continues to rise on Petro after he proposed three days ago to his minister of defence the idea of sharing sensitive intelligence with Venezuela’s Maduro government in order to combat FARC and ELN dissidents in the Catatumbo region. Critics have argued that Caracas cannot be trusted with such high-value information given its close ties to the ELN.

The political scientist and professor emeritus of the National University, Eduardo Pizarro Leongómez, told El Tiempo:

While Colombia should not under any circumstances support Washington’s measures of force in the Caribbean and, much less, a direct military intervention that would create a war zone…, which could seriously undermine the stability of our country, nor is it convenient in the current state of national security for information on sensitive issues to be exchanged between Bogotá and Caracas. This can be misused by our neighbour.

It will also be treated as a further provocation by the US, which is intent on stamping out any opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, whether on social media (cf Larry Ellison’s takeover of TikTok’s US operations) or among national governments. Here’s another reason for the US to escalate its hostile actions towards the Petro government:

Translation:

Colombia has decided to cancel its flexible credit line with the International Monetary Fund that has been in place since April 2024. “The payment of the only outstanding instalment will be made in December 2025 as planned,” said Leonardo Villar, manager of the country’s central bank. 

In other words, as Petro leaves office, he will be leaving Colombia free of obligations to the US’ foremost instrument of debt trap diplomacy,

Whatever one thinks of Petro, he is one of, if not the only, national leader that has been willing to risk everything to oppose Israel’s genocidal war crimes. But his government is increasingly isolated both on the world stage and at home. It is now stoking the ire of an increasingly vengeful, violent US government that seems intent on stoking war in the Caribbean, and has already faced one attempted coup by a former senior government official.

Unlike most of his peers, Petro has consistently turned strong words into meaningful action. That has included the severing of diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv, the expulsion of Israeli diplomats and the suspension of Colombia’s free trade agreement with Israel. If a mid-sized country in Latin America can take such strong unilateral action against arguably the world’s most dangerous rogue state, why can’t others that are far more powerful?

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2 comments

  1. Ignacio

    To your last question: arm twisting to some among the more relevant countries. That explains why Sánchez said what he said. Some of these countries don’t need any arm twitching and comply as true accomplices that can be trusted.
    Tomorrow evening there will be an anti-genocide demonstration in Madrid. I hope it will be a large one.

    Reply ↓
    1. Nick Corbishley Post author

      Thanks, Ignacio. The fascinating thing about Sánchez is that he knows full well that the vast majority of his supporters are anti-genocide — indeed the vast majority of Spaniards are — so he could well be committing political seppuku here. There’s a big march planned in Barcelona as well that I intend to attend.

      Reply ↓

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