06/21/22 06/21/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we what a productive, not extractive latin america, latin america that deepens knowledge to the highest fears of human knowledge. amy: colombia makes history as voters elect the country's first leftist president, the former in

19 guerrilla senator and mayor of bogota gustavo petro. his running mate, for colombian environment list francia marquez mina will become the country's black vice president. first we'll go to colombia for response. cle trul remarkable victory. did not just wh, had like the highest number of votes in an election in the history of the country. billy transformed colombia into social democracy, free health care and once public education for everybody and to do that, would like the richest in colombia to pay more taxes. amy: we will also hear from the colombian president and vice-president-elect in their own words when we interviewed them on democracy now! >> we are giving impetus to the

idea in colombia a new form of government is possible, governance that has built up from the black indigenous and peasant's people, the community, the youth, the women, from the small farmers. to those who have never had a voice in the government. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. gustavo petro has won colombia's presidential election in a historic vote. petro is former in 19 guerrilla, former mayor of bogota. he will become colombia's first leftist president after vowing to fight worsening inequality in colombia with landmark policies including a tax reform and redistribution of pension

savings. petro won about 50.5% of the vote, defeating right-wing businessman rodolfo hernández who won about 47% vote. petro's running mate, the afro-colombian environmentalist francia márquez mina, also made history, becoming colombia's first black vice president. on sunday, petro addressed supporters. >> we will develop -- colombia. not because we worship it, but because we first have to overcome pre-maternity in colombia. feudalism on a colombia and a new slavery -- we must overcome

the past mentalities and behaviors linked to that world of slavery. amy: we will have more on the colombian elections after headlines. and we will hear interviews with both the vice president and president-elect. in news from france, president emmanuel macron's centrist party has lost its absolute majority in france's parliament in a major setback for macron. his coalition won a total of 245 seats in sunday's election. a left-wing coalition led by jean-luc mélenchon won 131 seats, while marine le pen's far-right national rally party won 89 seats. on sunday, mélenchon praised the results of the election. >> it is totally unexpected situation. absolutely unprecedented. it is the total defeat of the president's party and there majority. we have achieved the political

objective we gave ourselves in a month to bring on the man who with such arrogance twisted the arm of the whole country to get elected without us knowing what he was going to do when he was. amy: russia appears close to capturing the eastern ukrainian city of severodonetsk after weeks of fierce of fighting. russia is escalating its attack on the city's azot chemical plant where hundreds of civilians and ukrainian fighters have sought shelter. russia has also increased shelling of the nearby city of lisichansk. if russia seizes the two cities, thousands of ukrainian forces could be stranded. meanwhile, ukraine has attacked offshore oil and gas drilling platforms off the coast of crimea in the black sea. "the wall street journal" reportthe attacks could cost russia billions of dollars in damage and lost revenue. hours after the attack, russia fid rocketat the southn ukrainian city of odesa in the largest attack othe city in weeks. meanwhile, russia has

acknowledged it plans to put on trial two u.s. veterans who were captured fighting in ukraine. kremlin spokesperson dmitry peskov has said the men were mercenaries and are not subject to the geneva conventions. the russian journalist dmitry muratov has auctioned off his nobel peace prize for over $103 million to raise money for ukrainian child refugees. muratov, who won the nobel last year, spoke prior to the auction. >> my country invaded the teitory of another state, ukraine. there are n 15.5 million refugees and how one must deal with this is completely incompetence of a. we got for along time but what we could do, what each individual could do, and we thought everyone should give away that which was dear to them , important to them. amy: in march, muratov closed his newspaper novaya gazeta after receiving a warning from a russian state censor over its coverage of the invasion of ukraine.

israel appears to be head to its fifth election in three years after prime minister naftali bennett announced he would soon resign and dissolve parliament. foreign minister yair lapid will soon take over to lead a caretaker government until the election is held. a new vote could result in benjamin netanyahu returning to power. "the new york times" has wrapped up a months-long investigation into the recent fatal shooting of al jazeera reporter shireen abu akleh in the occupied west bank. at the time of her death, she was covering an israeli military raid in the jenin refugee camp . "the times" found "that the bullet that killed ms. abu akleh was fired from the approximate location of the israeli military convoy, most likely by a soldier from an elite unit." last week, al jazeera reported the bullet that abu akleh was a u.s.-made bullet designed to pierce armor that's used by the israeli military.

unprecedented rain has killed at least 116 people in india and bangladesh. millions of people have been displaced from their homes or trapped by flooding. on friy, one area of india recorded almost 40 inches of rain in a single day. one of bangladesh's largest airports is under water. thfloodingomes just a month after catastrophic flooding in northeastern bangladesh left 4 million people homeless, including 1.6 million children. thisomes as india is facing record-breaking heat that has devastated wheat production as well as the mango harvest. in other signs of the global climate emergency, temperatures in iran soared to 126 degrees fahrenheit monday. last week the heat index soared to 165 degrees fahrenheit in parts of iran due to high heat and high humidity. in spain, an early heatwave sparked devastating wildfires that have burned at least 74,000 acres of land. meanwhile, temperature records

are perking across the midwest united states. in minnesota, streets have begun buckling due to the high heat. a spokesperson for the world meteorological organization said, "what we're witnessing today is unfortunately a foretaste of the future." in news from ethiopia, witnesses say at least 200 civilians were killed in a massacre saturday in the western region of oromia. some witnesses put the death toll at over 320. ethiopian prime minister abiy ahmed condemned what he called horrific attacks. one survivor said members of the oromo liberation army caied out the attack targeting ethnic amharas, who are a minority in the region. however, members of the ola blamed government forces of carrying out the massacre. in honduras former u.s.-trained , a honduran military officer and businessman has been sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for his role in ordering and planning 2016 assassination of berta cáceres, a lenca land and water defender.

david castillo, the former president of the hydroelectric corporation desa. cáceres was assassinated as she led the fight against the construction of desa's massive hydroelectric dam on a river in southwestern honduras that's sacred to the lenca people. newly released surveillance camera footage from inside the robb elementary school in uvalde, texas, has shed new light on the police response to last month's mass shooting at the school that killed 19 fourth graders and two of their teachers. new video shows heavily armed officers were inside the school and had at least one ballistic shield just minutes after the gunman entered the school. but officers didn't enter the classroom for another 58 minutes. it has also emerged that a uvalde police officer had a chance to shoot the gunman before he entered the school, but the officer declined to take the shot fearing he could accidentally hit someone else.

some 17 million children in the united states are now eligible to receive covid vaccines beginning today. over the weekend, the cdc and fda signed off on two-dose moderna and three-dose pfizer vaccines for children as young as six months old. until now, only children five and older were eligible to be vaccinated. the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection is holding its fourth public hearing today with a focus on donald trump's efforts to pressure state officials to overturn the 2020 election. witnesses testifying include georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger and arizona house speaker rusty bowers. democracy now! will stream the hearing live at democraycnow.org beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern. a member of the january 6 committee, illinois republican congressmember adam kinzinger, has revealed he recently received a death threat targeting him, his wife, and

their newborn child. kinzinger is one of just two republicans on the house select committee. last year, he was one of just 10 republicans who voted to impeach donald trump after the insurrection. in reled news,ormer miouri governorric greins has leased aew campan ad lling r modera republins knowas rinoso be hund down anshot. ri standfor repuicans in namenly. in theideo, er greiten who is aepublicacandidatfor the.s. nate in ssouriis seenith a shgun raidg a housalongsida group heavilarmed mein battl gear. >> i am air grinds, navy seal. today, we're going rino. feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice. amy: facebook has removed the caaign video a twitter blked it from being shared. in 2018, eric greitains resigned

as governor of missouri after a woman he had sexually assaulted and physically abused a woman before blackmailing her to cover up his crime. his ex-wife has accused him of abusing her and her young son. the texas republican party has approved a radical new platform. it rejects the results of the 2020 election and claims that joe biden is not the legitimately elected president of the united states. the texas gop also calls for the abolition of abortion, the prohibition of sex education in schools, and the overturning of the supreme court case legalizing same sex marriage while referring to homosexuality as "an abnormal lifestyle choice." the republican platform also criticizes republican senator john cornyn of texas for working on a bipartisan gun legislation. the platform also reiterates that texas retains the right to secede from the united states.

workers at an apple store in towson, maryland, have voted to become the first unionized apple store in the country. despite pressure from apple, about two-thirds of the store's workers voted to be represented by the apple coalition of organized retail employees. on monday, president biden said he is proud of the workers who unionized. and thousands gathered in washington, d.c., on saturday for the mass poor people's and low-wage workers' assembly and moral march. speakers included the bishop william barber, co-chair of the poor people's campaign, which organized the day of action. >> we know that when the nation is moving away from the principles of life, liberty, justice, the pursuit of happyness for all people and there's been a long train of abuses and the nation has become more profitable for a few and less perfect for others, we must correct the nation and we can't be silent anymore.

amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, we look at the historic election in colombia. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: the song in support of colombia's president-elect gustavo petro. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now! co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: today we spend the show in colombia. we begin in colombia where an historic vote took place on sunday. gustavo petro was elected

colombia's first leftist president. his running mate, the afro-colombian environmentalist francia márquez mina, also made history by being elected as colombia's first black vice president. thousands of their supporters took to the streets and a celebration in the capital bogotá and across colombia. >> for 200 years, we have been governed by the same people but today begins a transition to a government of change that will benefit all colombians. amy: gustavo petro is a former in 19 guerrilla, former senator, and the former mayor of bogota, who has vowed to fight worsening poverty and inequality in colombia by raising taxes on the rich, expanding social programs, as well as access to education and healthcare. he has called on colombia to halt new oil extraction and to move away from an economy that has long been dependent on fossil fuels.

petro has also said his government plans to restore relations with venezuela and renegotiate a trade deal with the united states to better benefit colombians. petro won over 50% of the vote, in a runoff, defeating right-wing real estate millionaire rodolfo hernández who received about 47% of the vote. petro addressed his supporters sunday night. >> we will develop capitalism in colombia. not because we worship it, but because we first have to overcome pre-maternity and colombia, feudalism and it colombia, and the new slavery. we must overcome the past mentalities and behaviors linked to that world of slavery.

amy: at his side was vice president-elect márquez mina, a prominent land and water defender. she was born in a small village in the southwestern cauca region where she led resistance against illegal gold-mining, despite ongoing death threats. she won the prestigious goldman environmental prize in 2018 and is also a lawyer and former house keeper. on sunday, francia marquez mina took to the stage to thank supporters. >> brothers and sisters, we have made an important step forward. after 214 years, we will have a government that represents the people. amy: for more, we are joined by simone bruno, an italian video journalist to has been in bogotá, colombia, for years. and in the cauca region, we're joined by manuel rozental, a

colombian physician and activist who is been exiled several times for his political activities, part of the organization "pueblos en camino," or people on the path. we welcome you both to democracy now! let's begin with manuel. if you can talk about the significance of the election with petro as president and with márquez mina as vice president-elect from a region where you are in cauca. >> good morning, amy, and everybody. good morning simone. first, i would like to convey to everybody that feeling of joy, overwhelming emotion and joy that we all felt and that we felt on sunday. our fear was that the election was going to be stolen. there was every indication for that. there was repression by the

armed forces. everything was against petro in spite of the fact we knew if there was no fraud or not enough fraud come he would win. so the feeling is of enormous relief, huge relief. there is a party in this country for the first time an election can be one by the people in spite of the scenery. at the same time, the same magnitude that joy is the magnitude of our concern so that it doesn't become a dissolution. those two feelings are joined together so the party, our party is once again a celebration of freedom and concerns that we need to organize and mobilize to make change possible. juan: i wanted to ask you, manuel, in terms of the victory

of gustavo petro is clearly a major advance in latin america. however, there is still a problem that is ambitious program may be stalled to some degree by the fact is coalition does not have a majority in the colombian congress. what do you foresee now in terms of the battles between the conservative forces in the congress contending or opposing his program? >> juan, your question is exactly on the spot. yes, the big concern is, let's put it broadly, even beyond congress, the establishment in colombia runs for corruption, for mafias, for transnational corporate interest, and for an army that supports all this and

gains a lot of profit and benefit from this. so there is a ne government that has to rule within the structure. the structure has not changed. the powers have not changed and they have to rule there. president-elect petro has promised three things. he has promised social justice, and varmints will justice , and has promisedpeace. to achieve that within an establishment is really two promise what we all want but it is to promise too much. that cannot be achieved by government from the government. you must remember that gustavo petro and francia márquez reached the presidency after and because of a massive popular uprising against that

establishment of which he becomes the government now. so now he doesn't have majority and a government. i would jusgive you an idea. he has 20 members of senate on his side. he needs 54 to pass any initiative. he can achieve 40 or 44 with alliances. so he would have to align himself with the far right to achieve anything step add to that, all of the controlling institutions, the attorney general, everyone of those have been run by the mock you, ivan duque and the narco and transnational corporate and army assassins, all of that has been left in place for the next couple of years and their enemies of these governments and the colombian people. so the concern is exactly that.

he promised it so did francia what we want to come up with the fact is, he cannot achieve it. he cannot achieve it quickly, so he will have to compromise with those that have led us into this disaster. so the hurdle has been overcome by winning the election, but the main hurdle, the establishment, cannot be changed from the government. it has to be change from the people, by the people, and government is key to it but he cannot achieve its promises without peoples organized with an agenda. do we know this? that is my question. juan: i also wanted to ask about the candidate he defeated rodolfo hernández who was supposedly an antiestablishment campaign, a right-wing populist, campaigning against corruption. but in the week before the election, a video surfaced from a colombian magazine and it got

a lot of views, hundreds of thousands of views on youtube of rodolfo hernández being in -- on a yacht in miami last october, a yacht -- he and his sons, a yacht that was financed by lobbyists for the pfizer drug company? do you think that had any impact on some people who were wavering between gustavo petro and rodolfo hernández in the vote? >> it may have. but what it really did is expose the fact rodolfo hernández was really the candidate of transnational and national corporate interest. what was discovered is the yacht -- in the yacht were corporate representatives of pfizer, the transnational pharmaceutical corporation. and this happened in october

2019. but when i journalist investigated and checked with pfizer to see who had funded this yacht on this holiday without providing dates, their response, surprisingly, was a week before, pfizer representatives and high officials had met with rodolfo hernández. so a lot of information has been gathered up for the fact that rodolfo hernández was in fact the candidate of the wealthiest corporate interest in colombia and the continent while lying mistaken he was against this. in fact, he had promised if elected to declare a state of exception for internal commotion and that state of exception would allow him to run the country and that he would create the sort of parallel cabinet run

by exclusively by corporate interest. so what we have here was petro, france and marques, or a dictatorship of corporate interest in the country. so i think -- i will tell you what really played out and what the right did not calculate. the right obtain 10.5 million votes, which is more or less the same as duque four years ago to defeat petro who had a .5 million votes four years ago. it petro this time had 11.5 million votes and we know where they came from. they came from women and they came from youth in this country. the image that will never forget here is was indigenous peoples from the jungles of the pacific coast in colombia coming on the rivers in canoes, two days traveling, took place there

votes. so what happened here was we said enough. the same enough we set in the popular uprising in 2021. that spirit is what allowed petro to win. the right was convinced they were going to win. they were shocked to see these people appear from nowhere, according to the calculations, to say enough. so that is the story. amy: what is also interesting, surprise the u.s. audience is that hernandez conceded defeat immediately, unlike in the united states. i want to go to bogotá, the capital, and go back to 2018, antigovernment protesters leading multiple national strikes in colombia denouncing the government of right-wing president iván duque, at one point bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the streets for the largest national strike colombia had seen in decades. police responded violently,

killing several protesters, including 18-year-old student dilan cruz who was shot in the head by a police projectile. on sunday, after gustavo petro and marquez declared victory in colombia's historic presidential election, dilan cruz's mother jenny alejandra medina joined them on stage calling for justice in her son's killing. >> good night to all. on behalf of my son dilan who is one more victim of this country come on behalf of all of the victims of the false positives and on behalf of those victims of the goverent and previous ones, i raise my voice on behalf of my son to demand justice. and i welcome you, president, because we all have our hopes in

you, in justice. you are the hope of us, the poor, the needy, the black come of the white, the rage, the poor. you are the hope was to welcome to colombia, to our country, president. amy: that is dilan cruz-mother standing next to the president-elect as well as the vice president elect. simone bruno, can you talk about the significance of this and the issue of state violence that márquez mina as well as petro must take on immediately? >> thank you for the invitation and it is an honor to be here with manuel. i know it has been almost 20 years. that was one of the most important and moving moments on

the night on sunday when gustavo petro won the election. it is the first time ever that somebody like the mother of one of the youth killed during a protest in a colombia -- and this happened quite a lot. it happened in 2019, then the pandemic close down and then in 2021 when 40 kids have been killed -- at least 40 -- by police and other groups. it was the first time i mother had the chance to talk to an audience, to talk to a president, to look him in the eyes and ask for justice for her son. as you were saying in the beginning, this is a historical moment that a leftist won election in colombia with the highest number of votes in the history of esidential

election. more than 11 million voted, manuel was saying before. but it is not the first time and leftist would have won the election in colombia. a populist candidate was killed and at that time it was historical populism. so he was killed and the violence still in colombia today began that day in 1948. that back in 1990, three presidential candidates, leftists, were killed. so the importance of election of petro is not the first time -- for the first time and leftist would have won the election in colombia, but for the first time

did not kill a leftist candidate. so he won election. if petro and márquez mina -- it will mean a change, historical change in the country. petro is a social democrat. he wants to transform colombia and a social democrat way. he once the health careo beco a public. he was the public education to improve. he wts to the richest colombians to pay taxes as the rest of the country does. he wants the richest companies in the country to also pay taxes, which is not happening at this point. he will use that money to do two things. as petro is quite conservative in fiscal matters, so he would like to pay part of the social

reforms with the money but also reduce the deficit, the fiscal deficit in the country. that is the same thing we saw when he was the mayor of bogotá, implement it a lot of social reforms in the city but at the same time reduced the debt of the city and had an improvement in the ratings of the city of bogotá during that time. juan: simone. in terms of the imrtance of this election throughout latin america, we have seen now a second pink tide development across the region following the first one that started in the 1990's. we had castro in hundreds, pedro castille in peru, get real work in chile, bolivia, and now this

historic election in colombia. how you see this affecting the politics othe region vis-à-vis the united states? >> this is an historical moment. even though look to come back to the presidency in brazil, which is key could change the policies of the whole region but this is the second wave in 20 years of the leftist government coming in power in latin america and possibly they wi learn from the good things that have been done by evo morales and get things done by rafael correa or lula in brazil, and probably will learn from the mistakes like, of course, venezuela and a lot of problems in the past 20 years. so what might happen and what should really happen is that latin america or at least south

america to begin with will try to unify the markets in a similar way to what happened in the european union. this has been tried for decades in america. it has been going on for decades and they never succeed because in general, it has been politicized. considered right-wing market and left-wing orchid. what could happen and what should happen is if the region was to improve the economy is they should close to the external markets, especially united states. they should try to develop internal markets inside south america and try to produce goods. one of the main arguments i petro related to venezuela is

they need to reopen the border, reestablish the connection and the relation. for example, venezuela was the second market of goods coming from colombia. $6 billion per year. that market was shut down because of the ideology during presidenturibe. what might happen now is finally the south american country and maybe -- including mexico will buy and roll up or or central america, they will decide to unify and close the markets and go together. amy: we want to thank you for being with us, simone bruno, and manuel rozental.

when we come back, we will hear from the first leftist president himself gustavo petro when we interviewed him on democracy now! a few years ago, as well as francia márquez mina. we will hear from both of them in their own words on democracy now! stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "la mariposa" by victoria sur and jorge velosa. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. following the historic victory in colombia's presidential election of former guerrilla m-19 member and mayor of bogota gustavo petro and his running mate, the afro-colombian environmentalist, francia márquez mina, we turn now to our interviews with them on democracy now! francia márquez mina has made history by being elected as colombia's first black vice president. in march of this year, i spoke to francia márquez when she was running for president. she lost in the primary to petro, but he went on to choose her as his running mate. i asked her why she was running

for office. >> well, i think that more than making history, we are giving impetus to the idea that in colombia a new form of government is possible, governance that is built up from the black, indigenous and peasant peoples from the very different sectors of the community, lgbtiq+, from the youth, from the women, from the small farmers of colombia, those who have been no one -- that is to say, who have never had a voice in the government, who have never had a voice in order to put forward our grievances as a people. and today we need to put forward the nobodies, the people who've never had a voice, to step into the state so that we can write our own history, a history that will make it possible to live with dignity, with justice, with equity, with equality, that would enable each and every one of us to turn the page of violence of the armed conflict and to pursue agenda of social justice.

amy: if you can talk about what that social justice agenda would look like in colombia. >> well, i think the first thing is that this government has destroyed the possibility of living in peace. and today the most impoverished people, those who don't have drinking water, basic sanitation, education, internet conductivity -- connectivity are the people who once again are suffering the brunt of the violence and the armed conflict. it's the social leaders who continue to be assassinated. the constitutional court has just recognized the unconstitutional state of affairs in terms of the failure of this government to implement the peace accords. so this situation of armed conflict and abandonment in terms of no social investment, that needs to be brought to a halt. it's not going to be brought to a halt by the privileged elites of white men who have historically governed our country.

it's the people who need to step forward to press their grievances. and so it's necessary to work in depth to achieve peace. this means a dialogue with all of the armed actors who continue putting our lives at risk, including those who are part of the colombian state, the military forces, who continue to violate human rights. that means taking on the challenge we have as humankind today to bring a halt to the environmental crisis. and for that, we propose a transition from an extractive industries-based investment policy to sustainable energynd to having a system of economic production that puts life at the center. that is why i have been proposing a program of agroecological productive projects and with thidea of

fo sovereignty being the top issue. there's more than million people in colombia who don't eat enough, who go to bed hungry every night. amy: francia márquez mina, when you announced your intention to run for president, you had just spent days consoling the mothers of five young black men who had been targeted by paramilitaries and killed. who were they? you tweeted at the time, “i want to be president of this country. i want our people to be free and dignified. i want our people to be able to freely exist in their cultural diversity, for our territories to become spaces of life and for our children to live without fear of being murdered." talk about what happened. >> i am a mother. i have two children. i had just bid farewell to my son, who is living in boston.

i had to get him out of colombia in order to be able to go forward in this political path. and as a mother, i have felt the pain and the sadness of our country having to bury nephews and nieces of mine. i lost an eight-year-old niece, who was assassinated in a poor neighborhood of cali. that is a history that is repeated day after day. mothers go to work in the homes of other families, and they come home to bury their children. that is the history of our country. and in order to lighten the pain of these mothers who are burying their children in the poor neighborhoods every day, in the small villages, in the communities, is part of the challenge that we're facing. and that means social justice. that means taking on the demilitarizaon of our society, the demilitarition of the

country. because every day there are more people being killed in the streets, but that means we need to think about forms of economy that help improve the living conditions of people. that means lifting up life and therefore, we need to talk about distributing land and to women. well, in colombia, the majority of the population is women. we are 52% of the population. nonetheless, women are also experiencing femicide. women are being assassinated in colombia. mothers who are leaders, well, when their children are subject to assassination and violence, well, it's a way to hush them up so that they no longer demand their rights. therefore, i think that this is a path of unity, embracing life, lifting up life because we are tired of putting in more dead. we're tired of having to bury

our family members and seeing women, mothers, burying their children. that is not just. we deserve a more dignied nation, a nation in peace, a nation with social justice, and an antiracist nation. right now i'm here in the united states. and i know that the black people here are assassinated, especially black youth, in the same way as black, impoverished black youth, racialized impoverished black youth are assassinated in colombia. because of the color of our skin, they see us as criminals. but we are human beings. our dignity must be respected and recognized. we are feminizing politics. we are deepening democracy in our country because that's not -- then we're giving more content to democracy. and when i announced that i wanted to be president of colombia, people said, “francia, you're crazy, because you think

that" -- they can't imagine it. they think that's reserved for white men who are privileged elites. but today, those of us who are nobody, those of us who haven't had a voice, those who have been historically silenced and subjected to violence are standing up to say that we are going to go forward from resistance to power until dignity becomes something that our country becomes accustomed to. amy: francia márquez mina, speaking in march on democracy now! gustavo petro said to become the first leftist president. he is former guerrilla member and former mayor of bogotá. in 2018, i spoke to petro on democracy now! when he was ran for president and lost to the right-wing politician iván duque, who was handpicked by the former right-wing president álvaro uribe and vowed to roll back key parts of colombia's landmark peace deal with farc rebels. in the 1980's, petro was jailed and tortured for being a member of the m-19 guerrilla movement. he later went on to lead efforts

in colombia's congress to investigate ties between paramilitary death squads and top politicians. just before duque's inauguration, democracy now! spoke to gustavo petro, who had placed second in the 2018 presidential race, receiving 8 million votes, the largest number of votes ever received by a leftist candidate for colombia's presidency. i asked him about his vision for the country and why he believed he lost. >> i no longer divide politics into left and right. i think that was a relatively logical way and relatively realistic way to describe politics in the 20th century. but today, politics is dided between the politics of life and the politics of death. climate change worldwide separates us into two major sides. on the one hand, you have trump,

maduro, duque, and on the other side, you have those of us who want to respond and adapt as quickly as possible to climate change by bringing about changes in colombian society, economy and politics. it's life or death. what we were preaching in colombia is that. we need to build the movement of life, from the standpoint of respect for nature, from the standpoint of moving from an extractive-based, coal-exporting economy. we are the fifth-leading coal exporter in the world. that is to say, we have a lot of responsibility for climate change. and we want to move to a productive economy in agriculture and industry based on knowledge, so as to be able to live together with nature. we want to move to a zero-carbon economy. these are the kinds of proposals that we put forward as the main agenda in our election campaign.

that's what we want. amy: it's very interesting that you put together trump, duque , and maduro -- maduro of venezuela. i wanted to go back to this issue of the assassination attempt. on sunday, bolivian president evo morales, "within the last 12 months, u.s. vicepresident mike pence made 3 trips to latin america to meet at least 8 presidents from whom he demanded support for military intervention against our brother president of venezuela nicolás maduro. those are the empire's up attempts." do you feel the u.s. was involved in some way in what looks like an assassination attempt on maduro's life?

>> i reject any type of violence for resolving social conflicts in latin america. i believe that we have experienced 30 years of revolutionary wars in central america. inolombia, i myself was a protagonist of that effort as a member of the m-19 movement, which laid down its weapons in 1989, and then it became a majority through popular vote and played a very important role in the 1991 constitution of colombia, a profoundly democratic constitution. we experienced years of military dictatorships, exile. the word "democracy" practically vanished from latin america. it was really just at the beginning of the 21st century that a sort of spring began, with progressive, popular electoral victories, and we began to see new paths emerging.

we cannot go back to the past -- the dictatorships that exist, for example, in brazil, as i believe exist in venezuela, and a threat thereof in nicaragua and honduras, a threat of this in colombia -- nor can we go back to the revolutionary wars, trying to resolve conflicts through violence. i think we need to preserve and persevere along the nonviolent paths in order to work out our own conflicts. that does t mean thathere's not a violent attack again maduro. that doesn't mean that there are not interests who would like to see venezuelan society collapse, by the same interests who brought about the collapse of the society of libya, iraq, syria. behind that there is a dark and

dirty game all around oil interests and the world oil market. i know that the collapse of venezuela would immediately mean the collapse of colombia, because millions of colombians who in years past went into economic exile in venezuela would come back. and as pope francis says, these kinds of exoduses just create new situations of slavery and violence. i know that there is also a tough, a hard-line, racist, xenophobic, imperialist sector in u.s. society who, with their allies in europe, believe they can dominate the world and accommodate the different visions of hundreds of human cultures into their exclusive way of thinking and acting. but i am totally convinced that it's the peoples themselves who transform societies. the issue that i've raised of

climate change, well, i propose to the colombians and to colombia that this should be the fundamental line of our international policy. and from there -- based on that, we should determine who are our allies and who are on the other side. together, in a single political party, speaking in general global terms, someone like maduro and someone like trump are together because the progressive wave in latin america that began in the rly 20th century consolidated its role by greater income distribution, the genuine desire to reduce inequality in the most unequal region of the world based on the rents that were generated by the rise in international oil prices, as well as coal and gas prices.

it's an unsustainable way forward which is being shown in venezuela, and the governments of ecuador and bolivia and, in part, brazil followed that same path. i think that this has brought about a crisis, violating their own democratic principles. we see this in venezuela and we now see it in nicaragua. a new progressivism is emerging. graphically speaking, we could say there is a new axis between mexico, bogotá, and são paulo. now an important force has won the presidency of mexico. we almost did the same thing in colombia with 8 million votes. and it may happen in brazil, if the current dictatorship there allows it. that new axis should propose for latin america a new role in the international order -- reject

being assigned, being mere exporters of raw materials, of fossil fuel raw materials. that alone would bring an end to colombia. and we need to have a new role -- production based on knowledge, production without carbon, a decarbonized production, d therefora new democracy. this is what we propose to the world. and this new progressive axis would have very powerful allies, humankind itself, and would display its moral and political superiority, its superiority of arguments based on science. that, i believe, is what we are now building in colombia and in latin america. that is the way forward that we are going to be trying to insist on in coming months and coming years. amy: that is gustavo petro

speaking on democracy now! in 2018 after losing to ivan duque. gustavo petro said to become colombia's first leftist president, former mayor of bogotá. to see the full interview with him as well as with the vice president-elect francia márquez mina, the first black president of colombia, you can go to democracynow.org. today the house select committee investigating the january 6 insurrection is holding its fourth public hearing today with a focus on donald trump's effort to pressure state officials to overturn the 2020 election. democracy now! will stream the hearing live at democracynow.org beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning.

e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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