Colombia president provokes disgust by posing with bodies of ‘terrorists’

Still from video posted on social media by Abelardo De La Espriella (centre). Photograph: Abelardo De La EspriellaView image in fullscreenStill from video posted on social media by Abelardo De La Espriella (centre).

Photograph: Abelardo De La EspriellaColombiaColombia president provokes disgust by posing with bodies of ‘terrorists’Abelardo De La Espriella posts video of himself with rows of body bags as performative populism continues to sweep Americas.

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleColombia’s hardline president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has provoked outrage after posting a video on social media in which he strides through rows of white body bags that he says contained the corpses of 23 “neutralised” guerrillas.

Read more“I promised to confront terrorism without hesitation and I’m keeping that promise,” the far-right politician wrote above the video. “I did not come to play nice with murderers, extortionists and child recruiters.

Eu vim para derrotá-los … Viva Cristo, o rei.

Celebrando a operação militar na Amazônia colombiana, na qual 23 supostos terroristas foram mortos, De La Espriella declarou: “Estamos totalmente determinados a destruí-los, que são um câncer.”.

The body bag footage, set to a stirring Hollywood-style score, was condemned by human rights activists and the president’s political opponents.

Iván Cepeda, the leftwing candidate beaten by De La Espriella in June’s election, wrote on X: “He strolls among the bags with the corpses. He nearly treads on them with contempt.

Ele se chama cristão, mas na realidade é um ser sem escrúpulos, sem o menor traço de humanidade.

View image in fullscreenIván Cepeda at a campaign rally in Bogotá in June. Photograph: Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda/EPAThe leftwing lawmaker Daniel Monroy accused the president of “necropolitics”.

De La Espriella’s predecessor Gustavo Petro tweeted: “This is called turning death into a trophy – something only soulless people can do … The soulless find it easy to kill for the sake of killing.”.

De La Espriella hit back at his critics, posting: “Forgiving terrorists is God’s business. Sending them to meet him – if that’s where they’re headed – is the president’s job.”.

De La Espriella’s post captured the bellicose and performative political zeitgeist sweeping the Americas, where a growing number of rightwing populists are seeking to woo voters with promises of ferocious, TikTokable crackdowns on crime.

O gênero foi pioneiro pelo presidente autoritário do El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, com vídeos sofisticados de sua notória mega-prisão, e Donald Trump, que repetidamente publicou filmagens mostrando supostos barcos de drogas sendo blitzados no Caribe e no Pacífico.

Ahead of Brazil’s October elections, several candidates are promising lethal attacks on the drug traffickers who control Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. “We’re going to stain the ground red with the blood of these lowlifes,” one candidate, Renan Santos, said recently, promising “a bloodbath” if he won power.

Flávio Bolsonaro, o principal candidato à oposição ao atual presidente de esquerda, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, prometeu lutar contra os “narco-terroristas”, embora ele e seus aliados próximos tenham sido acusados de ter vínculos com o crime organizado.

In Rio, Felipe Curi, a former police chief running for congress, has posted AI-generated videos depicting him shooting armed men in the favelas. Campaign propaganda features his image superimposed on pictures of the corpses of some of the 122 people killed during the city’s deadliest ever police raids.