Colombian intelligence services have uncovered a potential plot to attack presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, who is leading polls for the progressive Historic Pact ahead of next month’s election first round.
Announcing a special meeting to address the threats, defence minister Pedro Sánchez said that security measures were being strengthened for Cepeda and other candidates. President Petro posted on social media that his government had provided US intelligence with ‘real and concrete data about a possible attack on candidate Iván Cepeda’.
In a video posted to social media, Cepeda revealed he had received detailed information about attempts to target him violently, which he had not declared previously to avoid generating public concern. ‘I want to be very clear that under no circumstances will I abandon my political work, and especially not the electoral campaign,’ he said. Cepeda also urged ‘supporters and citizens who are voting for me to redouble our efforts, to stand up against terror and against the forces that want to end the process of change in Colombia.’
Cepeda has been subjected to threats and smears throughout his political career, which has been distinguished by his campaigning to bring perpetrators of state and paramilitary violence to account. He was a strong advocate of peace talks with the FARC guerrillas, which resulted in the 2016 peace agreement, and previously headed the current government’s negotiating team in dialogues with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla group.
Last August, Cepeda received death threats for his role in the prosecution of far-right former president Álvaro Uribe, who was put on trial after attempting to bribe jailed paramilitaries to falsely incriminate Cepeda. Despite the hostility of Colombia’s political right, Cepeda has emerged as the favourite to win next month’s presidential election after consistently topping polls since announcing his candidacy last year.
Colombia has a history of violent targeting of left-wing presidential candidates. Two candidates for the progressive Patriotic Union (UP) party, Jaime Pardo Leal and Bernardo Jaramillo, were murdered in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Luis Galán of the New Liberalism party was killed in 1989. Their deaths echoed that of the radical Liberal Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948, whose assassination while on the brink of winning the election triggered riots that escalated into right-wing atrocities against workers and peasant farmers.
Cepeda himself has also been personally affected by the far-right’s violence towards the progressive movement. His father, Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, was assassinated in 1994. In 2010, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Colombian state had committed human rights violations in the investigation of Cepeda Vargas’ murder.