 Do you record it as well? Welcome to what the app is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast weekly at 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern on CodePink's YouTube channel. You can also now find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Today's episode, Election Observers Denied Entry to Columbia. My co-host today is CodePink's Latin America policy expert, Leonardo Flores, and our guest is Nestor Cristancho of Canal 2 in Columbia. And we're hoping that Nestor has an opportunity to join us live from Columbia at some point during our conversation. So let me just give you a little background about what we're gonna talk about today. On Sunday, May 29, Colombians will vote for president. The election comes at a difficult moment for the country. Polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the government of the current president, Ivan Duque, and frustration over chronic poverty, a widening income gap, and insecurity, all of which have worsened during the pandemic. Among those hurt the most by these problems are younger Colombians, younger people who are likely to play a big role in determining whether or not the country takes a step to the left. Young people led anti-government protests that filled the streets of Columbia last year, dominating the national conversation for weeks, I would say the international conversation as well. At least 46 people died, I would argue, I think there's far more than that, and we can talk about that later. 46 people and died, many of them young, unarmed protesters, and many of them at the hands of the police, and what became known as the National Strike, or in Spanish, the Faro Nacional. Some analysts expect young people to vote in record numbers, energized not just by the Pacto historical presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, but also by his running mate, Francia Marqués, a 40-year-old environmental activist with a gender, race, and class consciousness focus who would be the nation's first Afro-Caribbean vice president. In this episode, we are going to discuss the situation in Colombia in the final days before the historic election. So please join me and my co-host, Leonardo Flores. Thanks so much for having me on, Terry. And I think it'd be good to start off this conversation kind of for you to recount for us what happened with you on Sunday, last Sunday, May 22nd, because you were on your way to observe the elections in Colombia, invited by a very prestigious NGO. And then at least from our end in the US, from the people who work with you at Code Pink, we were pretty worried about you for a little while because it was hard to get in touch and we were very concerned, even calling the State Department. So can you let the audience know what went on? Well, so I was interested in going to Colombia to observe the presidential elections, principally because it's such a crucial historical moment for the Colombian people. And also, as you know, I was there last year, this time last year, on a human rights delegation based out of Argentina to do a human rights observing, witnessing, take testimony of the Paro Nacional, the activity that was taking place. And as we talked about in the introduction, it was principally young people fighting for a future, unbelievable generational, older generational support for what these young people were doing. The population, so many of the population were saying, this is what we should have been doing all along. And now it's the young people fighting for a future and we have to support what they want because we as older people have failed to do this for them. So that I was there and I wanted to basically follow up on that and support people's right to vote and make sure people had proper or necessary, I guess, witnessing, human rights witnessing. It wasn't so much about like having to go into the polls and see exactly what happened, making sure people could get to the polls and vote, especially after what we all saw last year. So I was participating on a delegation out of Toronto, Common Frontiers, an organization that I've worked with for many years in Latin America with my good friend Raul Verbano and a wonderful group of experienced election observers were on that trip. And the trip started Sunday the 22nd and I arrived in Bogota, El Dorado Airport, I think just before 7 a.m. And I got through, I approached the immigration desk. Now the immigration booths there are like two people. One officer standing up and then a smaller and then a second person sitting down at a desk behind. So I gave my passport to the female immigration officer and she looked at it and kind of hemmed and hot and then she looked at her computer screen and then after that, she handed my passport to the gentleman sitting behind her and he started flipping through every page of my passport and then stood up and said, come with me now. So I was escorted back to an office, very professional office that had conference rooms and sitting area where clearly people who were in question were being processed. And so I sat there and watched two immigration officers sit at this desk and they were on a computer perhaps checking my social media accounts who I don't really know that speculation but every once in a while they would ask me a question like you're my full name, where did I live? At one point they wanted to know, they said, you've entered the country as a tourist which is on the pre-migration checking online form is one of a few options you have. In my case, I was there as a human rights observer and electoral witnessing observer, accompaniment I guess is the correct term. And they said there was discrepancy between coming as a tourist and doing that work. Now on the pre-migration check-in form there is no option to declare yourself as an electoral observer or human rights observer. There's no option, nothing. So pretty much everybody entering the country as an observer checked tourist. Well, they had a problem with that. They found that as an inconsistency with me which I kind of thought was odd. But so that kind of triggered more questioning and they asked for my itinerary. I told them where I was gonna be, what cities I was gonna be in. They wanted to know what hotels I was gonna be staying at. They called those hotels to make sure that the delegation actually had a reservation and that I was actually listed as part of the delegation reservation. So they did that. And then there really wasn't much except everybody was like typing away. And since came to realize, well, they pulled me from out front, brought me back here to process my exit. I was like, there was never gonna be an interview. There was never gonna be any questioning. I was like, we don't want you here. So when they finished, they did actually process immigration documents for me and the document, they finally showed me what they had. And the document was a denial of entry document, entry denied document. And they showed it to me to read. And in the top right-hand corner of the document, it says my nationality. It has me identified as an Argentine national. Now I was not born in Argentina. I don't have Argentine residency. I've never had Argentine passport of any recognition. I've never had any passport in my life other than my US passport, the country I was born and raised in. So they're identifying me as an Argentine national with US residency. They've had my passport for over an hour and it's very clear my passport says I was born in Burlington, Vermont, USA. So that was disturbing. Then I read the one part of the document that was in English. And mind you, nothing else was in English. None of our conversation. I wasn't offered an English speaking conversation, only Spanish, which should have been a clue to me that they had no intention of interviewing me. They did never offered me English. So the one part of the document that is in English is the reason for my denial. And the reason for my denial is that they labeled me a threat to Columbia State Security. And I can only surmise that that is because of being in Columbia during the Pato Nacional and seeing the state violence that we saw and documented and reported on. Yeah, and to me, that's really one of the most enraging and absurd parts of this whole ordeal that you went through that they accused you of being a threat to state security, because again, we're talking about a country where so far this year, 79 social leaders have been murdered. Another 21 signers of the Peace Accords have been murdered. That's just this year alone. I think there's 30-some massacres as well. I saw a really alarming statistic the other day that the public ombudsperson of Columbia recently warned that in 26% of the country's municipalities, 26% of them are at high risk or extreme risk for human rights violations, but somehow you're the threat to state security. And that's not even going into the threats that have been faced by Gustavo Petra and Francia Márquez, the long-term historic pack, which we'll get into, but that's so wild to me. And really, so folks know, because I mean, you have a long history of observing elections. How many countries have you observed elections in or how many elections have you observed roughly? I don't even know. And who invited you this time around? Well, so I should first say this delegation that I was allowed to join out of Canada had very specific requirements. And the trip later, really it was, you had to demonstrate prior electoral observation experience. That was a requirement. So everyone on that delegation had, you know, years of experience, which was one of the reasons I was so excited to go with these people was I knew we'd be traveling, you know, with people who knew what they were doing and could provide, you know, good coverage for the citizens of Columbia, but for outside Columbia too. So I don't know, Leo, I don't know how many countries, I think in the last, you know, 14 to 16 months, I've been in Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, just, you know, since I guess December of 2020. So it's fair to say that by now you're an expert in observing what's kind of getting in the current. I'm familiar with what, you know, with the processes of, you know, particularly the human rights aspect of, you know, voting and what can and cannot go wrong. I mean, every country has a different constitution and a different process, but there are, you know, fundamentals that are guaranteed pretty much for people to vote. For instance, you know, not being threatened, not having your life threatened by showing up at a polling center. And that's the sort of thing that you really, I mean, that's extreme. I think for our audience, that probably sounds really extreme, but in many countries, and I would probably unfortunately put Columbia at the top of the list, that's a real threat. And so, you know, it's really, it's going to take a lot of courage for people in Columbia to vote on Sunday the 29th. And that is no, that's not an understatement. It's gonna take a lot of courage. And we really have to support the fact that so many, not all, that so many want a change. They want a change. And I will, one of the things that I think is really important to share, oh, here I think that Mr. has joined us. Sorry, folks, give me just a minute to- Yeah, no, and while you're doing that, I mean, I just wanna emphasize that you're not exaggerating when you say that people are afraid and are threatened because earlier this month, there was an armed strike in Columbia that affected, I think it was something like 280 municipalities where basically a paramilitary group drug cartel shut down a huge chunk of the country because they were angry at the government. And so, and on top of this, we've had death threats against Gustavo Petro, death threats against Francia Marquez. They've been having the campaign with huge shields in front of them. And I think it was at her closing campaign event. We had Francia Marquez was targeted with a laser from a roof pop that was overlooking the campaign event. Yeah, like a sniper's laser. Exactly. That was Saturday night. It was a terrifying moment for people who watched it, who were there of course, and then it went viral on Twitter really quickly. So yeah, absolutely. There's a serious threat, not only to the candidates, but I think there is a threat against regular voters who might be intimidated as particularly in the countryside. I, yeah, that is more historic. Those politics outside the capital, and that's very Latin America, that's very old world Spain where the capital, and we've seen this in Peru is a really good example, Peru last summer where the capital control, the capital city controls the power, the money, the oligarchs, all of that. And then outside in the provinces is more mixed. So people and the traditional activists out of the Afro-Caribbean community, the Campesinos, the indigenous land rights people, and all of that. And that was all active last year when we were there during the National Pottery. But the other thing that was very striking, our last day in Bogota last year, we went out on the streets to just kind of see in Bogota during commuter hour. And just to kind of get a temperature reading of the population. And there was a flash rally, a flash, you know, Baro Nacional Rally and a group of people were walking down the highway, the Caratera during commuter time with a banner wide enough to cross both lanes of traffic. And all the, so many cars stopped. And the people got out of their cars and joined the flash rally, including people driving BMWs and Mercedes. So you are looking at a middle class, upper middle class, educated people, advanced educated people, most likely with money protesting the government. That to me, when you see that demographic joining the rest, the traditional groups or for Columbia, those historical protestors, when you see that, that tells me the government has lost its people. People literally, people in Mercedes and BMWs got out of their car and joined the protest. It was very, and I will argue that's, this is the kind of stuff the Colombian government is not allowing me sharing inside the country. And Nesto, if you're there, feel free to jump in, please. We would love to hear your thoughts. And you know, I mean, the fact that you're not the only observer who was denied entry, there was at least one other. And it's incredibly important to have electoral observation in this particular case because we had the primaries in mid-March and there was something like 400,000 votes that were missing from the initial count. They were later added. These votes happened to favor the historic pact. And now what we're seeing is an attempt by the duke government to maybe they were talking about postponing the elections as late as a week ago. But now it seems like there's an attempt to get rid of the national registrar, which would nullify the elections. Nesto, can you talk to us a little bit about all of these threats to the electoral process itself that you've been witnessing? You're muted. Oh, maybe I have time to get him. Yeah, here he is. Hi, welcome, Nesto. Happy to see you again. And thank you for inviting me to this meeting. Yeah, well, about your question, well, there are many threats. And of course, the whole situation is like, we live in like in a state of fretting all the time. It's not just the government using all these tricks against you, for example, the international overseas. But it's all the coercion that you live even in the streets with the cops, with the military actions, but also with the paramilitaries, the self-groups that are around rural areas in Colombia that are showing their teeth and their strength with guns and threatening people to go out to vote for certain people. But if you read it as a journalist, you can see that it's like one of the branches of the whole government, of the whole power, people in power, because this government, it's not just the legal security forces, it's not just them. They're using also criminal and these mafia groups, these mobs groups, all the bands related to the traffic dealing, the drug dealing. And they really lead all the rural areas in Colombia. So even thinking that we're gonna have in some of the cities, the big cities, regular, not violent elections, at least till 4 p.m. on Sunday, we expect some kind of threatens in the rural areas in Colombia. So that's one of the things that people gotta understand, that Colombia got like three big cities, four or five big cities where everything looks like another country, like European cities or something like that, no, I mean, at least in the atmosphere, in the electoral atmosphere. Yeah, I'm not talking about the structure or the economics, but at least you can go and vote in whatever your site is. But in rural areas is where you see the real threatens, because if you go and you risk to vote for somebody that is not under this regime, under this power, well, you're probably gonna be risking your own life. The whole issue here, or it's be sickly, go sickly vote for whoever you felt you can, whoever you feel like may change this status queue in Colombia, but it's your own life, it's on risk in some of those rural areas, yes. Which is why international observers were invited to your country was to help. And for example, that's the reason you were invited to Buenaventura, for example. Because Buenaventura is under, it's no government. I mean, it's not, the government rules there, but with the militias, these groups, these authoritarian groups that are involved in all the drugs, the drug building, but also they rule a lot of small business there, like the small loans for people, even the rule, if you got a store in your area, in your small town, they're gonna rule you. They're gonna ask you, who are you? Probably they're gonna ask you for more money. That's something we call, be vaccinated. It's a funny way, be vaccinated by the... Okay, oh. Yeah, it's a metaphorical way to express how you got out in a store. But Buenaventura, if you got, maybe you've been in Buenaventura before, in this national strike, last year, you were in Buenaventura? No, I was in Bogota and Pereira. Oh, okay, well, in Pereira, you know, we lost one life, Lucas, one of the guys that were, one of those, you know, this government being like, targeting the youth people. All the youth, all these kids are like, taking their own spot, they're taking their posts for the first time in many years in Colombia, because we've been talking about this in the Canal Dose channel too, the independent... Which is where Nestor's from, I just want the audience to know that you are a journalist. Yeah, today you were invited. Our guest, you were our guest, and now we switch positions here. You're out of Kali, you broadcast out of Kali for a while. Yeah, we are in Kali, that it's being considered the capital of the resistance here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we were in conversation very early this morning, and just for our audience, it's a wonderful show that Nestor hosts. It's a great journalism, great panel discussion, and terrific program production too. So just thumbs up to you guys. It was a pleasure to do that this morning. It was a pleasure having you there. And it's also been... It's really important for us that people in the whole world see a little bit of what's going on, because the reality, Colombian reality, is something that people don't... It's like nobody deals with that. Even I've been in New York, you know, in those kind of... What we call plantonists, just people getting together, going for a march and, you know, showing some kind of protest against the government, but nobody listened. Nobody listened. Every day you see more people, for example, Kali Medellin, you see a lot of tourists here. A lot of people come over here, but they come from drugs, from prostitution, and not even prostitution, but also they come for... Any young girls here, young ladies, and even the young kids, but especially men come here for this statistical way to find their love, or their lover, and they come here, they get nice parties, drugs, women, or whatever it is, and that's the reality they breathe from Colombia. And that's what they've been talking since the government of this guy, Alvaro Uribe Belles, that's been like the big mob, it's the big mafia mob in Colombia. And after the last 10 years, we got this many people coming from overseas to Colombia to do this kind of touristy thing, but I didn't... Those are some of the reasons behind the Cuban Revolution, was to get all of that vice activity off the island, out of their country, it's the same thing. Cuban living Batista regents back in the 1950s. Well, we're having that kind of... And many countries, the sad thing is that European countries and United States are taking these small countries, Thailand, Morocco, this place where they can go visit and spend easy money, because it's not... You know, one dollar here, it's like a lot of money. I guess you don't have too much money to come over here. I got friends from Australia, I got a friend from Australia that bought up a simple small house here, and now she turned that into a great mansion in one of these towns, these neighborhoods in Cali. And well, she says, I live like my dream here because with small money, small amount of money, I can build this big house and got this nice, beautiful life for every springtime. So I don't have to deal with winter, I don't have to deal with the prices in my own country. So well, you see, it's my point is we need that all these places, these spaces spread the war about the reality in Colombia. This is a drug state, it's a mafia state. Absolutely. And, you know, earlier today, we actually had Code Pink, we sent an email to our supporters, warning them about what's going on with the elections and asking Secretary of State Blinken to not only respect the elections, but also to advocate for the lives of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez because of the death threats. And one of the things we talked about in this email we sent is the issue of foreign interference because you've had the U.S. Ambassador and you had Victoria Nuland who's the Under Secretary of State. Both echo claims from the Duque government talking about possible Russian interference in the elections or maybe even Cuban or Venezuelan interference. But from my perspective, when we look at what's happening in Colombia, the interference is actually coming from the military. You had the Chief of the Army, you know, talking about saying that Petro was corrupt whereby the constitutionally he's not supposed to get involved nor is anyone in the military supposed to get involved. And then you have Duque, who I just read a really interesting article that said in one out of every three speeches he's given in the past year, he's brought up either Gustavo Petro or his policies. So he's in himself has been interfering. How concerned are you about these issues, Mr. Well, the army and the police, police is and they are both, we know we as journalists, we've been knowing this for, I start doing this from the 90s, 1990s. And my whole life in this journalist experience, I know the army and the cops are part of the whole mafia establishment in Colombia. Now when you see this kind of reaction from the army commander, well, you understand is this power, these people that been in power for so long, they scare about losing the power, losing power. And even if they have to show their guns, their weapons to keep them keeping power, they're gonna show their weapons. Even the legal ones, the formal ones, I mean the army and the cops and the police, but also the legal ones that are like branches of the whole establishment in Colombia. So it's not a surprise for me, at least for me and many other journalists, but it's at least, it's a symptom of what could make happen next week if we got a new government, or not even next week, even after August 7th, whoever is the president, but let's say according to what you see in the squares, in all the towns that Gustavo Petro and the Francia market being visiting, it's like, you see, it's the people, we can see people joining these meetings for thousands. So beyond all the polls, all the statistics, that they also being like playing with those numbers to share a little bit and to confuse people, confuse the most people, because you got those numbers, the numbers that media are showing in these polls and these statistics and people maybe can buy that, but when you go to the great meetings that this left or let's say progressive movement is attracting while you see the reality, people are going to vote for this option, for this alternative option. Let's say Petro and Francia markets are elected next Sunday or even in the second round area in the states, yeah. We still don't know how the army is gonna react and take that, we don't know. One of the most important things, one of the crucial things Petro has to do once in government is changing the whole structure of the army and the police and by changing the structure, I mean the main levels, commanders, officers, all those that are ranking in the top levels because they're gonna oppose to that government and alternative government and maybe that's one of the reasons we talk about a possible cop here in Colombia. A cop, yeah, a cop, sorry. Oh, I just wanted to, I'm sorry, Leo, just follow up on something you said, Nestor, because a lot of people have asked me before arriving at the airport, I don't wanna say I arrived in Colombia because I was never allowed to enter Colombia. I got to the airport and before I got there and since I have returned from there, people have said, well, what's gonna happen on Sunday and what are the chances of, you know, Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez win and it looks very favorable, but assuming they do win and especially if they do win in the first round, there is so much that a new administration is gonna have to dismantle. As you mentioned, the military and the police, there's a lot that has to be dismantled initially before you and your people can start moving forward. I mean, so this, a first administration post-urribismo, as I said that correctly, whatever administration is the first to come after, there's so much dismantling that has to be done before you can move forward. And then what do you do if you remove these military leadership, the police leadership, what do you do with those people to ensure they don't like go to the private sector or, you know, become a problem from the outside in? Right now there's a problem from the inside out, but they could possibly become a problem from the outside in as well. Well, also think about the justice system in Colombia. Yeah. Yes, I can attest. They gotta change it. They gotta change. The accusatory, how do you call it? The attorney department here, like the fiscal general, the attorney, the national attorney, the whole office is not, it's something we gotta change totally. The way we have now that the system of the accusatory system is a copy of the United States. That works a little, we've seen in the Trump era that it start like, you know, shaking a little bit. Well, in Colombia, one of the things that the constitution, the 1991 constitution change was that the attorney general office, before that it was like a very naive system that it was like a small judges around Colombia being the accusatory system of the justice system. But now we have no, that system is not working. It's part of the government. When I say the government, I'm talking about the executive power. I mean, the presidency is running, is running that. The same way it's running the disciplinary or administrative, you know, the investigators in the Procuratoria General that maybe you don't have that in America, in United States. But we have something called Procuratoria that at least oversees the public workers, yeah, the public workers. And in some levels, you got some kind of guarantees before years ago, before the way it's worked. But the whole point is that the national attorney and other institutions that could make the check and balance system work, doesn't work in Colombia. They actually doesn't work because it's all part of the same criminal and corrupt structure. And going back to something you said earlier about the possibility of the army or the police not respecting the results of the election and maybe launching a coup, do you think the United States could possibly play a positive role here if they were to come out and say strongly that the Colombian Army must respect the will of the voters? Or would it not make a difference? You know what, unfortunately, the American government is being like newt about anything that happens in Colombia. Even that this president, Duque, shows support to Trump. Well, Biden was like at the beginning of his first year, he was like not talking to directly at least with Ivan Duque or president and he keep the distance from this guy. But when you see last year, National Strike in Colombia, there was no word from the government. It was some of the congress people that actually the progressives from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, this guy Gork, well, another of you senators there, they kind of chose support to the Colombian National Strike. But starting from the Plan Colombia, Plan Colombia is like this treat the disagreement between the United States and the Colombian government to support the drugs war. That doesn't work at all. Not working in not even in Colombia in the whole war, it's like they keeping this, what they call the drugs war, but on the ground, it's like, no, you gotta keep the business. The whole business is actually, they keep the whole thing, the banks. I'm talking about the financial system. I'm talking about the big political fishes. I'm talking about the enterprises, all the multinationals, all the big companies. So if Petro is not smart enough, but I think the good thing about Petro is that he's very smart. So he's been in the United States, he's been talking to all these senators of the progressives movement in America. And that's like, he's like guaranteeing, and also in Europe, he's like, paying whatever is need to get the support we need from America, Europe and all the whole war in case something like that happens. Because he knows, one of the things he totally knows is that an actual cup may happen in Colombia if he's not smart enough to move. And I don't think we can trust him in what the American government it's gonna do for us. Because also losing this, in any case, for America, for United States system and the whole system in the war, keeping this corner of the war under control with this kind of government, with this kind of people is like a guarantee for the whole system to keep moving, especially in South America. That is critical for them. Because many new progressive movements are showing up now, Brazil, with Lula da Silva, they're probably gonna lose the power in Brazil. Yeah, hopefully. But they're looking at this, all these new progressive moment in Latin America, a threat for the whole system. And Biden, if I don't trust Biden that much, neither Obama did anything. Obama, well, he started like moving close to Cuba, at least he cooled down some of the sanctions and some of the, you know, all these things that tried to Venezuela that put in risk all the economics in Ecuador, even remember, Evo Morales was rolling in Bolivia after all these big companies tried to start doing business with the water in Bolivia. Remember, there is a famous movie, if you don't have anything, it's called also the water, is the name of that movie. I'm doing my translation. When they privatized, when Halliburton privatized all the water in Bolivia, yeah. And it was illegal to use a rainwater catchment system. Exactly. Of course, people to buy privatized water, it was just horrible, horrible. Well, guess what may happen with one of the proposition, one of the political changes that Petro and this alternative government is telling to us is that he's gonna change the whole oil exploration. At least he's not doing more exploration. He's gonna keep, you know, at least the contracts that are running now, well, he said, I'm gonna respect all those contracts, but I'm not gonna explore more new oils, you know, no more exploration of oil or a petroleum or anything like that, no more gas. The whole system that depends on that, and it's straight, it's straight, and most of them are in America and Europe was in the Colombian election and they'll say, oh my God, what these crazy people are gonna do with our business? Somebody stop them. Yeah. And maybe that's what's happening. That's the real thread, isn't it? What is this, what is the new government gonna do with our business, specifically the transnational corporations and the vice, the businesses that are based on vice, sex drugs and gambling, yeah. So Nestor, what a pleasure to have you join us this afternoon. I'm so thankful that you had time for this conversation and I just want our audience to really send you a lot of love for Sunday. You know, as we talked about this morning, it's gonna take a lot of courage for people to go to the polls on Sunday, but it's also just such an opportunity for change that we just hope everything goes well, that the elections aren't suspended, that there is no violence, you know, if the results are not pro-duke, yes. It's gonna be a very, you know, it's a really, really important day for you and your country and really, you know, for Latin America as a whole. It's a historic moment. It is. It's a historic moment for all of us. It really is, yeah. It really is. And we are really concerned, but also again, please, people in the whole world keep an eye on Colombia. If you blow coke, if you do coke, think we're crashing Colombia, Mexico, and all Latin America. Yeah, or do something. Yeah, blow the whole cocaine you want, but please help us to legalize this thing because the only way we can turn this terrible war, this terrible carnage that we live every day. Do you live it when somebody goes to, well, I don't wanna play with that. I know you got at this situation with the guns and the shootings in your country, but we live it every day. We live it every day. We know that something is happening just as today, just yesterday, you can count them out, that's every day. And that happens because nobody in the whole world cares about the drug situation. You happy with the illegal thing when, I've been in New York, in Paris with friends, and they call somebody for, oh, I'm gonna call a delivery. And I'm like, here you go. It's my country, you're harming. You're harming my people. I know, but it's important, Terry, that you talk about these issues. Yeah. No, people call it connect the dots. They don't connect the dots. But you gotta push this thing. We gotta push this thing because at one point, the whole world gotta realize, wake up about these things. Because if not, you're condemning us, and you're putting us in the hell, because you just wanna have fun. In America and Europe, European countries are terrible as well. One of the things we joke here in Cali is that we joke about Petros saying that, oh, we have to be like Suiza, or we have to be to Noruega. No, I understand the guy and I appreciate the guy. I'm a journalist, so I'm not fanatic. But when he talks about that, remember you're talking about countries that just go, enjoy the comfortability, the all the beautiful things you can have in your countries, but under other people, under other countries, it was Africa. Africa is with the whole world that you show in Europe and you show in the United States, it's a shame that we have this situation that we have in Africa. Those kids in Africa, living like that and countries like Colombia, being in war and nobody cares. Sorry, I'm very passionate about this. No, it's okay, it's okay. And I talk too much about that, but it's just because I got the chance and when we have the chance to talk to people like you, we know you are the only way to spread this kind of war. This guy's from this kind of war. It's really important that we hear from you because some, and I think Leah would agree with me is so much of what you're sharing about these chains, Africa, the global South, it's still this expropriation of natural and human resources from historically colonized countries, countries colonized by Europe, by the global North in general, but Europe and the United States specifically. And that's, it's the same, it's this paradigm that you're living in and it's very destructive to you and your people. So it doesn't allow you to develop in any sort of economic or human way. So I wonder, Nestor, before we close today's program, is there anything particular about Sunday that we can do, that we at Code Pink sent our alert out today and we'll share that again with the audience and just we wish you so much luck and love and peace on Sunday. The only advice or the only thing we ask is do a program on Sunday. Do Code Pink on Sunday. Do it. And just report a little bit of what's going on. Okay. Keep an eye on us, check with other people, spread the word, spread the word. It's the only, the same way, if we learn something from internet, that was another weapon. Internet, the history tell us about all the whole world is being in these tensions for historic, it's a historic thing, but please spread the word. You got the chance on Sunday to have a meeting after four p.m. And if something is wrong in Colombia, keep an eye, even, I'm gonna text you on Sunday. Okay, please do. It's the only way we gotta keep in touch. Please do. We gotta keep the network happening. Yeah, for sure. And we're gonna, hey, Terry, please, something is going on or keep an eye on this and just report it and talk to your other people. And Leonardo, do the same. I don't know, Leonardo is from Colombia and Origins or not? Venezuela. It's from Venezuela. Oh, okay, oh, okay, oh, you gotta know that. But if we can change things, if something's happening in Colombia, even this is gonna be good for Venezuela, because everything's gonna turn into another, at least things are gonna move. But in Colombia, it's been one of the ways to stop the whole process in Latin America. And in our geographical spot, it's perfect to keep everything like now on the traditional system, ruling, governing, not just formally, not just legally, but also all the underground, all the illegal, all the criminal activities in Latin America and Colombia. If we can take this, how we call it, upon Leonardo, how we, with that name on that thing. Okay, let's take that long out of the whole thing and let's live better in this country. That's right, thank you so much, Néstor. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, just an honor to have you join us and thank you, Leonardo, for co-hosting today. And I wanna remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. We broadcast weekly at 430 p.m. Pacific, 730 p.m. Eastern, generally on Wednesdays, but we had this great opportunity to have Néstor join us this afternoon. And so you can also, don't forget to catch Code Pink Radio on Thursday mornings, 11 a.m. Eastern on WBAI out of New York City and WPFW out of Washington, D.C. Both projects, WTF and Code Pink Radio can also now be found on Apple Podcast and Spotify. So thanks again, gentlemen, a terrific conversation. We wish all the best to the Colombian people on Sunday the 29th. And for our audience, we'll keep you updated on Sunday and we'll see you formally on the air next week. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terry. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.