Colombian

Colombian President de la Espriella says those behind the attack in Santa Rosa del Sur will have ‘nowhere to hide’.

A drone attack on a military base in northern Colombia has killed three soldiers and wounded at least 16, the country’s armed forces said.

The Colombian military said in a statement on Saturday that the attack hit a base in Santa Rosa del Sur, a small town in the foothills of the San Lucas mountain range. Authorities have not said who carried out the strike, the latest in a series of attacks on security forces as violence rises across rural parts of the country.

The area is rich in gold mines and has long been disputed by rebel armed groups including the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and smaller groups led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Footage shared on social media showed clouds of smoke rising from the base after three explosions, and soldiers taking cover in shelters made of sandbags.

“Those who were behind this attack… will have nowhere to hide,” President Abelardo de la Espriella wrote on X. “Every attack against our soldiers strengthens our resolve to defend Colombia.”

Rising violence

Violence has intensified in several rural areas since de la Espriella, a conservative, took office in August.

The president cancelled peace talks with rebel groups and has taken a confrontational approach, including more air strikes, deploying more troops in some cities and creating joint task forces to defend strategic assets such as a pipeline that runs from the Caribbean coast to central Colombia.

De la Espriella’s government argues that armed groups used ceasefires granted by the previous government to consolidate their grip on rural areas, where they tax local businesses and profit from the drug trade.

Some groups have responded by stepping up attacks on the country’s armed forces.

Last week, a military base in Tolima province was targeted with missiles made from gas canisters. The attack killed four civilians, including a two-month-old baby.

Police in the border city of Cucuta have been attacked several times with remotely activated bombs.

State forces and illegal armed groups carried out 34 attacks with bombs or explosives in Colombia in the four weeks to October 16, a 9 percent increase on last year’s four-week average, according to ACLED, a group that monitors armed conflicts.

A 2016 peace deal with FARC led to the demobilisation of more than 14,000 fighters, but smaller groups have since fought over the rebels’ former territory.

Far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella says he will wage a ‘counterrevolution’ against cultural institutions.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has announced he is spearheading a cultural “counterrevolution” that includes removing dozens of exhibits from the National Museum, drawing protests and comparisons to United States President Donald Trump.

De la Espriella, a conservative Trump ally, said last week that he wants to prevent cultural institutions from being taken over by what he calls “atheist social communism”.

Since then, exhibits have been taken down that once addressed the history of social movements, including feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, and Colombia’s political violence.

The changes have sparked protests by civil rights groups, artists and students who have accused the government of censorship and warn that important parts of the country’s history could be erased.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Wednesday outside the National Museum in downtown Bogota as riot police guarded its entrance.

“I find it outrageous that they want to erase part of our history,” said Azul Riascos, a history student.

He said the government was promoting a vision of Colombia as exclusively white, Catholic and Spanish-speaking. That image, he explained, excluded Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy organisation, said the Colombian government’s approach reflects a broader trend among Trump allies who are copying US political narratives and strategies.

Trump has been fiercely critical of museums in Washington, particularly those tied to the Smithsonian Institution.

The White House released a report in July branding leaders of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as radical activists and has ordered signs to be installed outside the museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate.

Nearly three months after that order, such signs haven’t been installed. The museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, told Congress that the White House report “does not fairly or accurately characterise the full body of work at the museum”.

Sanchez-Garzoli said Trump’s cooperation with allied Latin American governments on security and counternarcotics efforts also has an ideological dimension.

“These are imported narratives about terrorism and about being ‘woke,’” anthropologist Arturo Sanabria said during Wednesday’s protest, describing the Colombian government’s approach as a form of neocolonial intervention.

Colombia’s Culture Minister Paola Holguin said the government was reviewing and redesigning exhibitions and curatorial practices at other museums overseen by her ministry.

The Foreign Ministry also renamed a courtyard previously honouring an Indigenous leader, describing the change as part of the president’s campaign against “woke” ideology.

“The government is making serious efforts in a cultural battle that probably doesn’t exist,” political scientist Estefania Cardozo said outside the museum. “It is inventing one to erase identities that cannot be erased because they already exist.”