Colombia’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.
asserted
he → provoke → guerrillas
De La Espriella took power last month vowing “all-out war” against illegal armed groups and he published the footage on Thursday in an apparent attempt to show he was fulfilling that pledge.
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he → take → pledge
“I promised to confront terrorism without hesitation and I’m keeping that promise,” the far-right politician wrote above the video.
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politician → promise → video
“I did not come to play nice with murderers, extortionists and child recruiters.
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I → come → murderers
I came to defeat them …
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I → come → them
Long live Christ the king!”
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Christ → live → ?
Celebrating the military operation in the Colombian Amazon during which the 23 alleged terrorists were killed, De La Espriella declared: “We are utterly determined to destroy you, who are a cancer.”
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who → celebrate → you
The body bag footage, set to a stirring Hollywood-style score, was condemned by human rights activists and the president’s political opponents.
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footage → set → activists
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.
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He → beat → corpses
He nearly treads on them with contempt.
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He → tread → contempt
He calls himself a Christian but in reality he’s an unscrupulous being lacking the slightest sense of humanity.”
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he → call → humanity
The leftwing lawmaker Daniel Monroy accused the president of “necropolitics”.
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lawmaker → accuse → necropolitics
He wrote: “This is one of the most bizarre things we’ve seen.
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we → write → things
De La Espriella’s predecessor Gustavo Petro tweeted: “This is called turning death into a trophy – something only soulless people can do …
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people → tweet → trophy
The soulless find it easy to kill for the sake of killing.
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it → find → killing
De La Espriella hit back at his critics, posting: “Forgiving terrorists is God’s business.
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Forgiving → hit → terrorists
Sending them to meet him – if that’s where they’re headed – is the president’s job.”
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they → send → him
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.
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number → capture → crime
The genre has been pioneered by El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, with slick videos of his notorious mega-prison, and Donald Trump, who has repeatedly published footage showing alleged drug boats being blitzed in the Caribbean and Pacific.
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boats → pioneer → Caribbean
Ahead of Brazil’s October elections, several candidates are promising lethal attacks on the drug traffickers who control Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.
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who → promise → 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.
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he → go → power
Flávio Bolsonaro, the main challenger to the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to wage war on “narco-terrorists”, although he and close allies have themselves been accused of having ties to organised crime.
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themselves → vow → crime
“Criminals will be taken out of circulation, either standing up or lying down,” Bolsonaro has said.
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Bolsonaro → take → circulation
In Rio, Felipe Curi, a former police chief running for congress, has posted AI-generated videos depicting him shooting armed men in the favelas.
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Curi → run → 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.
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propaganda → feature → raids
“I arrest crooks,” Curi boasts in one video, “and I neutralise them if they react.”
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they → arrest → them
The Aporia
