A few hundred kilometers from Santa Marta, on the Colombian Caribbean coast, there is a new theater of war. There, the United States is waging what it considers a battle against drug smuggling that has so far left 70 people dead and 18 boats destroyed with missiles. Donald Trump asserts that they were loaded with illegal drugs destined for the American market. He has already warned that the attacks will not stop. This issue emerged from the agenda of the fourth summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union, which was held on Sunday in that coastal city.
Colombian Gustavo Petro, host of the summit, explained in his opening speech that the meeting will not only talk about cooperation between continents, green energy and sustainable digital development. “The same rockets that fall in Gaza are falling here, in the Caribbean, on the poor,” he said. Pietro confirms that one of those killed in the American operations was a fisherman from Santa Marta. “In light of international treaties, and in light of democracy and freedom in the world, he was simply killed. It was an extrajudicial execution,” he said, later calling for the bilateral meeting to serve as “a beacon of light in a world where barbarism is advancing.”
If the European delegation hopes to circumvent this issue, it will not be able to do so. Responding to a question upon his arrival at the Estelar Santamar Convention Centre, High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas said that “under international law, force can only be used for two reasons: in self-defense or following a resolution of the United Nations Security Council.”
Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had already said that the summit in Santa Marta would have no reason to exist “if we did not discuss the issue of American warships in the seas of Latin America.” The president of America’s largest economy delayed confirming his attendance until the last minute, because he was busy receiving participants in the COP30 climate summit in Belem. He recently traveled with the aim of raising the issue of alleged drug boats. “The threat of military force is once again becoming part of daily life in Latin America and the Caribbean. Old rhetorical maneuvers are being recycled to justify illegal operations,” Lula said in his presentation. “We are a zone of peace and we want to remain at peace. Democracies do not fight crime by violating international law. Democracies also surrender when crime corrupts institutions.”
A source from the Brazilian government confirmed that “with his trip to Santa Marta, Lula sent a message: to show that there is a situation in the Caribbean region of South America, and that we are not interested in any military solution on the northern coast of South America, let alone the countries neighboring Brazil, such as Colombia and Venezuela.” “We do not recognize the elections in Venezuela and we do not support in any way what is happening in Venezuela, but we are much less concerned with a military problem on our northern border in the Amazon region,” he says.
Lula left Santa Marta as soon as he finished his presentation. The same applies to the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, whose arrival was hectic because the city’s airport was not prepared to receive a plane of the size he was traveling on.
By mid-morning, the text of the final declaration had already been agreed upon at the ambassadorial level. Only technical details were missing. There was enthusiasm among the European delegation regarding the tone and content of the final text, at a summit that began burdened with significant absences. The document will include a section referring to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, military tension in the Caribbean due to US advances, and a chapter dedicated to migration, a particularly sensitive bilateral issue. As on previous occasions, States that do not agree on a particular point may express their opposition in writing.
Only twelve heads of state, out of sixty, traveled to Colombia. Among the most significant casualties was the death of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, even though she was in Belém on Friday at the conclusion of the 30th session of the Conference of the Parties. Among the heads of state, Uruguayan Yamando Orci withdrew at the last minute due to logistical problems. The right-wing and far-right Latin American governments worked to empty the summit. Argentina, under the administration of Javier Maile, sent Acting Undersecretary of State; Paraguay to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Government of El Salvador Nayib Bukele to Director of Foreign Policy, a third-ranking official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ecuador did not even send a representative.
On the eve of the summit, President Petro actually said that the United States tried to boycott the event by putting pressure, especially on Caribbean countries. But on Sunday the atmosphere was different. Council of Europe President and co-host Antonio Costa predicted early on that he expected a good result. “The approval of a joint declaration is evidence that multilateral dialogue is very important. Although there are 60 countries here, with very different ideological orientations, we have been able to reach a common position on the most important issues of the moment,” he said. Santa Marta has been a successful bet on multilateralism.
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