Land Defender Francia Márquez Might Become Colombia’s First Black Vice President

Source: Latin America News Dispatch

MAR 28, 2022

https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/03/28/marquezcolombia/

Afro-Colombian land defender Francia Márquez, who has been chosen to be the running mate of Colombia’s leading presidential candidate, Gustavo Petro (Mauricio Pulido/Forbes Colombia)

COLOMBIA: Leading presidential candidate Gustavo Petro announced Wednesday that the Black environmentalist lawyer Francia Márquez will serve as his running mate in May’s presidential elections. Francia Márquez, who is from the southwestern Cauca province, is known for protesting illegal mining in her territory.

In 2018 Márquez was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for organizing a 350-mile march to Bogotá with 80 women, resulting in the removal of illegal mining operations from the Suarez municipality of Cauca. Marquez won more than 750,000 votes in a primary earlier this month, coming in third after Petro and the leading conservative candidate Federico Gutiérrez.

Márquez is the first Black woman to run in presidential elections in Colombia’s history. Gutiérrez has also selected an Afro-Colombian running mate, the engineer and former Minister of the Environment Luis Gilberto Murillo.

THE CARIBBEAN

REGION: Various protests demanding reparations and an apology from the British monarchy for colonialism and slavery marked Prince William’s official visit to the Caribbean last week. Kate Middleton, William’s wife, accompanied him.

During the couple’s stop in Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness surprised some on Wednesday when he declared to William the government’s intention to become a republic by removing the queen as Jamaica’s head of state. This followed a demonstration outside the British High Commission in Kingston on Tuesday.

The previous weekend, the royals canceled a trip to a Maya village in southern Belize after residents, already embroiled in a land dispute with a monarchy-backed conservation group, protested a lack of consultation on a planned visit to their territory. […]