Bogotá, that charnel house of political theatre, is at it again. Just as the British gentry prepares to slather their morning crumpets with marmalade, the news arrives: Colombia's election looms, and the nation's eternal dance of death has not so much as paused for a sip of single malt. The ruling class in London, those gentlemen with spines of jelly and pocketbooks of steel, are now sweating into their bespoke suits over the fate of their mining interests. You see, it's all about the precious metals, the lithium, the coal, the blood-soaked ore that fuels our shiny trinkets and powers our feckless devices.
But let us not pretend this is about morality. No, no. This is about the quarterly dividend. The shareholder's delight. The chaps in the boardroom who have never so much as trod upon a Colombian hillside, but who now wring their hands over the prospect of a leftist president who might, heaven forfend, nationalise their assets.
The election, you see, is a referendum on peace or the continuation of the Thirty Year's War with a different name. The current government, a meticulous orchestra of corruption and incompetence, has overseen the slaughter of indigenous leaders and the poisoning of rivers. But at least they kept the money flowing to the City. Now comes an opponent, a former guerrilla, a man with a cloud of scandal and a promise of change. The British press, ever the lapdogs of the establishment, have begun their ritual dance of moral panic.
"But what of the mining contracts?" they ask. "Who will ensure our access to the earth's entrails?" The answer, dear reader, is the same as always: the people of Colombia, whose bones are ground into the dust for the enrichment of strangers a hemisphere away.
Meanwhile, the conflict itself is a swirling maelstrom of absurdity. Paramilitaries, government troops, Marxist rebels, drug cartels, all locked in a gavotte of violence so complex that even the locals have stopped trying to make sense of it. The only constant is the dead. They pile up like neglected laundry. And still, the election proceeds. The candidates trade accusations like barflies trading coughs. The air is thick with rhetoric and gunpowder.
And what of the British response? A flurry of diplomatic notes. A sternly worded letter from the Foreign Office. Perhaps a quiet drinks reception with a few emaciated diplomats who have lost all capacity for surprise. There will be no intervention, no rescue, no outpouring of humanitarian aid. The only thing that will flow is the stream of profits, as long as the machinery of extraction remains intact.
So raise a glass of tepid gin to the Colombian people. They are the raw material for this grand farce. And when the election results roll in, remember: whether the victor is a right-wing thug or a left-wing thug, the minerals will still leave the ground. The blood will still stain the soil. And the British shareholders will still count their pounds. It is the most stable currency of all: complicity.
