“Energy is the principal geopolitical dispute of our time.” So began the Progressive International’s workshop this weekend in Bogotá, convened by the Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo (Petroleum Industry Workers’ Union, USO) to chart a course to “Colombia’s Energy Sovereignty.”
The opening speech was delivered by Andrés Camacho, until recently the country’s Minister for Energy and Mining, who offered a world tour of the geopolitics of energy — from oil traffic through the Black Sea to the LNG terminals in Rotterdam, from power blackouts in Gaza to the extraction of critical minerals in the Congo.
These resource flows reveal energy not merely as a commodity — but as a strategic instrument frequently weaponized in the asymmetrical struggles between nations, with control over production, distribution, and consumption determining which countries prosper and which ones remain trapped in poverty.
Few countries understand the stakes of that struggle like Colombia: rich in oil reserves, precious biodiversity, and worker militancy to secure the country’s independence after centuries of colonial intervention. In 1948, the USO led the historic “huelga patriótica” against the Tropical Oil Company, mobilizing tens of thousands under the rallying cry: “The oil belongs to Colombians and is for Colombians.” This powerful movement eventually birthed Ecopetrol, the state oil company that has since been called Colombia’s “crown jewel” – a rare example of successful resource nationalization in Latin America that has survived decades of structural adjustments and their attendant pressures of privatization.
A century after USO’s formation, though, Ecopetrol faces existential threats from multiple directions that endanger both workers’ livelihoods and national sovereignty. Beyond relentless efforts to strip the company of its assets and income, the international political economy of fossil extraction — the model on which Ecopetrol formed and flourished — is today undergoing a rapid transformation. With fossil fuels representing more than 50% of Colombia’s export revenue and one-third of its foreign income, the nation stands at a critical crossroads where climate imperatives collide with economic dependency – a contradiction facing many global South nations rich in fossil resources.
USO has shown remarkable foresight in recognizing these challenges, positioning itself not as a defender of the status quo but as a vanguard for transformation. As early as 2020, the union’s national assembly adopted resolutions endorsing a just transition and articulating the need for “efficient goals and deadlines for abandoning fossil fuels and adopting new technologies.” Their early rejection of fracking and commitment to energy transition planning has established them as one of the world’s most advanced fossil fuel unions – proving that workers themselves, not corporate executives or technocrats, can be the most far-sighted actors in energy politics.
These visionary workers now form a critical pillar of President Gustavo Petro’s government of change, which has prioritized transforming Colombia into “a world power of life” through ecological transition. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Petro argued passionately that humanity faces “a crisis of life” as climate catastrophe accelerates, requiring not merely technical adjustments but systemic transformation. The alignment between organized labor and a progressive government creates a historic opportunity to reimagine energy systems – not as extractive operations that deplete resources and exploit workers but as public utilities serving collective needs within planetary boundaries.
During his own tenure as Minister, Andrés Camacho led pioneering innovations such as the “comunidades eléctricas”, which sought to democratize energy production and distribution in previously marginalized regions. His initiatives connected renewable energy development with community empowerment, particularly in areas historically neglected by centralized infrastructure planning. Yet despite these important advances, Colombia requires a more comprehensive transformation of its energy matrix – one that must be meticulously planned and worker-led to succeed in both economic and ecological terms.
That is why the Progressive International convened in Bogotá with USO this weekend, bringing together an international delegation of trade unionists, energy policy experts, and climate researchers to collaborate on an actionable transition blueprint. Together, we are developing the Oilworkers’ Plan for Popular Energy Sovereignty and Colombia’s Just Transition — written by and for the union and its workers. This plan charts a course for an emboldened Ecopetrol in its transition from a petroleum company to an integrated energy company, the defense of a ‘public pathway’ for the energy transition, and calls for the massive expansion of union jobs and green industrialization in Colombia.
“The Oilworkers’ Plan reflects the belief that organized workers play a decisive role in elevating the class struggle inherent in the climate crisis,” the draft plan reads. “The public pathway to a just transition for Colombia is inconceivable without a strong class analysis that exposes and resists the capitalist imperatives fueling both ecological destruction and labor exploitation. Workers, through their unions, have the power to lead this transition—fusing ecological goals with territorial justice and demands for fair wages, secure jobs, and the collective good. Green industrial development is not merely an environmental imperative; it is a means to challenge decades of neoliberalism’s consequences in Colombia and build a future in which workers and communities across the country hold power over how energy and resources are produced, shared, safeguarded, and used.”
This initiative arrives at a decisive moment in global climate politics as the window for effective action rapidly narrows while fossil capital continues its reckless expansion. Despite overwhelming evidence of climate emergency, upstream oil and gas investments reached $528 billion in 2023, an 11% year-on-year increase that threatens to lock in catastrophic emissions for decades. The democratic control of energy systems has therefore become essential for both planetary survival and social justice – requiring organized workers to lead the conversion of fossil infrastructure as rapidly as possible.
The fruits of our Bogotá workshop thus extend far beyond Colombia’s borders. As workers across the global South confront similar challenges of economic dependency, climate imperatives, and corporate power, USO’s leadership provides a critical model of how labor can seize the initiative in energy transition planning. Working with member organizations like Brazil’s Federação Única dos Petroleiros (FUP) and through processes like South Africa’s G20 Presidency, the Progressive seeks to share the lessons of USO’s leadership to forge solidarities among energy workers worldwide – turning the principal geopolitical dispute of our time into the principal opportunity to secure shared and sustainable prosperity.
The negotiation process toward a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda – mediated by the United States – is still shrouded in secrecy.
On Friday, May 2, exactly one week after Kinshasa and Kigali had signed a “declaration of principles” in Washington, each capital was supposed to deliver the elements of a draft framework built around six pillars: territorial sovereignty, the fight against armed groups, the mineral trade, the return of displaced people and refugees, regional cooperation and the role of international forces.
The draft, however, is yet to materialize. The package under discussion – with a final peace treaty projected for June – also contains two bilateral economic deals with the U.S. One would channel multi-billion-dollar American investments into Congolese mines and related infrastructure. The other would reward Rwanda – long the sponsor of the AFC/M23 militia now lording it over eastern Congo – with development of its facilities to process, refine, and market minerals extracted in the DRC, legally funnelled through Rwanda and then exported to the United States. In short, Washington is giving its blessing to Kigali’s well-known triangulation approach.
However, Congolese civil society is refusing to stay silent. In a series of open letters addressed to international actors, it warns that, after 30 years of war, it will not accept that the crimes committed against the population should be forgotten, nor agree to the fire-sale of the DRC’s national resources as the price of a Kinshasa-Kigali accord.
Dozens of activists, scholars, jurists, researchers and doctors – among them Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege – have written to President Félix Tshisekedi: “Ten million of our compatriots survive today in the grip of armed violence and the terror of famine under the yoke of the occupying Rwandan army and its allies, the AFC/M23,” a tragedy “for which neighbouring states’ expansionist ambitions and Congo’s own failures of governance bear joint responsibility.”
Hence their plea that the head of state “must not sell off the country’s natural resources to the Kigali regime within the framework of regional economic integration promoted under the aegis of its U.S. patron.” They stress that “any agreement that strips the nation of its natural wealth would constitute the crime of pillage.” While they agree that “peace is the only perspective”, underground riches and natural resources can contribute to that goal only in a context of fairness. Under the Congolese Constitution, sovereignty rests with the people: before signing anything, Tshisekedi must consult the country’s “living forces,” parliament and civil society.
For its part, the South Kivu Civil Society Coordination Office has also written to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanding “truth and justice” as the path to peace and reconciliation under the rule of law. Since the AFC/M23 seized Bukavu and other areas “under the powerless gaze of the Congolese government,” murders, kidnappings, rapes and thefts have multiplied, all with impunity. Jobs have vanished, along with even the bare minimum of security. Backed by the Italian network Insieme per la Pace in Congo, the activists ask Türk to “send investigators from other countries to Bukavu to work with us, the protagonists of civil society” to tamp down abuses, and to set in motion a path toward an international criminal tribunal for the DRC, along with specialized mixed chambers within Congolese courts.
A coalition of NGOs from eastern Congo has also written to Donald Trump: “The Congolese people will be legitimately entitled to oppose – by every lawful and factual means – any mineral deal that fails to involve them directly and through their representatives in parliament and civil society.”
Meanwhile, business-first diplomacy continues in Qatar, where Kinshasa is negotiating both with the M23 and with Kigali. So much for the mantra of “African solutions to African problems.”
