Petro at CELAC: "We Must Decide Whether We Help Each Other or Retreat Into Loneliness"

When Gustavo Petro addressed the 9th CELAC Summit in Honduras in April 2025, he reached for Latin America's most famous novel to make his point. The reference to García Márquez was deliberate—and devastating.

"We can either face the world alone, as in One Hundred Years of Solitude, or we can act as a united humanity and support one another."

The García Márquez Strategy

One Hundred Years of Solitude is, beneath its magical realism, a tragedy of isolation. The Buendía family—and by extension, Latin America—is doomed to repeat its mistakes because it remains cut off, insular, unable to learn from others or itself.

Petro's invocation was a warning: continue on the path of fragmentation, and the region faces another century of solitude. The alternative is unity—the path Bolívar charted and Petro proposes to revive.

What is CELAC?

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was founded in 2011 as a counterweight to U.S.-dominated bodies like the Organization of American States (OAS). Its membership includes all 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean—pointedly excluding the United States and Canada.

For Petro, CELAC represents the institutional framework through which Latin American unity can be built. Unlike the OAS, which has historically served as a vehicle for U.S. foreign policy, CELAC is a space where Latin Americans can coordinate without external interference.

The 2025 EU-CELAC Summit

As CELAC's 2025 Pro Tempore President, Petro hosted the EU-CELAC Summit in Santa Marta, Colombia. The choice of location was symbolic: Santa Marta is where Bolívar died in 1830, impoverished and disillusioned, his dream of unity shattered.

The summit brought together European and Latin American leaders to discuss trade, climate cooperation, and regional security. For Petro, it was an opportunity to demonstrate that Latin America could engage as a bloc—not as 33 fragmented nations easily played against each other.

Building Toward the Proposal

The CELAC summits were stepping stones toward Petro's January 2026 confederation proposal. Each gathering allowed him to:

• Build relationships with other Latin American leaders
• Test messaging around regional integration
• Identify potential allies and opponents
• Establish Colombia as a leader of the integration movement

By the time Petro unveiled his Gran Colombia proposal, he had spent years cultivating the diplomatic groundwork. The proposal didn't emerge from nowhere—it emerged from a sustained campaign of regional engagement, with CELAC at its center.

The Choice

Petro's framing of the choice—solidarity or solitude—cuts to the heart of Latin America's dilemma. For two centuries, the region has tried fragmentation. The results speak for themselves: poverty, instability, vulnerability to foreign interference.

The alternative remains what it was in Bolívar's time: unity. Not the erasure of national identities, but coordination in the face of common challenges. Not a single state, but a confederation of partners.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude," Petro suggested, was not just a novel. It was a diagnosis—and a warning. The prescription? Gran Colombia.