Three days after the ceremony, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit western Colombia and rewrote the agenda entirely. The inheritance came first, though, and it is the reason he is president at all.

The numbers that elected him

The Centro de Paz y Seguridad (Center for Peace and Security) at Universidad Externado counted 40,663 homicides in Colombia between August 2022 and August 2025 — Gustavo Petro’s first three years in office — an annual average of 13,554. Over the equivalent stretch under Iván Duque, the figure was 37,795, averaging 12,598 a year, and under Juan Manuel Santos it was 36,646, averaging 12,215. El Tiempo published the center’s findings in December 2025.

Under Paz Total (Total Peace), the policy that opened simultaneous negotiations with practically every armed and criminal structure in the country, those structures grew. Infobae reported a military intelligence count showing membership rising from 15,120 in December 2022 to 25,278 by July 2025, an increase of 10,158, concentrated in the Nariño Pacific, Catatumbo, Cauca, Bajo Cauca Antioqueño and Arauca — zones, in Infobae’s words, of weak institutional presence. The Fundación Ideas para la Paz (Ideas for Peace Foundation), working from the same count, puts 48 percent of that total under arms and the remaining 52 percent in support networks. By July 2026 the figure had reached 28,802, a 90 percent increase across the Petro years, according to El Colombiano. That is not an interpretation of the policy; it is the count.

The sharpest version of that failure, for a business, is extortion. Ministry of Defense data reviewed by La FM shows 2,914 extortion complaints filed in the first three months of 2026, the highest quarterly figure in 10 years. Gen. William Rincón, director of the National Police, told La FM that more complaints do not automatically mean more crimes, and put the year-over-year increase at 13.1 percent for the same period. La FM identifies merchants, shopkeepers, cattlemen and small business owners as the standing victims of that economy.

A mandate Medellín paid for

De la Espriella won the June 21, 2026, runoff with 12,959,542 votes against 12,708,712 for Iván Cepeda — a margin of 250,830 votes, which El Tiempo put at 0.96 percentage points of all ballots cast, blank and null included, in the Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (National Civil Registry) preliminary count. MercoPress called it the narrowest margin in a Colombian runoff in 32 years. In the same El Tiempo breakdown, Medellín gave him 819,285 votes against 421,839 for Cepeda — a net margin of about 397,000, larger than the entire national margin, out of a single metropolitan area. Bogotá went the other way, 2,235,514 to 1,933,243. World Population Review puts Bogotá at roughly 7.9 million against 2.5 million for Medellín, so the smaller city delivered the decisive block. Take Medellín out of the arithmetic and Abelardo de la Espriella is not the president of Colombia.

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That is arithmetic, not commentary, and Medellín knows it. The city will expect a return, and an itemized one: the international airport expansion, highway concessions, hard security and continued support for the business climate that made it a destination for nearshoring and technology investment. That is the first political claim on the new government, and it arrives ahead of everything else in the program.

The inauguration was supposed to happen somewhere else. De la Espriella wanted to be sworn in at a military garrison in Popayán, and the Senate approved moving Congress to Cauca for it. Petro killed that on July 24, 2026: “I give no permission to any garrison or military establishment to make itself ready for the swearing-in of any official of the civil power in Colombia,” he said, in a statement carried by El Colombiano that extended to the Army, the Navy and the National Police. La Silla Vacía traced what followed: the House approved the switch to Cali 117 to 7 on July 28, the Senate followed on July 29 by 58 to 30 with 15 abstentions, and de la Espriella’s team cited volcanic activity around Popayán, whose Guillermo León Valencia airport had been shut more than a third of the preceding 20 days. Pacto Histórico (Historic Pact) lost its own blocking motion 114 to 6 and then announced it would not attend the ceremony at all. Per MercoPress, Congress convened at Universidad Santiago de Cali’s arena, Senate President Honorio Henríquez placed the presidential sash on him, and de la Espriella then moved to the Pichincha Battalion, where he spoke to armed forces and police commanders for more than an hour. The same report lists King Felipe VI of Spain among the attendees, along with Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Santiago Peña of Paraguay and José Raúl Mulino of Panama, with José Antonio Kast of Chile there for bilateral meetings on the sidelines, and records Cepeda ending the day by announcing a shadow cabinet.

Worth noting, because it complicates the symbolism: Cali voted against him, 682,166 to 443,047, and so did Barranquilla, 375,178 to 309,652 — the city he wants recognized as an alternate capital. That designation is not ordinary legislation. Infobae laid out the route: Article 322 of the Constitution makes Bogotá the sole capital and Capital District, so recognizing Barranquilla requires an acto legislativo (constitutional amendment) — eight debates across two rounds, against the four an ordinary law needs. “The forgetting is over, the neglect is over, the centralist abandonment is over,” de la Espriella said in announcing it, per Semana. He has cast it as a break with Rafael Núñez: “A hundred and forty years ago Colombia did not have a president from the Caribbean. The last was President Núñez. But I am not going to make Núñez’s mistake. I am not going to defend the centralism that President Núñez defended. I am going to defend decentralization,” he said, in remarks reported by Infobae. The physical seat is already going up: El Heraldo reported that the Army’s Second Brigade at the Batallón Paraíso will house it, with the Atlántico governor’s office under Eduardo Verano executing the works. El Tiempo counts three regional seats in all: Barranquilla, plus the Centro Cultural de Cali, offered by Mayor Alejandro Eder and plaqued as an alternate presidential seat, and Medellín’s Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe. In Bogotá itself the presidency moves to the Palacio de San Carlos, which currently houses the Foreign Ministry, while the Casa de Nariño becomes a museum open to the public.

His diagnosis is sound, and the problem is older than any of us: power in Colombia has been concentrated in the capital since independence, and the coast, the Pacific, the plains and the south have paid for it. Whether this becomes an actual redistribution of investment and institutional capacity, or a series of well-photographed ceremonies in cities that did not vote for him, will take a year or more to read.

A mandate without a legislature

The Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) granted legal status to de la Espriella’s Defensores de la Patria (Defenders of the Homeland) on August 3, 2026 — six magistrates in favor, one against and two absent — on the strength of the 12,960,166 votes certified to the ticket in the final scrutiny — 624 more than the preliminary count above — or 49.66 percent, nearly 14 times the 3 percent threshold the law requires, as Infobae reported. He was inaugurated four days later. The party holds no seats in either chamber; Infobae puts its first electoral outing at the regional elections of October 2027, and the next congressional cycle is March 2030.

The Congress he has to work with was elected on March 8, 2026, and seated on July 20, 2026. El País of Cali reported Pacto Histórico rising from the 20 Senate seats it won in 2022 to 25, and Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) from 13 to 17. In the House, La República counted 183 seats, with Pacto Histórico again the largest bloc at 41, Centro Democrático second at 30 and the Partido Liberal (Liberal Party) at 24, one Cundinamarca seat still disputed. The largest single bloc in both chambers belongs to the coalition he just defeated.

That matters more than the usual first-100-days handicapping, because the marquee items all need a legislature. Abolishing the Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute), or INPEC, would require statutory change and a redefinition of the state’s role in prison administration. The alternate capital requires a constitutional amendment. So would eliminating the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace), or JEP, a tribunal created by constitutional amendment under the 2016 peace accord. What a president can do alone is issue decrees and direct the security forces, and that is what week one consisted of.

The traditional right cannot rescue him, because it is coming apart at exactly the moment he needs it. Centro Democrático’s candidate, Paloma Valencia, won the right-wing inter-party consultation in March 2026 with more than 3 million votes and had been polling near 20 percent going into the May 31, 2026, first round. A Guarumo poll published by El Tiempo had her at 19.9 percent in March 2026, up from 6.9 percent in January. She finished the May 31 first round with 1,639,668 votes, 6.92 percent, behind de la Espriella’s 43.74 percent and Cepeda’s 40.90 percent, per El Espectador’s tally of the Registraduría count — ending roughly where she had started the year. A party founded in 2013 to be the wall against the Colombian left finished third, behind both the man who beat it and the left coalition it exists to stop.

María Fernanda Cabal left the party in January 2026 along with her husband, José Félix Lafaurie, who heads the Federación Colombiana de Ganaderos (Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers), telling Infobae that the internal process which selected Valencia over her was irregular. In August 2026, she went further and filed for an escisión (a formal legal split) of the party. “No party can survive when it renounces the ideas that gave it origin,” she wrote, in remarks also carried by Infobae. Valencia, for her part, told a meeting in Antioquia that “we have to understand very clearly what party we are in. This is not a right-wing party.”

Álvaro Uribe’s own legal position complicates the popular version of this story. Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia sentenced him on August 1, 2025, to 12 years of house detention and a fine of $3.444 billion COP for procedural fraud and bribery in a criminal proceeding, the first former Colombian president convicted by the ordinary courts after waiving his congressional privilege in 2020. “The damage was colossal,” she said, as El Espectador reported. The Tribunal Superior de Bogotá (Bogotá Superior Court) acquitted him on October 21, 2025, finding he had committed neither offense. Infobae reported that the court held the interceptions of Uribe’s calls with his attorney Diego Cadena to be illegal and threw them out, and found contradictions and personal motives in the accounts of the former paramilitaries whose testimony carried the case. The Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) and the accredited victims filed cassation appeals with the Corte Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Court of Justice) on January 13, 2026, as Infobae reported, and Infobae also reported the court halting the proceeding in February 2026 over a recusal motion against one of its magistrates. Convicted, then un-convicted, with the final word still pending.

Regardless of how that ends, the political cost has landed. Centro Democrático was built around Uribe’s personal ability to anoint a candidate and deliver the votes behind them, and the legal fight, his age and the unpopularity of the Duque administration have drained that ability. The loyalists still worship the man, but his base is aging along with him and that circle is visibly shrinking. Younger conservatives who were not around to admire his successes against the guerrillas went a different direction this cycle, in some respects further right than Uribe and his movement.

“The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government.” — Abelardo de la Espriella, president of Colombia

The program, and what it will cost

On his first day, de la Espriella signed the decree creating the Bloque de Defensa para la Seguridad Urbana (Urban Security Defense Block), which he had announced on July 5, 2026, while convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga. “To issue effective measures matched to the needs of the worst-affected cities, I am convening the mayors of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga so that, starting from their needs, we can create the largest urban security operation in Colombia,” he said, in remarks reported by El Tiempo. Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galán backed it in the same account: “the country needs to redefine its criminal policy. Far from rewarding criminal gangs, we must punish them. Anyone who commits a violent crime or reoffends in criminal conduct that harms the lives of others belongs in prison, not on the streets.” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez answered, in a post carried by El Heraldo, “We are ready, President Abelardo de la Espriella… The only ones who should feel afraid are the criminals.” His inauguration address added a tax reform aimed at evasion, elimination of the wealth tax, publication of an official list of narco-terrorist organizations, coca eradication and financial inclusion for informal workers, according to MercoPress.

The centerpiece of the longer program is a set of maximum-security megacárceles (mega-prisons) modeled on the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, built by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Speaking to Caracol Radio in March 2026, in an interview Infobae wrote up, he described “ten mega-prisons in the middle of nowhere, where not even the signal of the Holy Cross gets in,” to be built with private capital in exchange for concessions of “fifty, seventy, eighty years, whatever it takes,” and confirmed the Bukele model when asked directly. On INPEC he was blunter: “INPEC is a cancer for Colombian justice and for Colombian society. It has to be taken out.” The number is not settled — El Tiempo’s summary of his 10 governing pillars put it at seven. A senior Salvadoran government official said Bukele’s administration is willing to advise Colombia on the build, in an interview with Semana reported by Chicanoticias. Medellín is not waiting: Gutiérrez has announced a high-security facility for more than 1,300 inmates, financed with public and private funds, guarded by its own dedicated force rather than INPEC officers, and expected to open in 2027, according to AFP reporting carried by France 24.

The baseline is genuinely bad. A Contraloría (Comptroller General) review running to 306 findings, reported by El Tiempo, puts overcrowding at 27.1 percent at the close of March 2026, against 19.9 percent in February 2022. Installed capacity rose by 378 beds in four years, from 80,647 to 81,025, while the inmate population grew by 6,246, from 96,703 to 102,949. El Tiempo puts the guard shortfall at up to 12,000, even as the custody corps itself grew from 12,715 to 14,142 officers. The economics are the harder problem. La Nación of Neiva estimates each facility at more than $1 trillion COP and three to four years to build, and cites the Universidad de los Andes security and drugs research center noting that five earlier national planning-council prison-infrastructure plans rarely executed more than 20 percent of their targets, while the combined budget of INPEC and the prison services agency USPEC went from $1.6 trillion COP to more than $4 trillion COP between 2015 and 2025 without improving recidivism.

Colombia does not bring a strong balance sheet to that negotiation. The Finance Ministry’s own investor relations office lists S&P Global Ratings at BB- in foreign currency with a stable outlook as of April 2026, Fitch Ratings at BB stable as of December 2025, and Moody’s Ratings at Baa3 stable as of June 2025 — two of the three agencies below investment grade, with Moody’s alone still holding the sovereign at its lowest investment-grade notch. The April cut was Colombia’s fourth on S&P’s scale since 2020, El Espectador reported, quoting José Ignacio López of the financial research institute ANIF that the country “keeps moving away from investment grade.” A government proposing a mega-prison program on that scale, a national urban security surge and the elimination of the wealth tax, from that starting point, will be judged on sequencing rather than on ambition.

Then the ground moved

At 7:34 a.m. on Monday, August 10, 2026, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia, centered on San José del Palmar in Chocó, a community of 4,800 people about 400 kilometers west of Bogotá. Al Jazeera, reporting with AP and Reuters, sourced the epicenter to the United States Geological Survey and put the toll at 250 dead or more by August 11, with more than 2,700 people reported missing on citizen-run websites and about 1,600 buildings damaged or destroyed. Several upper floors of Cali’s Hospital Universitario del Valle collapsed, including pediatric wards, with roughly 600 patients treated in a street full of rubble; hospital director Irne Torres Castro described the scene to Caracol television. The same report cites the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Service) recording 21 aftershocks by late Monday, and quotes Camila Gómez, deputy director of programs for Colombia and Venezuela at the International Rescue Committee, calling it the largest earthquake Colombia has experienced in two decades.

Imágenes desgarradoras del terremoto en Pereira muestra como se les viene encima la casita a esta familia. Pensando más en lo material que en sus vidas, pero nadie sabe cuánto costó conseguirlo. #terremoto #temblor pic.twitter.com/i7gqeZmy5B

— Don Ramon (@RuedaJohnn37191) August 15, 2026

Per that same account, de la Espriella declared a national state of emergency, mobilized what he called “the entire military and police apparatus,” traveled to Quibdó and to Cali, and promised rental subsidies for people whose homes were damaged. Curfews went up in Cali, Armenia and Manizales; hospitals in five cities went to red alert; airports at Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura suspended operations for structural inspection. “Chocó will never again be the land of the forgotten,” he said in Quibdó. MercoPress reported his appointment of geological engineer David Suárez Tamayo to head the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit).

That Quibdó sentence is the decentralization argument, delivered under conditions nobody would have chosen. Counting the departments behind the cities named above — Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Quindío and Caldas — the quake hit the exact periphery the alternate-capital project is nominally about, and it hit the department where he had been sworn in three days earlier. It is also the first hard test of a government whose organizing promise is that the state can show up where it never has. On the early evidence, the machinery is being learned in real time. Colombia requested supplies but not foreign rescue personnel, despite offers from at least six countries, issuing a diplomatic note on August 11, 2026, that MercoPress noted does not formally amount to an international appeal. The same report has Bukele making Colombia’s position public before Bogotá did, and quotes international relations scholar Sandra Borda saying “the government is learning on the go how the mechanism works,” and that cities cannot channel aid directly. The posture shifted within days. By August 15, in the same El Tiempo report that carried his call with Trump, the Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit), or UNGRD, had begun formalizing requests for specialized teams from the United States, El Salvador, Ecuador and Israel, and de la Espriella had thanked Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone for the Israeli search-and-rescue crews.

🔴Se conocen impactantes imágenes del momento exacto en el que colapsó una edificación en la entrada del Centro del Comercio, en la ciudad de Pereira, durante el terremoto de 7,4 que se registró en Colombia el pasado 10 de agosto.

Las grabaciones muestran la caída de fragmentos… pic.twitter.com/oNZGvdbCJC

— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) August 14, 2026

For the fiscal picture above, the quake is not a footnote. Reconstruction across those five departments now competes directly with prison concessions and an urban security surge for the same constrained peso. That belongs in any risk model built on the strength of the new security program.

Washington promises a billion dollars, and raises the tariff

The external position moved faster than anything domestic. On inauguration day, the US State Department released a statement titled “A New Era in US-Colombia Relations”, announcing that Washington, in coordination with Congress, intends to provide $1 billion USD as part of a security package supporting the new administration. El Tiempo noted the money is not approved: the statement says only that Washington will work with Congress to assemble it. The reversal it implies is still steep. US assistance to Colombia, which once ran at about $400 million USD a year, fell to roughly $187 million USD during the first year of Trump’s second term, according to a report to the US Congress cited by Infobae — a cut made in Washington, not in Bogotá, during a period of open dispute over drug policy. In 2025, the United States declined to certify Colombia’s counternarcotics performance for the first time since 1997, with a national-interest waiver that withheld the harshest consequences.

MercoPress reported that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche led the US delegation to the inauguration, with Office of National Drug Control Policy director Sara Carter and the vice president’s national security adviser, Cliff Sims; Donald Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio did not travel. The same State Department statement folded Colombia into Escudo de las Américas (Shield of the Americas), a regional security initiative backed by the Trump administration. De la Espriella had already placed its Colombian seat in Medellín, announcing on July 22, 2026, that the headquarters would go there “because this is where the head of the serpent of drug trafficking and organized crime is,” in remarks reported by Portafolio — a strategic choice, and also a second payment on the electoral debt described earlier.

Five days after the inauguration that relationship acquired a considerably harder edge. At an Escudo de las Américas meeting in Panama on August 12, 2026, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new Colombian government had asked Washington to join its fight against narcoterrorism, “authorizing joint military operations to destroy the terrorists and the terror networks,” and named Colombia the 19th member of the Coalition Against the Cartels of the Americas. El Universal of Cartagena reported the announcement, and Vanguardia and El Tiempo both described what was authorized as joint military operations inside Colombia. That is a different proposition from an assistance package. Aid is a budget line Washington can adjust; foreign forces operating alongside Colombian ones inside Colombia is a sovereignty question, and it was settled in the first week of a presidency that commands no bloc in Congress. Whether that arrangement stays executive or ends up before the legislature is among the most consequential open questions he leaves himself.

The billion-dollar headline needs one piece of context that did not make the statement. CBS News reported that at the end of July 2026, roughly a week before the “new era” release, the United States raised its general tariff on Colombian imports from 10 percent to 12.5 percent, with exceptions including coffee and oil. After the earthquake, de la Espriella’s first substantive ask of Trump was to undo it. He told El Tiempo that the 10-minute call was “very friendly and cordial,” that he had asked Trump to consider a temporary suspension “to relieve our businesspeople, who are facing very difficult times because of the effects of the earthquake,” and that he had described the task ahead as rebuilding Colombia “in the middle of the economic situation — so difficult, so apocalyptic — that I inherited.” CBS News put the accompanying US assistance at $26.5 million USD, up from the $15.5 million USD announced on the day of the quake.

In his victory speech in Barranquilla, covered at the time by Finance Colombia, he framed the shift as Colombia returning to its place among the free nations, as a serious partner and a loyal ally rather than a dependent one. A relationship in which the ally sets your tariff rate and you ask for relief by telephone is a workable relationship. Whether it stays reciprocal, or curdles into dependency on whichever administration holds the White House, is a fair question over four years, and it is worth asking no matter who is in Washington.

Troublesome tendencies in Abelardo’s background

Between 2008 and 2019, de la Espriella filed 109 criminal complaints for defamation and slander against journalists, reporters and other citizens, according to Fiscalía figures provided to the Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (Foundation for Press Freedom), or FLIP. Most were archived, withdrawn or went nowhere, which is precisely FLIP’s point about them: the organization argues that the effect of repeated recourse to lawsuits, injunctions, rectification demands and platform complaints is measured not in convictions but in legal costs, attrition and self-censorship.

Ahead of the runoff, FLIP and the International Federation for Human Rights issued a joint statement describing a pattern of attacks against the press, and FLIP’s own June 18, 2026, statement characterized it as “public disparagement, accusations of alleged political agendas, judicial harassment of journalists, baseless challenges to editorial independence, and actions aimed at undermining journalism on matters of public interest related to his candidacy.” The same LatAm Journalism Review summary records de la Espriella’s answer, that it is necessary to “set limits on journalists who believe they are untouchable.” He now says that with the machinery of the state behind him rather than a private lawyer’s caseload. Whether he has matured on this point, or simply acquired better tools, is one of the first real tests of the term.

In July 2026, he announced the closure of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace along with the presidential offices for National Reconciliation and for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, folding their functions into the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Defense ministries on the argument that those competencies already sit there and the offices duplicate them. “The peace commissioner’s office is finished, because there will be no more false peace processes in my government,” he said, as El Tiempo reported. The Unit for Implementation of the Final Agreement goes with them, its responsibilities passing to a new National Security Commissioner — the postconflict brief absorbed into a security structure. Infobae put the scope at 229 positions cut from the Presidency as of August 7, 2026, for a projected annual saving of $10 billion COP. Winding down a negotiating strategy that failed on the numbers above is a defensible decision. El Tiempo’s reading of the rest is the part worth sitting with: the move dismantles the two offices that tracked state human rights policy and compliance with Colombia’s international commitments, and leaves those subjects with no unit reporting directly to the president.

The prison model carries the same risk in another form. The attraction of Bukele’s system, in de la Espriella’s own telling, is the collapse in gang violence that followed it. What it also produced is documented: Amnesty International found that four years into El Salvador’s state of emergency more than 90,000 people had been detained and at least 470 had died in state custody, in a report titled «Seguridad» sin derechos (“Security” Without Rights) built on six documentation visits between May 2022 and January 2025, 109 interviews and direct examination of more than 80 individual cases. The organization argues the pattern could amount to crimes against humanity. Whether Colombia’s version imports the first result without the second is unknown, because the program does not exist yet. It belongs near the top of the watch list for the coming year, and not only on financial grounds.

What to watch

In the Barranquilla victory speech quoted earlier, de la Espriella struck a different note than his record suggests: no victors and no vanquished, no retaliation, no persecution, rights respected even for those who did not vote for him. With a margin under 1 percentage point, a party four days old at inauguration and no bloc in Congress, that posture is arithmetic before it is generosity. It is also the only version of this presidency with a chance of surviving past a single term.

The collapse documented here fell hardest on low-income Colombians in the cities and the countryside — the people without private security, who cannot simply avoid a dangerous neighborhood. If the crackdown that began under the urban security decree goes after the armed structures themselves rather than the poorest people living next to them, the homicide and extortion trends can reverse. If it does not, the country trades one set of victims for another and buys a human rights problem on top of a security problem.

Five markers will tell the story faster than any speech. Whether quarterly extortion and homicide figures move, and in which municipalities. Whether financing for the prison program appears as an actual budget line rather than a concession announcement, now that reconstruction has a prior claim on it. Whether the Corte Suprema rules on Uribe, and what that does to what is left of Centro Democrático. Whether the alternate-capital amendment survives even the first of its eight debates. And whether any rating agency moves an outlook on the strength of the new fiscal posture, or against it on the cost of the quake.

The armed groups tested every recent transition in Colombia early, and there is no reason to expect this one to be different. The FARC dissident structures and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, will test the response, and the way this administration answers that first test — in Cauca, in Catatumbo, in the Bajo Cauca — will tell you more about the next four years than the first 100 days of decrees.

An explosive attack on the Pan-American Highway near the municipality of Cajibío, in Colombia’s Cauca department, left at least 21 people dead and 56 injured, Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez Suárez confirmed.

The attack occurred Saturday, April 25, on one of the main roads in the country’s southwest, an area historically affected by the presence of illegal armed groups.

The minister attributed the attack to alias “Marlon,” described as one of the most wanted leaders in the region, “for whom we are offering a reward of up to $1.4 million USD,” he said.

According to local media reports cited by El Tiempo, “the attack was initially intended to target army troops. However, a change in military plans reportedly led to the explosive being detonated while civilians were passing through the area.”

The impact of the attack was significant. Spain’s El País reported “that the explosion created a large crater, left the road covered in debris, and forced rescue operations that lasted several hours due to difficult access conditions.”

Aerial view of the crater caused by the explosion on the Pan-American Highway. Photo courtesy of Colombia’s Ministry of Defense.

Cauca Governor Octavio Guzmán described the incident as one of the most serious attacks in the region in decades. “What happened on April 25 constitutes the most brutal and ruthless attack against civilians in decades,” he said.

The attack comes amid a resurgence of violence in southwestern Colombia, where illegal armed groups linked to drug trafficking, illegal mining and other illicit economies operate. Authorities continue operations in the area as investigations proceed to clarify the circumstances of the attack and determine responsibility.

According to reports by BBC Mundo, alias “Marlon” is a dissident FARC leader identified as Iván Jacobo Idrobo Arredondo, “the alleged head of the Jaime Martínez structure, part of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC),” one of the country’s most powerful illegal armed groups.

Operations and arrests

As part of response operations, the National Police reported the capture of José Alex Bitoco, alias “David” or “Mi Pez,” identified as the leader of the Dagoberto Ramos structure, another illegal armed faction, who is believed to have acted under orders from alias “Marlon”.

National Police Director Gen. William Rincón Zambrano said the detainee “will have to answer for the wave of terrorist activity” and linked him directly to the attack, stating that “he is responsible for what happened on April 25 in the El Túnel sector on the Pan-American Highway.”

The Defense Ministry reiterated that alias “Marlon” remains a priority target. “He is a high-value target, and we are searching for him with all the capabilities of the state. We have deployed a dedicated intelligence task force to locate him,” Sánchez said, confirming a reward of up to $1.4 million USD for information leading to his capture.

Context: criticism of “Paz Total” policy (Total Peace)

The attack comes amid growing security deterioration in Colombia, intensifying criticism of President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” policy. The Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP) has warned of a possible failure of the strategy, noting that “less than four months before the end of the government, the lack of progress in peace negotiations and the deterioration of security have become one of the main points of criticism of the Petro administration.”

According to the think tank, during the current administration “the number of disputed territories between illegal actors has nearly doubled, and the number of members in these structures has increased by 85%: they now total more than 27,000 members, including armed individuals and support networks.”

This figure not only represents a significant increase but also places the country at levels similar to, and even higher than, those seen before the peace process with the FARC began. Between 2011 and 2012, the estimate stood at around 26,800 members, compared with 14,600 at the end of Iván Duque’s administration in 2022.

The recent increase has also been rapid. According to the FIP, armed groups grew by 23.5% over the past year (from December 2024 to December 2025), reflecting a swift reconfiguration of these structures. At the same time, violence has intensified. Analysts such as Professor Karol Solís Menco note that over the weekend of April 25–26 alone, “26 terrorist attacks of varying magnitude” were recorded across the country.

Political analysis outlets point to a structural dynamic. According to La Silla Vacía, “Cauca is not experiencing an isolated event, but rather a phase of intensifying territorialized violence, marked by fragmentation among armed actors and a type of violence capable of producing national-level impacts.”

In this context, FARC dissident groups have once again taken center stage in the conflict. “Once again, attention is turning to FARC dissidents. Every attack, every gas cylinder bomb, every assault in Valle and Cauca ends with the same name on the table: the Jaime Martínez structure, one of the strongest groups of Iván Mordisco’s Estado Mayor Central,” El País reported.

Violence indicators also reflect sustained deterioration. “In the first four months of 2026, Colombia has already recorded 48 massacres, with 229 victims, most of them civilians, according to Indepaz. It is the highest figure in the past decade. With these numbers, which represent only a partial picture of the country’s violence, this election year is shaping up to be the most violent since the 2016 peace agreement with the now-defunct FARC guerrilla group,” the same outlet reported.

Cauca, where the attack took place, is considered one of the most sensitive regions. “Cauca is particularly complex because it combines multiple layers of conflict: the historic presence of Indigenous, peasant and Afro-descendant communities; illicit economies; Pacific corridors; disputes over drug trafficking routes; control of the Pan-American Highway; and the presence of FARC dissidents, particularly structures linked to Iván Mordisco,” El País said.

Experts agree that part of the difficulty lies in the design and implementation of the government’s strategy. “Early implementation was a valuable innovation in intent, but it failed to ensure minimum conditions of verification and institutional coherence,” said analyst Germán Valencia of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares).

Taken together, these factors have led various sectors to conclude that the “Total Peace” policy faces serious structural limitations amid a scenario of armed fragmentation and territorial expansion by illegal groups.

This grim reality was made evident in late January when the army seized more than 2,600 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including landmines belonging to the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) in Tibú, in the Catatumbo region. Just days earlier, authorities had confiscated 300 landmines in the same area from FARC dissidents. Roads, rural paths, and farms in the region have become impassable.

The increase in demining efforts, landmine seizures, and suspected minefields reported by Colombian authorities in 2024 underscores that, despite the historic decline in landmine use since the 2016 Peace Agreement, criminal groups in the country continue to deploy these devices in their territorial disputes.

Throughout 2024, Colombia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Peace reported 998 incidents related to anti-personnel mines (APMs) and unexploded ordnance (UXO), including demining activities, reports of suspected minefields, and the seizure of these devices, most of which were handmade.

These figures represent an over 11% increase compared to the previous year, which saw 896 incidents. The upward trend has continued since 2021, when 316 incidents were recorded, followed by 412 in 2022. Experts consulted by InSight Crime agree that no single factor explains this surge.

A staggering 94% of the reported incidents were related to demining operations. Increased military activity in strategic areas and greater accessibility to former conflict zones—once heavily mined during the war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) and the state before the 2016 Peace Agreement—account for many of these cases. However, other areas remain inaccessible to both military and humanitarian demining operations due to the control exerted by armed groups.

In Cauca and Nariño, the number of incidents surpassed those recorded immediately after the Peace Agreement: 58 and 69 incidents, respectively, that year. A similar trend has been seen in other departments with lower historical mine activity, such as Guaviare, Casanare, Bolívar, and Cesar.

Although Colombia signed the Ottawa Treaty banning the use and destruction of anti-personnel mines in 1997, it wasn’t until 2016 that the country’s largest guerrilla group and primary user of landmines—the FARC—committed to demining efforts as part of their demobilization.

“In the years following the Peace Agreement, the impact of landmines had dropped dramatically. Now, we are seeing figures reminiscent of the early post-agreement period, with the added problem that today, civilians are more affected than military personnel,” said Camilo Serna, director of the Colombian Campaign Against Mines (Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas), in an interview with InSight Crime.

Below are the three main reasons why landmine use has resurged in Colombia.

1. Criminal Disputes

Military pressure and ongoing territorial disputes in an increasingly fragmented criminal landscape have led some armed groups to resume planting landmines.

In Arauca, bordering Venezuela, authorities reported 101 incidents, mostly in the municipalities of Arauquita and Puerto Rondón, where the ELN’s Eastern War Front (Frente de Guerra Oriental) and the FARC dissidents’ 10th and 28th Fronts operate.

In Cauca and Nariño, key departments for coca cultivation, cocaine production, and trafficking corridors to Ecuador, 142 and 318 incidents were recorded, respectively. Most incidents occurred in the municipalities of Argelia and Tumaco, where FARC dissident factions and the ELN are locked in violent battles for control of these illicit economies.

SEE ALSO: BACRIM Turn to Landmines in Colombia

“Today, armed groups are fighting each other and using landmines against one another. It is no longer a tactical tool primarily used against government troops moving through an area,” Serna explained.

In Catatumbo, a strategic border region with Venezuela, the ELN’s Northeastern War Front (Frente de Guerra Nororiental) has been clashing with the FARC dissidents’ 33rd Front since early January. Landmine use in this area has also prevented authorities from conducting demining operations for years.

According to Colombia’s Deputy Inspector General for Peace Agreement Monitoring, Javier Sarmiento, who has been tracking the humanitarian crisis in Catatumbo, the presence of landmines has made it impossible for over 50,000 displaced people to return home safely.

In other strategic regions for organized crime—such as Chocó, Cauca, and Arauca—increased military presence and demining operations have prompted armed groups to use more explosives to defend their territories.

2. The Fragmentation of FARC Dissidents

In 2024, Colombian authorities attributed 618 landmine-related incidents to the various dissident factions of the FARC. These figures, alongside those from 2023 (638 incidents), mark the highest landmine use by these groups since the Peace Agreement. Before then, FARC dissidents had never been linked to more than 222 such incidents in a single year.

The fragmentation of these groups—previously divided between the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) and Segunda Marquetalia but now splintering even further—has fueled clashes where landmines are a key battlefield tactic.

The ELN, a long-time user of landmines, was responsible for 164 of the incidents recorded in 2024.

Beyond the ELN and FARC dissidents, other armed groups were responsible for 47 landmine-related incidents in 2024—the highest number ever recorded for this category.

SEE ALSO: Gaitanistas Landmines are Guerrilla Tactic from Colombia’s Dark Past

Among them, the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC) stand out. Though they typically use direct armed force to exert control, their increasing involvement in landmine incidents suggests knowledge transfer. Following the FARC’s demobilization, some former guerrilla fighters were recruited by the AGC, bringing new tactics to the group’s military operations.

Disputed territories—where the ELN, FARC dissidents, and AGC are vying for control—are the main hotspots for landmine replanting in Colombia.

3. The Rise of IEDs

IEDs can be built using easily accessible materials, some of which have become more durable. Technological innovations, such as the use of PVC tubes, have extended the lifespan of these devices by better protecting the internal ignition mechanisms, which may include electronic triggers or more sophisticated pressure-activated systems.

“It is now extremely difficult to control because numerous groups and individuals know how to build both command-detonated improvised explosive devices and victim-activated landmines,” an anti-personnel mine expert told InSight Crime on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

In the end, the combination of ongoing armed group conflicts, tactical knowledge transfer between the key former FARC factions at the heart of the conflict, and the ease of manufacturing these devices has severely hindered Colombia’s demining efforts.

This article, written by Beatriz Vicent Fernández, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America. It has been generously shared with Finance Colombia under a Creative Commons license.

President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace (Paz Total) policy, designed to negotiate agreements with the country’s main armed groups and criminal gangs, is struggling to make any headway as he passes the halfway point of his four-year administration. The negotiations have had profound effects on the criminal dynamics in the country.

SEE ALSO: What Is Behind Increased Violence in Colombia?

After initial progress in dialogue with the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), talks collapsed in May last year when a faction of the group split off to pursue separate peace negotiations. The ELN’s extensive infrastructure and leadership in Venezuela, where Nicolás Maduro remains in power following a widely criticized election, has further undermined the chances of peace with the Marxist-Leninist rebel force.

Similarly, negotiations with dissidents of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) have faced significant setbacks. Fragmentation within these groups has sparked infighting, with splinter factions emerging from the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) and the Second Marquetalia, the two largest dissident factions. As a result, the government is engaging with only a small portion of each group.

The country’s most powerful drug-trafficking organization, the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), remains largely outside the Total Peace framework. Efforts have been stalled by the absence of a legal framework for negotiations and a potential peace deal. Similar legal obstacles have hindered progress in “urban peace laboratories” in cities like Buenaventura, Quibdó, and Medellín, where gangs dominate neighborhoods through drug trafficking and extortion rackets.

As Petro begins the third year of his presidency, InSight Crime reviews the key developments in Colombia’s peace dialogues and examines their criminal implications for 2025.

ELN

Initial progress with the ELN effectively unraveled as disputes with the government led to the collapse of negotiations.

In January last year, the Comuneros del Sur Front (Frente Comuneros del Sur – FCS), an ELN faction in southern Nariño, broke ranks, announcing plans to pursue separate “regional dialogue” with the government. Frustrated by the limited progress at the national level and growing threats from rival groups, the FCS sought a more localized approach. However, ELN top commander Eliecer Erlinto Chamorro, alias “Antonio García,” condemned these parallel dialogues as unauthorized and illegitimate.

SEE ALSO: Kidnappings Surge in Colombia Amid ELN Peace Negotiations

By May, the FCS formally severed ties with the ELN, emerging as a dissident faction of the guerrilla group. It quickly established dialogue with the government, advanced in peace talks, and even committed to a partial weapons handover, according to Carlos Augusto Erazo Murcia, head of the government’s negotiating team.

This was followed by the collapse of a bilateral ceasefire between the ELN and the government, which expired in August without renewal. After the ceasefire lapse, the ELN escalated hostilities by attacking a military base in Arauca in September, killing three soldiers. In response, the government suspended peace talks indefinitely.

The ELN and the government resumed talks on November 25, agreeing to reconvene in 2025 to reassess the dialogue process and explore the possibility of a renewed ceasefire.

The ELN also stands to benefit greatly from what was widely considered a stolen election in Venezuela, extending by another six years of Maduro’s time at the helm of the country. Venezuela remains a critical hub for the ELN, hosting much of its leadership and infrastructure.

Since the FARC’s demobilization in 2016, the ELN has expanded its presence in Venezuela and Colombia’s border departments, strengthening its operations through a symbiotic relationship with the Maduro regime. The group now controls entire sections of the border, managing smuggling and drug-trafficking corridors between the two countries, while maintaining corridors moving troops. Its influence spans eight of Venezuela’s 24 states, with significant income derived from controlling illegal mining and cocaine production zones.

With little interference and often support from military forces and local officials within the Maduro regime—who depend on the income generated by these groups, particularly amid severe US sanctions—the ELN has solidified its presence along the 2,219 km border with Venezuela and uses this haven to project into Colombia. This growing entrenchment further undermines the Total Peace initiative.

Ex-FARC

Government dialogue with the EMC, the largest ex-FARC organization, has also splintered the group. In March, Petro suspended a bilateral ceasefire with the EMC in the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño due to ongoing violence against Indigenous communities. This decision deepened internal divisions within the EMC. Its leader, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco,” refused further negotiations until the ceasefire was reinstated, while another faction, led by Alexander Díaz, alias “Calarcá Córdoba,” opted to continue talks.

By April, the government expelled Mordisco’s faction from the peace talks, shifting its focus to negotiations exclusively with Calarcá’s bloc. In July, his group signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement, marking a tentative step forward. However, significant challenges remain: Calarcá’s faction has been accused of threatening demobilized FARC members in Caquetá, and in December, six soldiers were killed in a minefield allegedly planted by the group.

Mordisco’s wing, on the other hand, has intensified violent activities, particularly in Cauca, an important region for coca cultivation and drug trafficking. By September, Cauca had recorded 466 violent incidents over 12 months, the most of any department during that period, with numbers continuing to rise through the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, the Second Marquetalia, a separate group of FARC dissidents led by Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” became the third major group to enter Total Peace negotiations in 2024. However, internal divisions also plagued this effort. In November, two key factions—the Border Command and the Pacific Guerrilla Coordinating Committee (Coordinadora Guerrillera del Pacífico)—broke away, frustrated by Márquez’s leadership. They formed the National Bolivarian Army Coordinator (Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano), led by José Vicente Lesmes, alias “Walter Mendoza.”

AGC and Urban Groups

The AGC has been largely excluded from the Total Peace initiative thus far, but signs emerged in 2024 that Petro sought to change this. In July, he authorized dialogue with the group, signaling a potential shift in policy.

But significant obstacles remain. The government’s classification of the AGC as a high-impact organized crime group, rather than a political organization like the ELN or FARC dissidents, has become a sticking point in the negotiations. This designation precludes the AGC from seeking transitional justice terms, such as guarantees against extradition and amnesty, similar to those offered to the FARC in the 2016 peace agreement. Under Colombian law, high-impact organized crime groups are only eligible for limited judicial benefits, such as reduced sentences, making negotiations far less appealing for the AGC.

SEE ALSO: GameChangers 2023: The Cocaine Flash-to-Bang in 2024

Despite minor progress—such as the attorney general lifting arrest warrants for key AGC leaders—negotiations have yielded few tangible results. Tensions remain high: in December, the military bombed an AGC camp in northern Antioquia, underscoring the ongoing hostilities.

Moreover, skepticism about the AGC’s intentions persists. Some analysts suggest the group is using negotiations as a tactical maneuver to secure a bilateral ceasefire and reduce military pressure, rather than genuinely committing to demobilization. At the same time, its ongoing territorial expansion and dominance over key criminal economies fuel doubts about its willingness to disarm.

The absence of a legal framework for gang demobilization, or “transition to legality,” as it is officially termed, has also hindered progress in cities like Medellín, Quibdó, and Buenaventura.

Efforts to pass legislation to formalize a framework for gang demobilization have stalled in Colombia’s gridlocked congress, leaving urban peace efforts in limbo.

In Medellín, several gangs agreed to reduce violence following Petro’s 2022 election, resulting in a notable drop in homicide rates. In June 2023, Petro initiated a dialogue table with former gang leaders at Itagüí prison, but progress faltered in 2024.

In Quibdó, the gangs Los Mexicanos, Lokos Yam, and RPS began talks in August 2023, achieving significant milestones like a commitment to halt the extortion of teachers and health workers. But in September 2024, a ceasefire between the gangs collapsed, amidst incursions by the AGC into the city. In December, Petro authorized exploratory talks to include three additional groups—the Zetas, Cabí, and AGC—in the Quibdó table.

In Buenaventura, negotiations with the Spartans and Shottas—which together command over 1,700 members—have produced mixed results. The groups agreed to a truce in August 2023, significantly reducing violence throughout 2024. While tensions flared in March when the Spartans temporarily withdrew from the negotiations, they eventually returned to the table, and have renewed the ceasefire, currently set to last until February 2025.

Looking Forward

Several key factors will significantly influence peace negotiations in 2025.

First, the fragmentation of major groups within the Total Peace process highlights the challenges of negotiating with organizations that appear unified but are, in fact, loose coalitions of diverse factions. The Comuneros del Sur’s split from the ELN exposed the group’s limited control over its regional fronts. Similarly, the EMC’s divided leadership—between Mordisco and Calarcá—mirrors the internal tensions within the Second Marquetalia, where Iván Márquez has struggled to maintain cohesion among factions like the Border Command.

These fractures risk escalating violence as splinter groups vie for territorial control and factions excluded from peace talks increase attacks on government targets.

Since the EMC split, clashes between Mordisco’s and Calarcá’s factions have escalated in Putumayo, a key region for coca cultivation and drug trafficking. Violence has also surged in other southwestern departments, such as Cauca. The deadly ELN attack on the military base could also foreshadow more violent confrontations between criminal groups and government forces, despite the relative lull achieved by ceasefires in 2024.

Second, the absence of widespread ceasefires with criminal groups has leveled the criminal playing field once again. Ceasefires maintained by the ELN and EMC in 2023 temporarily shifted criminal dynamics, allowing these groups to expand their territorial control, recruit new members, and focus on rival factions rather than government forces.

“We know [armed groups] have taken advantage of the ceasefire to try to increase their illegal control over the territory,” Colombia’s Minister of Defense said in a press conference in March 2024.

This reprieve boosted profits from drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion. In contrast, the AGC, excluded from ceasefire agreements, continued to face government offensives.

SEE ALSO: The Informants of Tibú: How the Colombian State Unleashed a Wave of Femicides

Currently, only the Calarcá dissidents and the FCS have active bilateral ceasefires with the government. The FCS, being relatively small, is unlikely to use the ceasefire for significant territorial expansion but will likely consolidate its holdings and defend against incoming EMC incursions into Nariño. Conversely, the Calarcá dissidents are better positioned to exploit their ceasefire to strengthen their presence in critical drug trafficking zones, particularly along the Amazonian border with Brazil and in parts of the Venezuelan frontier.

For groups like the Mordisco dissidents and the ELN, the absence of ceasefires means they will lose their distinct advantage as they compete for control over territories essential for drug trafficking, illegal mining, and other key revenue streams. However, the lack of ceasefires could give the AGC an edge.

Despite facing sustained military pressure, the AGC has expanded along the Pacific coast in Chocó, the Caribbean coast in Bolívar, Córdoba, and Cesar, and is encircling Catatumbo in Norte de Santander—one of Colombia’s most critical coca cultivation regions. With its criminal rivals now experiencing the same pressure it has endured, the AGC is poised to solidify and take even greater control as cocaine production explodes and gold prices approach record highs.

Third, Maduro’s dependence on Colombian criminal groups ensures that the ELN and Second Marquetalia will continue to strengthen their footholds in Venezuela and along Colombia’s border. With minimal interference—and often direct support from military forces and local officials within the Maduro regime—both groups have entrenched themselves in the region, controlling key criminal economies such as drug trafficking, illegal mining, and contraband smuggling.

With the prospect of six more years of protection under Maduro, these groups have little immediate incentive to engage in peace negotiations. Instead, they are well-positioned to expand their operations further.

This article, written by Henry Shuldiner, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America. It has been generously shared with Finance Colombia under a Creative Commons license.

Click on the above image to play the video.

Collective Mining keeps finding gold

First, some good news. Collective Mining (TSX: CNL, OTCQX: CNLMF, FSE: GG1), which is developing a gold mine down in the Caldas region in coffee country has five drill rigs operating at its Guayabales project, part of its 40 thousand meter drill program for this year. They are getting really encouraging results. This is the same team that developed Continental Gold and sold it to Zijin mining a few years ago for over a billion dollars. We published a more detailed update in Finance Colombia if you want to go over the numbers and assay results of this most recent update. I’m long on Continental because I believe in the team led by Ari Sussman.

Collective Mining Expands its Box Target Area with New High-Grade Samples; Drilling Continues

Petro threatens the private sector with “forced investments!”

President Gustavo Petro is once again terrifying investors, this time with an announcement that he plans to force private banks to loan money to projects and borrowers of his choosing. He said, and I translate:

 “I promised that we were going to present the measures to the congress of the republic to reactivate the economy which will consist, and I say it once and for all, in projects of law that generate FORCED INVESTMENT in the private financial system of Colombia destined to small, medium and large industry of agriculture and tourism in Colombia to reactivate the country.”

This is what Petro’s opponents warned about, and at least when it comes to intent, they were right. The question now is whether Colombia’s institutionalism can withstand more of his adventures. Statements and plans like this destroy investor confidence and scare away capital, just like what is happening with Ecopetrol.

“…and I say it once and for all, in projects of law that generate FORCED INVESTMENT in the private financial system of Colombia” – President Gustavo Petro

General Motors To Close Colombia Manufacturing Operations

Speaking of scaring away capital, General Motors is closing its Colmotores car factory after almost 70 years in Colombia. Now two years ago, GM said it was going to invest 50 million dollars to upgrade the factory to produce new models! What has changed? By the way, the Minister of Labor has told GM that they have to keep the workers employed even though the factory is closing, so we will see how that works out.

Alvaro Uribe is formally charged with witness tampering & bribery

Former President Alvaro Uribe, who in recent years has seen his once stellar legacy tarnished by a litany of revelations, is now formally charged with witness tampering in a drama that goes back to 2012. See the AP article here. https://apnews.com/article/colombia-alvaro-uribe-charges-witness-tampering-bd11a922142d000db1fcac178a1a147e

See also: Declassified US State Department Cables: “Uribe Almost Certainly Had Dealings With The Paramilitaries”

Bilateral harmony between Colombia & US leads to results

In some good news Colombia hosted a US State Department delegation last month for high level talks which led to several announcements. Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who actually was a US Citizen for a while, has announced that Colombians can now access almost 20 thousand United States non-agricultural work visas, and more than 1,000 summer job visas. We will do a write up on this both on Finance Colombia and Empleobilingue, the only source on the web for bilingual talent.

Colombia is going to open five new consulates in Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, Charlotte and Seattle. There are already 9 thousand Colombians studying in the US on Student Visas, and there is a family unification program already in effect between the two countries which has 6,000 current authorizations by the State Department.

The mammoth UNGRD scandal that threatens Petro

There is an ongoing scandal in the Petro Administration where the government paid the equivalent of $12 million US dollars for a fleet of water tanker trucks to supply water to citizens of La Guajira, the desert region on the Atlantic Coast near the Venezuelan border. Now, no water got to the residents of La Guajira, the trucks sat idle on a Colombian military base. But the money paid to a contractor by Colombia’s UNGRD (National Unit of Disaster Risk Management) was “allegedly” used to bribe Senate President Iván Name and Andrés Calle in the house of representatives to unblock opposition to Petro’s reform bills. According to Colombia’s comptroller, the Controller General (Contraloria), each tanker truck was purchased from the dealer, Kenworth de la Montaña, in Medellín, for about 600 million pesos, but then sold to the government for $1.2 billion pesos. This way they could launder money out for political purposes.

Former Deputy Director of the UNGRD, Sneyder Pinilla “prendió el ventilador-started the fan” (Colombian saying, like “when the shit hits the fan”) and accused former director of the UNGRD, Olmedo Lopez of using the UNGRD money through this conspiracy to pay the bribes, covering it up with this tanker truck contract, and that the payments were made at the direction of Petro’s Minister of the Interior, Luís Fernando Velasco, and the Councilor for the Regions, Sandra Ortiz, who was actually the bag man, or “bag woman.”

Now Olmedo López and Sneyder Pinilla are testifying and want immunity with Colombia’s attorney general, because they say that the tanker scandal is just the tip of the iceberg in a case that for Colombia, may be larger than the Odebrecht scandal.

According to these two, a political machine was put in place inside the Petro administration that would launder 380 billion pesos, or almost $100 million US dollars of “marmalade” or UNGRD funds into the hands of legislators and bureaucrats to bribe for passage of Petro’s reforms, all of which have failed so far, and to finance last October’s local elections, where again, Petro’s party and allies lost badly. Lopez says the tanker truck scandal just got discovered but according to him there is a whole infrastructure inside Petro’s government operating with this modality to bribe legislators and fund campaigns.

Now the scary thing is that the company that sold the trucks, Impoamericana Roger SAS was sold to Elmer Celis in 2019, and right before the contract for the tankers was being finalized, Celis was assassinated. So this scandal now has deadly implications.

Sura wants out of the EPS health system

Grupo Sura, the insurance and asset management giant has told the Colombian government that it plans to withdraw from the national EPS health insurance scheme. They are supposed to be meeting with the company to negotiate what happens.

Colombia wants the gold from a Spanish Galleón, so do Bolivians

In 1708 the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by the British during the War of Spanish Succession. in the Caribbean sea off the coast of Cartagena. The shipwreck was found in 2015 in about 600 meters, or 328 fathoms, or 2,000 feet of water, and Colombia is claiming it as its own and using the military to fend off any would-be treasure hunters. Last month, Colombia announced that it was launching a research and recovery project, aiming to prioritize the historical value of the wreck. There are complications though. The ship was Spanish, so Spain would need to renounce any sovereignty over the wreck. Spain considers the ship a graveyard that should not be molested out of respect for the dead.

Down in landlocked Bolivia, the Chicha, Caranga and Killaka people have filed claims with UNESCO saying that their enslaved ancestors extracted the treasure onboard from mines in what is now Bolivia, and have a right to share in whatever wealth is in the shipwreck.

This is going to be an interesting case. There is a treaty, the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Spain is a signatory, so is bound by the treaty, but Colombia never ratified or signed it, so is not bound by it.

Colombia has (finally) outlawed bullfighting

The Colombian house of representatives has outlawed bullfighting, a 500 year old tradition of bovine torture inherited from the Spanish. There are still people who defend bullfighting. The bill is in reconciliation with the senate, and then goes to President Petro, who is sure to sign it into law.

Mafia guerilla groups flourishing, expanding under Petro’s “Total Peace” fiasco

Reuters is reporting that it got access to a secret report showing that all the major criminal mafias in Colombia expanded in 2023, making a mockery of President Petro’s “Total Peace” initiative. Those criminal organizations would be the Clan del Golfo, ELN, and the two former FARC groups Estado Mayor and Segunda Marquetalia. Petro ran his campaign promising “Total Peace” but these groups, three of the four are avowed communist guerillas, and the Clan Del Golfo a descendant of paramilitaries, just keep getting bigger. When is Petro going to start?

Reuters also reported on illegal road building in the Amazon rainforest, in some cases by these same groups, that the government is supposed to be stopping. For example, Chiribiquete, nobody is even allowed to go in there but there are at least 12 illegal roads built, according to Reuters!

These mafias, in this case it looks like the Estado Mayor – former FARC, is building these roads to conduct illegal activities in nature preserves, and the government is unwilling to do anything, or at least, so far it is not combatting the activity.

So that’s it for this week.

Remember to practice critical thinking

Stay mentally and physically active,

And above all, be kind to yourself and others.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is being forced to confront the possibility that his flagship security policy, Total Peace (Paz Total), may only have partial peace in its sights.

National-level peace talks have broken down between the government and two of the armed groups in the most advanced stages of negotiations, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC). Petro’s negotiators are now engaging with individual blocs or fronts around the country, rather than solely dealing with the national leadership of the two groups.

The president’s Total Peace plan has sought to negotiate with armed groups and criminal gangs to achieve top-down demobilization similar to the process that saw the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Revolucionarias Armadas de Colombia — FARC) lay down its arms starting in 2017.

But Petro’s ambitious initiative has floundered since it started in late 2022. And now, internal divisions over the peace talks have sent the ELN and EMC into crisis mode, according to Otty Patino, Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace (Alto Comisionado para la Paz), who leads the government’s peace negotiations.

ELN

The ELN’s national leaders temporarily suspended the group’s participation in the talks on April 11, enraged by a “regional dialogue” with the group’s Comuneros del Sur Front, which wants to expedite its demobilization process, according to a press release from the ELN delegation.

The ELN’s top commander, Antonio García, claimed in an interview with Spanish newspaper, Berria, that the national leadership did not authorize those separate discussions. Pablo Beltrán, leader of the ELN delegation to the peace talks, urged the government to specify the objectives and purpose of the “parallel negotiations,” while speaking to journalists in Caracas, Venezuela.

The government and the Comuneros del Sur Front had announced the talks in February. The decision was driven by the front’s worries about the threat posed by the EMC’s growing dominance and military strength in the southwestern department of Nariño, a cocaine production and trafficking hub that is the base of operations for the Comuneros del Sur.

Feeling the pressure of potential defeat, the front opted to enter an accelerated peace process after seeing no concrete results from the national-level negotiations.

The ELN’s national leaders later agreed to rejoin the negotiations, but the regional peace talks with the Comuneros del Sur will also continue and could cause more problems down the line. On April 27, government representatives in the ELN negotiations asked Petro to either continue dialogues with the ELN national leadership or with the Comuneros del Sur, as a double negotiation is not viable, according to a press release.

EMC

Internal divisions over the peace talks have also derailed the government’s negotiations with the national leadership of the EMC.

In March, Petro suspended a ceasefire with the EMC in Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño, in response to an attack that killed an Indigenous leader in Cauca. This sparked tensions within the EMC, with some blocs advocating for continuing dialogue and others unwilling to engage until a national ceasefire is reinstated.

At a meeting in Caquetá on April 5 between the government and the EMC, delegates agreed to continue peace talks, but representatives from EMC blocs in Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Arauca were notably absent, highlighting internal discord. Leaders of these absent blocs later released videos affirming loyalty to the EMC’s top commander, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco,” who has refused to continue in dialogues without a nationwide ceasefire.

Camilo González, the government’s chief negotiator with the EMC, has stated that negotiations would proceed only with the EMC factions willing to continue, namely the Jorge Suárez Briceño Bloc, the Magdalena Medio Bloc, and the Carolina Ramírez Front, despite the partial ceasefire suspension. These factions collectively represent approximately 40% of what was previously considered the EMC. In practice, the government has acknowledged that negotiating with this smaller portion of the group, whom Mordisco seems to have lost command over, is the most viable way forward.

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The breakdown in negotiations for each group has distinct roots, but both have led to a similar result: the government is ready to risk talks with the larger criminal organizations if they can secure regional-level victories with smaller factions willing to disarm.

Petro’s willingness to engage with the regional blocs of the EMC and with individual fronts in the case of the ELN signifies a change in the government’s approach to peace negotiations. It is a departure from the government’s previous notion of a centralized command structure within these armed groups, and an acknowledgment that neither Antonio García nor Iván Mordisco holds absolute control over the ELN or EMC, respectively.

The strategic shift may yield results. The Petro government has progressed rapidly in discussions with the Comuneros del Sur and has opted to sustain dialogues exclusively with the three factions of the EMC.

If the government achieves a successful and swift demobilization of the Comuneros del Sur, the process could serve as a blueprint for other talks around the country. Other individual fronts fearful of military defeat, or who are also frustrated by the lack of progress at the national level, may see a future in the regional approach.

Similarly, reaching an agreement with the remaining EMC fronts involved in peace talks would be a significant achievement. However, as approximately 60% of what was considered the EMC is now excluded from the process, the success will be only partial and will create a new cycle of dissidents from the peace process.

This regional approach also has its drawbacks. Achieving demobilization agreements with individual fronts or blocs of both the EMC or the ELN may bring localized security improvements, but would likely have less impact on Colombia’s overall internal conflict dynamics.

Additionally, negotiating with multiple fronts or blocs simultaneously requires the government to invest significantly more money and personnel. With resources spread thin, even piecemeal agreements may become harder to achieve.

After a week involving a high-profile kidnapping and alleged ceasefire violations by Colombia’s two largest armed groups, the future of President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace policy is in jeopardy.

Photo: President Gustavo Petro attending a meeting in Paris, France. (Credit: Presidencia de la República)

First, on October 28, members of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) kidnapped the parents of Luis Díaz, a Colombian football star, at a gas station in Barrancas, La Guajira. The mother was quickly released, but the father, Luis Manuel Díaz, remains captive at the time of publication. [Editor’s note: He was released on November 9.]

The ELN’s Northern War Front (Frente de Guerra Norte), based in La Guajira, claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Then, on November 5, the ELN’s Western War Front (Frente de Guerra Occidental) declared an armed strike in Choco, claiming the Colombian military had violated the ceasefire by colluding with the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC) in the region.

That same day, the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC), the largest faction of the ex-FARC mafia, a dissident group from the now demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), suspended peace talks with the government after just three weeks. A bilateral ceasefire remains in place.

The events capped a horrible turn for Petro’s Total Peace plan, which aims to end the country’s decades-long internal conflict by negotiating with armed and criminal groups. The plan was ambitious from the onset, but talks with the country’s two most important criminal groups, the ELN and the EMC, appear to be unraveling.

Kidnapping Plunges ELN Negotiations Into Crisis

The ELN’s kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz and the armed strike may have violated the group’s ceasefire with the government and raised concerns about its ability to adhere to any future peace agreements.

These violations leave the Colombian government in a precarious position as the ELN is Colombia’s largest armed group and is considered critical to the success of Total Peace. The ceasefire has been in place for almost a year and prohibits hostile actions between the ELN and Colombian security forces, while also strictly forbidding the ELN from taking hostages.

These incidents have underscored a longstanding concern surrounding ELN negotiations: The group’s decentralized command structure grants individual war fronts significant autonomy, leading to dissent, internal fragmentation, and seemingly rogue actions, such as the kidnapping of Díaz and the announcement of an armed strike.

The ELN has reportedly committed at least eleven potential violations of the ceasefire agreement between October 3 and November 3, according to the non-governmental organization Institute of Peace and Development Studies (Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz – Indepaz). But kidnapping has drawn international attention, increasing pressure for the government to establish a clear red line with the ELN.

Doubts About Ex-FARC Mafia’s Commitment to Peace

Negotiations between the Colombian government and the EMC have come to an abrupt halt just 20 days after establishing a ceasefire. On November 5, the EMC announced the government had failed to uphold its commitments agreed during negotiations, although the ceasefire would remain.

This breakdown came after a confrontation in the town of El Plateado in Argelia, in southern Cauca, a key drug trafficking hotspot under the control of the Carlos Patiño Front, which is part of the EMC. On October 26, it was reported that members of the Carlos Patiño Front were blocking the arrival of electoral materials ahead of local elections on October 29.

Their presence appears to have violated an agreement brokered with the government, under which the EMC troops would temporarily vacate the municipality during the elections and allow the army to make sure voting happened peacefully. Following the elections, the army was to withdraw. However, the army remained in El Plateado, leading to an alleged riot instigated by the Carlos Patiño Front, eventually leading to locals kidnapping, and later releasing, 20 members of the security forces.

The collapse of these talks has led to concerns among analysts that the EMC is using negotiations as a pretext to recruit more people and fortify its positions. After the collapse of two previous negotiations over the past year, the EMC expanded its influence in key areas.

The peace process with the EMC has also struggled due to a lack of monitoring, such as delays in establishing the monitoring and verification mechanism outlined in the ceasefire protocol. “[These agreements] can’t be done on the fly. You need to have everything ready for when the ceasefire comes into effect. These improvisations here show that this government didn’t have a strategic plan,” said Luis Fernando Trejos, a professor at Universidad del Norte and conflict analyst, told InSight Crime.

Negotiations Stalled Elsewhere

While talks with the ELN and the EMC are the largest roadblocks to Total Peace, other negotiations such as those in cities like Buenaventura and Medellín, also face significant challenges.

In Buenaventura, rival gangs, the Shottas and Espartanos, have tried to maintain ceasefires while talks progress. However, Colombia’s Congress has not approved the legal framework needed to allow negotiations with such criminal groups. In early October, members of Congress presented a bill aimed at amending the Justicia y Paz law, which facilitated the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC) in 2006 to include newer gangs. Unfortunately, this move also faces stiff opposition in Congress, where the president’s party needs majorities.

The delay in establishing a legal framework also has significant implications for the potential resumption of negotiations with one of Colombia’s largest armed groups, the AGC. Peace talks with the AGC unraveled in March when the government accused the group of orchestrating an armed strike by miners in the Bajo Cauca region in northwestern Colombia.

Political and Public Stalemate

These strains are only further eroding political and public support for Total Peace.

Colombia’s regional elections, held on October 29, saw a slew of mayors and governors opposed to Petro’s government elected into office, further threatening support for Total Peace at the local level.

The events of the past year have also eroded public support for Petro’s flagship plan. From August 2022 to August 2023, polling showed the percentage of Colombians who approved of negotiations with armed groups had dropped from 76% to 59%, while those in favor of defeating these groups by military means climbed from 21% to 37%.

Even if the EMC and ELN talks soon continue, these may not be completed by the end of Petro’s current presidential term in 2026. The successful peace process with the FARC counted on far broader support and still took four years to complete. The responsibility for completing Total Peace may therefore well fall on a different government.

This article, by Henry Shuldiner and Lara Loaiza, was originally published by Insight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

Armed groups are obstructing humanitarian organizations’ access to several parts of Colombia, possibly to suppress reports of human rights violations that could disrupt peace negotiations with the government.

Security incidents involving humanitarian workers between January and April 2023 increased by 133% compared to last year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA). These workers were frequently threatened or prevented from accessing areas while responding to forced displacements, confinements of entire communities, and other human rights violations.

The departments most heavily affected are Norte de Santander, Guaviare, and Nariño due to the presence of the country’s most powerful criminal groups. These include the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the ex-FARC mafia, a group of loosely connected criminal groups who refused to disband after the 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

These groups are currently involved in complex negotiations with the Colombian government as part of the so-called Total Peace initiative, with the ELN agreeing to a six-month ceasefire on June 9.

This is not the first time such concerns have been reported this year.

In February, the Humanitarian Country Team (Equipo Humanitario País), which comprises aid organizations with a presence in Colombia, warned about a rising number of instances where humanitarian access was restricted.

According to OCHA estimates, these limitations left 13,168 people without humanitarian aid between January and April.

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The increasing constraints placed on humanitarian access by armed groups could be an attempt to prevent reports of systematic human rights abuses from surfacing and jeopardizing their delicate negotiations with the Colombian government.

For example, 117 violent acts were perpetrated between January and May 2023, with civilians being targeted in 93 of these attacks, according to a monitoring report by Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office about a ceasefire with the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) of the ex-FARC mafia. After the recruitment and subsequent killing of four Indigenous children in Putumayo in May, the government suspended the ceasefire in the departments of Putumayo, Caquetá, Guaviare, and Meta.

And although there was a 45% decrease in overall actions by armed groups between January and April 2023 compared to the same period last year, according to the OCHA report, confrontations between these groups and attacks on civilians remain the primary triggers of humanitarian emergencies in the country.

According to OCHA, several factors have led to the increase in cases of restricted humanitarian access, including armed groups’ lack of awareness of international humanitarian law (IHL) and better training for humanitarian workers reporting these types of incidents.

“This occurs amid the expansion and reconfiguration of the GANE [Grupos Armados No Estatales, or Non-State Armed Groups] in the last few years, which has led to both an increase in incidents and to the fact that many of those reported in 2022 were related to threats and violence against humanitarian workers and materials,” an OCHA representative told InSight Crime.

Armed groups have also imposed curfews on residents in parts of Antioquia, Guaviare, and other departments, banning movement between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., according to a May report by the Organization of American States’ Peace Process Support Mission (Misión de Apoyo al Proceso de Paz – MAPP).

The ELN has also obstructed the installation of internet infrastructure in Norte de Santander and Nariño, depriving rural residents of access to information. Additionally, Colombian authorities have documented 66 cases of children and adolescents being forcibly recruited by armed groups in 2023.

While OCHA hopes that the situation will improve as government negotiations with armed groups advance, the expansion of some groups in the country remains a concern. “We have observed the consolidation of Non-State Armed Groups in the Pacific and the border zone with Norte de Santander, as well as an increase in violence against civilians in southern Bolívar and the south-central region of the country (Putumayo, Caquetá, Guaviare, and Meta), and an increase in social and territorial control which has restricted humanitarian access in the southern part of the country.”

This article, written by Lara Loaiza and Sean Doherty, was originally published by Insight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.