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Colombia’s leader
promised ‘total peace’.
Then violence surged
Former guerrilla Gustavo Petro’s strategy
criticised as security vacuum allows
kidnappings and extortion to soar

Children walk past crosses bearing the names of victims of gang

violence in Buenaventura, Colombia © Joaquin
Sarmiento/AFP/Getty Images

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Michael Stott and Joe Daniels in Bogotá 3

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Colombia’s leftwing president Gustavo

Petro, a former guerrilla, promised “total
peace” when he was sworn in last year. So
far, the result has been a surge of violence
from the armed groups that wield outsize
power in the South American nation.

The fast-deteriorating security situation has

stirred fear that Colombia is sliding back
into the violence of past decades, a concern
that attracted global attention with the
kidnapping of the father of Liverpool
football star Luis Díaz last month.

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Across Colombia, kidnappings have

increased more than 80 per cent under
Petro, extortion is up 27 per cent and the
murder rate has barely fallen, according to
official figures comparing the first year of
the new government with the last 12 months
of Iván Duque’s centre-right administration.
Instead of clashing with security forces,
illegal armed groups now fight each other to
expand their territory and control lucrative
smuggling routes.

Díaz’s father was taken hostage by the

National Liberation Army (ELN), the largest
rebel group negotiating with the
government, throwing into question the
credibility of the peace process. Luis Manuel
Díaz was released unharmed on November 9
but about 25 other hostages remain in ELN
captivity, according to non-party conflict
monitoring group Cerac.

“The initial suggestion of ‘total peace’

accelerated the violence,” said Elizabeth
Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at
International Crisis Group.

“Armed and criminal groups escalated

operations to consolidate territory to
improve their negotiating position before
Petro took office. The ceasefires he declared
in the first half of this year amounted to a
tactical gift to these groups. With no army
pressing them, they were free to rearm,
recruit and resupply.”

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Colombia now appears to be paying a high

price for the security vacuum in its conflict
zones. “If there’s no territorial control by the
state, people lose faith in the process,”
admitted a political ally of the president.
“There isn’t a peace process in the world
which isn’t accompanied by a robust
security policy.”

Colombia suffers surge in kidnappings

and extortion
Change since July 2021 in rolling 12-month total
(%)

Gustavo Petro Kidnappings

80
becomes
president
60

40
Extortions
20

0 Homicides

-20
Jul 2021
Oct 2021
Jan 2022
Apr 2022
Jul 2022
Oct 2022
Jan 2023
Apr 2023
Jul 2023

Source: Colombian defence

ministry data compiled by CERAC

Petro, a member of the now-defunct M-19

guerrilla group that demobilised in 1990,
remains committed to the peace plan,
arguing that changing course “would pave
the way for a new cycle of violence”.

The government is in peace talks with the

ELN and Estado Mayor Central, a
breakaway group linked to the disbanded
Farc rebels. It has also expressed interest in
negotiating surrender deals with non-
political criminal gangs, such as drug
traffickers.

Colombia’s descent into violence began after

the 1948 assassination of a leftist leader,
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and intensified after
Marxist guerrilla groups began operating in
the early 1960s, inspired by the Cuban
revolution. The rebels waged a low-level war
on the state before becoming involved with
drug trafficking. Landowners in turn funded
paramilitaries to fight the guerrillas. The
conflict cost an estimated 450,000 lives
between 1958 and 2016, according to
Colombia’s Truth Commission.

A turning point came in 2016 when the

government achieved a peace deal with the
Farc, the largest guerrilla group at the time.
The Marxist rebels agreed to lay down arms
in return for political concessions, justice for
conflict victims and a greater state presence
in remote areas. But implementation has
been patchy.

Of the 578 commitments made in the 2016

agreement, about half had either been
implemented at a minimum level by
November 2022 or not implemented at all,
according to a study published in June by
the Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies.

President Gustavo Petro remains committed to ‘total peace’ ©

Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel

Peace Prize for reaching the peace
agreement with the Farc while president,
said Petro needed to implement the existing
accords properly in order to create a solid
foundation for talks with other rebel groups.

“‘Total peace’ will fail unless it is built on the

base of what has been achieved with the
Farc,” he told the Financial Times. “If the
foundations fail, everything else will fail.”

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Oliver Wack, general manager of Control

Risks for the Andean region, said Petro had
not balanced peace talks with tactics to
guarantee security. The “erosion of the
operational and intelligence capabilities of
the security forces . . . has resulted in a
strengthening of armed groups’ control of
rural areas and an expansion of drug
trafficking, illegal mining and extortion and
kidnap”.

Petro’s peace commissioner Danilo Rueda

did not respond to requests for an interview
but Iván Cepeda, a senator from the
coalition government who has been
negotiating with the ELN, defended the
“total peace” strategy, blaming the
deterioration in security on criminal trends
that had created tempting opportunities for
armed groups in Colombia.

“It’s a mutation of drug trafficking in the

Americas and worldwide,” he said. “New
cocaine markets have emerged, marijuana
markets have picked up and if that were not
enough, there is the market for synthetic
drugs. That means the emergence of new
transnational criminal organisations.”

Battles between Colombia's armed

groups intensify when the military
reduces offensives
Number of instances in Colombia, 12-month rolling
average

Operations by state forces against illegal armed

groups
Combat between illegal armed groups

20

15

10

0
2021 2022 2023

Source: Fundación Ideas para la

Paz

Cepeda said the gangs had also profited

from the smuggling of migrants from South
America and the Caribbean through
Colombia.

“Taking a migrant from a country in the

south to the US is a fantastic business if you
do it with thousands of people,” he said.
“Illegal mining has become stronger too.”
He said the solution was an economic
“revolution” in remote areas to replace illicit
activities with sustainable growth.

The peace process has been further

tarnished by allegations that Petro’s son
Nicolás took campaign finance contributions
from suspected drug traffickers in return for
promises to include them in peace talks.

The younger Petro was arrested in July and

initially offered to collaborate with
prosecutors but then changed tack and
denied charges of money laundering and
illicit enrichment. The president said he was
not aware of any wrongdoing.

Opinion polls meanwhile show that

Colombians are losing faith in the “total
peace” plan. Only 37 per cent said the ELN
peace talks should continue, while 53 per
cent were against them, according to a poll
by Datexco published on November 12. A
total of 52 per cent said that Rueda, the
peace commissioner, should resign.

On Wednesday night, Petro announced that

Rueda would step down as peace
commissioner, to be replaced by Otty
Patiño, the government’s chief negotiator
with the ELN.

The ELN, founded in the 1960s by radical

students, is particularly unpopular because
of its predilection for kidnapping. Its leader
Eliécer Herlinto Chamorro, who uses the
alias Antonio García, conceded in a message
on Telegram that the kidnapping of football
hero Díaz’s father was a “mistake” because
of the star’s popularity.

Luis Díaz, left, with his father Luis Manuel Díaz days after he was
released by his kidnappers © Colombia Football Federation/AP

Nonetheless, the 5,800-strong ELN has

refused to halt abductions even after
agreeing a ceasefire with the government in
August, saying it needs the money to fund
itself.

Cepeda acknowledged that the ELN’s

continued use of kidnapping was costing the
peace process support.

The senator said the government would not

walk away from talks but if the ELN did not
play its part “something more serious will
happen: people will mobilise . . . people will
come out to say ‘no more’ [to the peace
process]”.

“If the ELN doesn’t understand that, it will

clash with the people.”

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