Here in Antioquia, the war never ended
As Colombia prepares to vote in its most consequential presidential election in years, the killing of a twenty-four-year-old journalist by Farc dissidents has placed a human face on a decade-high surge in political violence that now defines the country's political horizon. The election forces a choice between two ancient and unresolved instincts — negotiation and force — in a nation where a landmark peace agreement promised an ending that never fully arrived. What is being decided on Sunday is not merely a candidate but a theory of how broken societies heal, and whether the state or the gun will be trusted to lead the way.
- The kidnapping, torture, and killing of journalist Mateo Pérez Rueda by Farc dissidents has sharpened the election's stakes into something visceral and irreversible.
- Violence across Colombia has reached its worst levels in a decade — massacres, forced displacements, and assassinations are climbing even as the 2016 peace deal was supposed to have turned the tide.
- Left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda's 'total peace' framework is under fire from analysts who argue armed groups have exploited ceasefires to expand territory rather than disarm.
- Far-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, modeling his campaign on El Salvador's mass-incarceration crackdown, has surged in polls and now leads a race that may require a June runoff to resolve.
- The violence is geographically concentrated around drug, mining, and trafficking corridors — severe and deadly, but not yet the nationwide catastrophe of the pre-2016 era, leaving room for contested interpretations of how bad things truly are.
Mateo Pérez Rueda was twenty-four years old, nearly finished with his political science degree, and funding his journalism by delivering packages and selling fruit salads. On May 4th, he traveled to Briceño, in the western province of Antioquia, to document the country's armed conflict. He stopped answering his phone the next day. Three days later, a humanitarian organization confirmed he had been kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the 36th Front, a Farc dissident group still operating in the region. His cousin Jorge Rueda offered a quiet epitaph: "Here in Antioquia, the war never ended."
His death arrived as Colombia prepares to vote in a presidential election shaped entirely by a decade-high surge in violence. The 2016 peace agreement between the government and most Farc factions did reduce bloodshed significantly, but implementation stalled under subsequent administrations, and splinter groups refused to disarm. Kidnappings, massacres, and homicides are climbing again. Last year, a sitting senator and presidential candidate was shot dead at a campaign event.
The election offers two opposing diagnoses. Iván Cepeda, a sixty-three-year-old leftwing senator endorsed by outgoing President Gustavo Petro, champions a "total peace" strategy of negotiated disarmament with all armed groups. Critics argue the approach has backfired, with factions using ceasefires to expand rather than retreat. On the other side, far-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella — a criminal lawyer, millionaire businessman, and self-styled anti-establishment figure — has surged in polls promising mass incarceration, ten maximum-security mega-prisons, and an iron-fist approach modeled explicitly on El Salvador's Nayib Bukele. Rightwing senator Paloma Valencia, granddaughter of a former president and a loyalist of the polarizing former president Álvaro Uribe, offers a similar military prescription.
Espriella's rise has been dramatic and complicated. He has never held elected office, owns wine and rum brands, and has cultivated a lavish public image while courting controversy. His past as a lawyer for figures tied to Nicolás Maduro's regime has made Washington cautious, and Trump has withheld the endorsement Espriella openly courts. With no candidate certain to win an outright majority, a runoff on June 21st appears likely.
Researchers note that while the current violence is severe, it remains concentrated in territories tied to cocaine production, illegal mining, and trafficking — not yet the nationwide catastrophe of the pre-2016 era, when homicide rates reached eighty per one hundred thousand. Today the figure stands near twenty-six. Yet in the regions the state has long neglected, criminal groups fill the vacuum, and it is there that journalists like Mateo Pérez Rueda go to bear witness — and sometimes do not return. His godfather Jorge Rueda said he hopes the young man's death draws attention to those forgotten places, because it is neglect, he believes, that keeps the war so intense.
Mateo Pérez Rueda was twenty-four years old and nearly finished with his degree in political science. He worked as a bicycle courier and sold fruit salads and juice to fund what he really cared about: reporting for El Confidente, an independent digital magazine focused on Colombian politics and conflict. On May 4th, he traveled to Briceño, a town in the western province of Antioquia, to document the grinding reality of the country's armed conflict—the ongoing struggle between the military, paramilitary forces, and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. He stopped answering his phone the next day. Three days of desperate searching followed before a humanitarian organization confirmed what his family had come to dread: he had been kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the 36th Front, one of the Farc dissident groups still operating in the region.
His death arrived as a stark punctuation mark on a moment of political reckoning. Colombia is voting this Sunday in a presidential election framed entirely around how to respond to a decade-long surge in violence—the worst in ten years. The country's armed conflict, which has killed nearly half a million people over decades, was supposed to be ending. A landmark peace agreement in 2016 between the government and most Farc factions did reduce violence significantly. But subsequent administrations moved slowly on implementation, and splinter groups refused to disarm. Now, as the election approaches, kidnappings, massacres, forced displacements, and homicides are climbing again. Last year, a rightwing senator and presidential candidate, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was shot and killed during a campaign event—a reminder that the violence is not historical but immediate.
The election presents voters with two fundamentally opposed visions. President Gustavo Petro, barred by the constitution from seeking re-election, has endorsed Iván Cepeda, a sixty-three-year-old leftwing senator and architect of the government's "total peace" initiative. The strategy aims to negotiate disarmament agreements with all armed criminal groups operating in Colombia. Many security analysts believe the approach has failed—armed factions have used temporary ceasefires to expand their territorial control and membership. Yet Cepeda remains committed to the framework. His main challengers offer the opposite prescription. Abelardo de la Espriella, a forty-seven-year-old criminal lawyer and millionaire businessman running as a far-right outsider, and Paloma Valencia, a forty-eight-year-old rightwing senator, both promise an immediate return to military confrontation and mass incarceration. Espriella has explicitly modeled his campaign on El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele, who has imprisoned roughly two percent of his country's adult population in a controversial gang crackdown. Espriella pledges to build ten maximum-security "mega-prisons" and adopt what he calls the "iron-fist" approach.
The violence driving this election is not evenly distributed across the country. In Antioquia, where Mateo Pérez Rueda was killed, his cousin Jorge Rueda noted simply: "Here in Antioquia, the war never ended." The conflict in these regions is driven less by stated political ideology than by competition over drug production and trafficking—Colombia remains the world's largest cocaine producer—illegal goldmining, logging, and local corruption. On a single Monday in May, more than fifty people, many of them children and teenagers forcibly recruited by armed factions, were killed in clashes between two Farc dissident groups in the southern department of Guaviare. Yet researchers at the Fundación Paz y Reconciliación note that while the current violence is severe, it is not yet at the scale of the pre-2016 period, when the homicide rate peaked at eighty per one hundred thousand inhabitants. Today it stands at approximately twenty-six per one hundred thousand. The violence is now concentrated in specific territories where illegal economic routes operate, generating significant media attention but lacking the nationwide reach it once possessed.
Poll numbers have shifted dramatically in recent weeks. Cepeda, who held a commanding lead until recently, has been overtaken by Espriella. Valencia remains in second place. With a substantial portion of voters still undecided, no candidate is certain to win an outright majority, which would trigger a runoff on June 21st. Espriella's rise is notable given his unconventional profile. He has never held elected office. He owns wine and rum brands, invests in cattle ranching and real estate, and has cultivated a lavish public image. He has also courted controversy—telling a radio host that he is winning female voters because of his physical attributes—and has positioned himself as a Trump admirer and anti-establishment figure in the style of Argentina's Javier Milei. Despite his open admiration for the American president, Trump has not endorsed him, unlike in other recent elections involving far-right candidates. Political scientists suggest this restraint may stem from Espriella's past as a criminal lawyer representing figures like Álex Saab, a Venezuelan businessman widely regarded as the financial architect of Nicolás Maduro's regime and recently deported to the United States. His deep ties to figures prosecuted or extradited by American authorities make him a complicated ally for Washington.
Valencia brings a different pedigree. She has been a senator since 2014 and is the granddaughter of a former president. She is a loyal follower of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, whose presidency from 2002 to 2010 was marked by aggressive military campaigns against armed groups that produced limited results and became shadowed by the "false positives" scandal—the extrajudicial killing of innocent civilians by the military, who were then falsely labeled as enemy combatants.
Despite the surge in violence and the grim symbolism of Mateo Pérez Rueda's death, some Colombians see grounds for cautious hope. Petro, the country's first leftwing president and himself a former member of a smaller rebel faction that signed a peace deal before the main Farc agreement, maintains relatively high approval ratings as his term nears its end. Analysts attribute this partly to expanded social programs, increases in the minimum wage, and falling poverty rates. Jorge Rueda, Mateo's godfather, said he believes Colombia has improved significantly in recent years, particularly in offering young people better opportunities so they do not join armed groups. Yet he also acknowledged that improvement has been uneven. In regions still neglected by the state, criminal groups fill the vacuum, driving away investment and perpetuating the conditions that sustain the conflict. "That is why I think it is so important that Mateo's case receives attention," he said, "and that his death serves to show that there is a part of Colombia still forgotten and that neglect is what keeps the war so intense."
Citas Notables
Here in Antioquia, the war never ended. Here, the war is over micro-trafficking and another over the goldmines.— Jorge Rueda, cousin and godfather of slain journalist Mateo Pérez Rueda
I could say something different out of anger, but from the heart I believe Colombia has improved enormously in recent years. However, there are some regions that never improved.— Jorge Rueda
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a journalist's death in May matter so much to this election happening in June?
Because Mateo Pérez Rueda's killing is not an isolated tragedy—it's a symbol of what's happening across the country right now. Violence is surging to levels not seen in a decade. Voters are choosing between two completely different theories of how to stop it, and his death shows why that choice feels urgent and real.
The left wants to negotiate with armed groups. The right wants to fight them. That's not new in Colombia.
No, but the context has shifted. The 2016 peace deal actually worked for a while—violence dropped significantly. But the groups that refused to sign, the Farc dissidents, have been growing stronger in the years since. So now the left is saying we need to finish what we started with negotiation, while the right is saying negotiation failed and we need military force.
And the violence now—is it as bad as it was before the peace deal?
Not quite at that peak, but it's concentrated in specific regions where the state barely exists. In places like Antioquia, where Mateo was killed, people say the war never actually stopped. It's driven by drug trafficking and illegal mining more than ideology. That's almost harder to negotiate away.
The far-right candidate, Espriella—he's an outsider with no political experience. How is he winning?
He's running against the establishment and promising simple solutions: build mega-prisons, adopt El Salvador's iron-fist approach, lock people up. He's also a millionaire businessman, which appeals to certain voters. But he's also a criminal lawyer who represented people close to Venezuela's Maduro, which makes him complicated for the US to support openly.
What does Mateo's godfather think should happen?
He's grieving, obviously. But he's not calling for war. He's saying the real problem is that the state abandoned regions like Antioquia. Without investment, without opportunity, young people join armed groups. His godson died reporting on that reality. He wants the world to see that some parts of Colombia were never actually included in the peace.
So this election could go either way?
Completely. Cepeda was leading until recently, but Espriella has surged. If no one wins a majority on Sunday, there's a runoff in June. The country is genuinely divided on whether to keep trying negotiation or go back to confrontation.