The conflict could not be ended by a single treaty.
For decades, Colombia has lived inside a question it cannot fully answer: whether peace is made at the table or won on the battlefield. As the country approaches its May 31 presidential election, that question has returned with fresh urgency — armed groups have exploited ceasefire goodwill to expand their reach, violence has climbed to its highest point since the 2016 accord, and a campaign season marked by assassination and kidnapping forces voters to choose not just a leader, but a philosophy of survival. The world watches a nation that has paid nearly half a million lives for this education, hoping it has learned enough to spend fewer.
- President Petro's 'total peace' gamble backfired as armed factions used ceasefire windows to seize territory, fracturing negotiations and leaving more of the country under rebel control than when he took office.
- A bomb tore through a civilian road in Cauca, a senator was shot at a campaign rally, another was kidnapped at gunpoint — violence is no longer a backdrop to this election, it is an active participant in shaping it.
- Sixty thousand people were displaced in early 2025 alone, the largest forced displacement in Colombian history, as fighting between the ELN and Farc dissidents consumed entire communities.
- Rightwing candidates are promising a return to military force while Petro's chosen successor insists negotiation must continue — but experts warn that neither ideological extreme has ever resolved what is, at its core, a fragmented and multi-front conflict.
- The election itself is being suppressed: rallies are avoided, rural areas are controlled by armed groups, and candidates across the spectrum have received death threats, making democratic participation an act of courage.
Colombia is approaching a presidential election that feels less like a political contest and more like a referendum on survival. The central question — negotiate with armed rebels or confront them militarily — has defined the country's politics for generations, and it has returned with new weight as violence climbs to levels not seen since the 2016 peace accord.
That accord was a genuine achievement. The Farc, Latin America's largest insurgent army, laid down its weapons and the country exhaled. But implementation stalled under subsequent governments, dissident factions rejected the deal outright, and other armed groups never signed on. The conflict, it became clear, could not be ended by a single treaty.
When Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, he promised something more ambitious: total peace, with every armed faction at once. Ceasefires were signed quickly, without the monitoring infrastructure that had stabilized the original deal. The results were damaging. The National Liberation Army denied it had ever agreed to anything. Other talks collapsed. Armed groups used the breathing room to expand territory and fight each other over drug routes and illegal mining. By early 2025, clashes between the ELN and a Farc dissident faction had killed over eighty people and displaced sixty thousand — the largest forced displacement in Colombian history. Petro, who had campaigned against military violence, eventually authorized airstrikes.
The campaign itself has become a theater of intimidation. A rightwing senator was shot at a rally by a dissident Farc group and died months later. A leftwing Indigenous rights activist and senator, Aida Quilcué, was abducted in Cauca province and held for four hours. Days later, a bomb on a major road in the same region killed twenty-one civilians. Quilcué, undeterred, is now running for vice president on the ticket of Iván Cepeda, Petro's successor candidate, who supports continuing negotiations. Rightwing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, polling close behind, promise to scrap the peace initiative and return to force.
Experts caution that the numbers, while alarming, have not returned to the catastrophic levels of the early 1990s, when the homicide rate reached eighty per hundred thousand. Today it sits near twenty-six. But the direction is wrong, and the geography of conflict has nearly doubled — from six disputed departments when Petro took office to between thirteen and fourteen today.
What Colombia needs, analysts say, is neither ideology nor nostalgia — not pure negotiation, not pure war — but a disciplined, mixed strategy that treats both dialogue and force as tools rather than identities. The country has paid an almost incomprehensible price to learn that lesson. Whether its next leader will apply it is the question on the ballot.
Colombia is about to choose its next president, and the choice is stark: keep trying to negotiate with armed rebels, or go back to war. The question has consumed the country's politics because the last attempt at peace is visibly unraveling, and Colombians are watching violence surge in ways that feel like a return to the worst years they thought they had left behind.
In 2016, the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—the Farc, the largest insurgent army in Latin America—signed a landmark peace deal. The Farc laid down their weapons. The violence that had ravaged the country for decades dropped sharply. It was a genuine achievement. But it was also incomplete. Subsequent governments moved slowly on implementing the agreement's terms. Farc dissidents rejected it outright. Other rebel factions never signed on. The conflict, it turned out, could not be ended by a single treaty.
When Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, he made a bold promise: total peace. He would negotiate with every armed group in the country—leftist rebels, criminal syndicates, all of them. He signed ceasefire agreements with the five largest factions almost immediately, without the careful monitoring systems that had helped the original Farc deal survive. Within weeks, the National Liberation Army, now the country's largest rebel group, denied it had ever agreed to anything. Other negotiations froze or collapsed. The armed groups, meanwhile, used the temporary ceasefires to expand their territory and fight each other for control of drug trafficking routes and illegal mining operations. Colombia produces more cocaine than any other country on earth.
By early 2025, fighting between the ELN and a Farc dissident faction called Frente 33 killed more than eighty people and displaced sixty thousand—the largest forced displacement in Colombian history. Petro, who had campaigned against military violence, authorized airstrikes and artillery assaults. Some killed young people who had been forcibly recruited by criminal groups. This year is already the most violent since the 2016 peace agreement.
The election has been marked by assassination and kidnapping. In June 2025, a rightwing senator named Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at a campaign event by a Farc dissident group called Segunda Marquetalia. He died months later. In February, a leftwing senator and Indigenous rights activist named Aida Quilcué was abducted while traveling through Cauca province—the same region where, days later, a bomb killed twenty-one civilians on a major road, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country's history. Quilcué was released after four hours, but she said the kidnapping marked a new threshold of danger for her. She is now running as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket of Iván Cepeda, Petro's chosen successor, who supports continuing total peace.
The rightwing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, close behind in the polls, promise to scrap the peace initiative and return to military force. All the main candidates have received threats. Armed groups are using violence to suppress political participation—murder and kidnapping as warnings. Large areas of the countryside have become no-go zones where campaigning without permission from armed groups can be fatal. Citizens are avoiding rallies and campaign events.
María Victoria Llorente, who runs a thinktank on peace and conflict, said the situation is grave but not as dire as it appears. The current homicide rate is about twenty-six per hundred thousand people. In the early 1990s, at the peak of the violence, it was eighty per hundred thousand. The scale is different. But she also said it is clear that total peace has failed. When Petro took office, six departments of the country were disputed. Now it is between thirteen and fourteen.
Experts warn that the next government, whether left or right, will face an extremely difficult challenge. The conflict is fragmented across all regions. Neither pure negotiation nor pure military force will work. What Colombia needs, they say, is a mixed strategy—negotiation and offensive action applied carefully and strategically, not as ideology but as tools. The country has learned, through decades of bloodshed, that there is no single solution. The question now is whether its voters and leaders have learned that lesson well enough to apply it.
Citações Notáveis
It is clear that total peace has failed. When this government began, there were six departments of the country under dispute. Today there are between 13 and 14.— María Victoria Llorente, executive director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation
Rather than a single solution, the situation needs to be approached calmly, avoiding overly ambitious decisions like those taken by this government. A mixed strategy of negotiations and offensive actions could be the most appropriate approach.— Catalina Beltrán, Colombia Risk Analysis
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Petro's total peace initiative collapse so quickly? It sounds like he had good intentions.
He did, but he moved too fast and without safeguards. He announced ceasefires with five armed groups almost immediately, without the monitoring systems that had made the original 2016 Farc deal work. The armed groups never really agreed—the ELN denied it within weeks. And while negotiations stalled, the groups used the temporary ceasefires to expand their territory and fight each other.
So the ceasefires actually made things worse?
In a way, yes. The groups took advantage of the pause in military pressure to consolidate control of drug routes and mining operations. By early 2025, fighting between rival factions displaced sixty thousand people—the largest displacement in Colombian history.
And now Petro is authorizing airstrikes anyway?
Yes. Despite his campaign against lethal military action, he's resumed artillery and airstrikes. Some have killed young people forcibly recruited by criminal groups. He's essentially abandoned the total peace approach while it's still nominally his policy.
What do the candidates running to replace him want to do?
The rightwing candidates want to scrap peace negotiations entirely and return to all-out military confrontation. Petro's chosen successor, Iván Cepeda, wants to continue negotiating. It's a fundamental disagreement about strategy.
Which approach do experts think will work?
Neither one alone. The consensus is that Colombia needs a mixed strategy—negotiation and military force applied strategically, not as ideology. The conflict is too fragmented, spread across too many regions, for a single solution to work.