By Hubert Ariza, EL PAÍS, September 19, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
In the midst of the aftershocks from the earthquake, Colombia is talking about war now, without asking ourselves how to keep a new spiral of violence from commandeering our future and weakening democracy.
With President Abelardo De la Espriella coming to power, the narrative of military victory over the armed illegal organizations—guerrillas, narcos, or paramilitaries—has become the official stamp of national events. The policy of “total peace” is part of the past. The hawks have returned, this time protected by the Shield of the Americas and Donald Trump’s national security strategy.
The corpses of illegals killed in bombings or in Special Forces operations, stuffed into white bags and presented as trophies of war are the initial symbol of an administration that has shelved the word “negotiation” and privileged the legitimate use of force by the government against those who insist on criminal activities.
The meetings for dialog with the FARC Dissidents, the Clan del Golfo, or the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, ACSN, were closed down and the negotiators fired. El Tigre threw the doves out of the Palace. Not even the master, Fernando Botero, who adorned the salons of the President’s Palace remains. Petro took his works away before the end of his term. Now the bombings and aerial fumigations are the reality in the areas dominated by warriors and illegal economies.
The banner of peace no longer waves at any governmental site. From the outstretched hand, this country has passed to the closed fist. El Tigre has been clear: “The hoodlum that will not submit will be killed.” That’s what he said on September 17 in San Juan del César in La Guajira, the same Department where, a few days earlier, alias Bendito Menor and his wife, alias La Bebecita, the heads of ACSN, were killed. A hit that produced headlines and reaffirmed the official security policy.
The dialogs, the ceasefires, and the peaceful ways to achieve the demobilization of the irregular armies are in the past. The administration has imposed a way out: submission or death. The rule is elementary. Whoever gives up the war will find a legal path to entering the justice system. Whoever persists in drug trafficking and terrorism will feel the full weight of the law and from a government that will not hesitate to extradite them, seize their property, or kill them. The future of their illegality will not be a table for negotiations but rather a white body bag or submission to conditions not yet known. El Tigre doesn’t play cat and mouse.
The Congress is waiting for the Minister of Justice, Iván Cancino, to introduce a bill that the administration will call “acceptance”, trying to give it a stamp of magnanimity. But submission and acceptance are not synonyms for negotiation: they express the strength of the State, which ought to offer in exchange for the surrender of guns, property, and truth much more than a future in captivity.
A non-negotiable factor in this project, for one sector of the Congress, has to be the protection of the victims with guarantees of justice, truth, reparation, and no repetition. The Historic Pact Party, a minority party, will have an authentic trial by fire. The “acceptance” of the warriors will be a door that the government ought to open without repeating the errors of the past. That’s where the transitional justice system comes in, called to guarantee truth, justice, reparation, and no repetition. Colombia has already tried out these mechanisms, and every process has left lessons. From Peace and Justice, applied to the Colombia Self-Defense Forces (AUC in Spanish) during the Uribe administration, we learned part of the truth. From the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), part of the Havana Agreement, we found the explanation of the false positives and the responsibility attributed to the FARC for the assassination of Álvaro Gómez Alvarado.
It’s difficult to think of a submission to the legal system without a transitional justice system. What’s paradoxical is that this initiative is being presented when the extreme right is trying to asphyxiate the JEP, with proposals like the one from Senator Enrique Gómez Martínez, who suggested taking 100,000 million pesos (roughly USD $32,000,000 at current exchange rates) away from the JEP and transferring them to the ordinary justice system, arguing that it would help alleviate the congestion in that system.
And the truth? How will the knowledge of the names of those who have nurtured and instigated the war, the drug trafficking, and the crimes against humanity that have been committed by the illegal armed actors for decades be guaranteed? That question is powerful precisely because Colombia is a global role model in transitional justice procedures. Will everything that’s been done be thrown overboard? Or will they build upon what they have constructed and privilege the victims?
The new strategy of getting tough would have to include a stronger military apparatus, coordinated intelligence, a robust legal system, and preventing the recycling of the violence. In barely ten years, the FARC signed the Peace Agreement, demobilized, the Dissidents emerged, and they now have more than 10,000 men. The lesson is clear: now the guerrillas and the paramilitary groups make up about 30,000 armed men. It’s not enough just to kill the bosses; it’s necessary to defeat the conditions that generate those organizations.
Colombia has been a laboratory for war in the midst of hostile geography; three mountain ranges, jungles difficult to access, two oceans, porous borders, and regions where the presence of any government has been weak or intermittent. A stable and lasting peace does not come exclusively from ruling by force nor by Pax Romana.
It requires integrated action by the government. The unequal distribution of land is the heart of the conflict. If that issue remains unresolved, we will definitely revert to the path taken in recent years and promote a new agrarian counter-reform. Without attacking rural poverty and the exclusion of the communities, the new war will germinate spontaneously in the territories.
Every strategy of war demands gaining the support of the civilian population. And here it looks to be essential: the defense of human rights and international humanitarian law. Colombia has already experienced harsh periods of repression of the civilian population. The murders of social leaders are a disgrace for any democracy. The false positives are a scar that is still hurting. We can still hear the echo of the social explosion after the pandemic. The resurgence of the war cannot elevate the “banana republic” syndrome that Colombia has suffered for decades.
El Tigre growls and the echo of judgments pierces the jungles where thousands of armed men are attacking democracy. Congress has to debate the law of submission keeping in mind the prior peace processes, and the country’s adherence to international agreements that now form a part of the Constitution itself where Article 22 points out that peace is a right and a duty that we are obliged to carry out. There is, besides, the war on drugs. Colombia continues to be decertified by the United States, which has not suspended the agreed-upon assistance and has expressed confidence that the De la Espriella administration will get results. Demonstrating that glufosinato kills plantings but not human life and doesn’t convert jungles into deserts will be an enormous challenge for the administration. It will also offer economic alternatives and an integrated rural development proposal that will preclude the narrative that illegality is winning the game.
In the midst of the aftershocks of the earthquake, now Colombia is talking about war without asking ourselves how we can stop a new spiral of violence from commandeering our future and weakening democracy. Only more democracy, respect for the lives of the social leaders and for international humanitarian law, protecting the besieged communities from the armed groups, and guaranteeing an economic policy that will promote development, protect the environment, and promote decentralization will prevent our country from going back to the past of plantings seeded with tragedy and young people full of hatred and disposed to take up arms and clamor for revenge.