Andean Group - March 2026

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro took office in August 2022 with the uplifting message that a new approach could break a vicious cycle of violence that has lasted over six decades. His ‘total peace’ initiative envisioned simultaneous negotiations with all armed groups, resulting in a wave of demobilisations and peace accords. Now, however, the once ubiquitous ‘total peace’ phrase has largely fallen out of favour in the government. With just months to go before Petro steps down in August following the May presidential election, a report published on 30 January by the Colombian think tank Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) offered a bleak assessment of the current security situation.

“Colombia enters this electoral year with a more fragile security outlook than in previous years,” the FIP warned, adding that, “far from being contained, the armed conflict has intensified, illegal groups have grown in number and in power, and the State continues to have difficulties recovering control over large areas”. The report stated that in 2025, “armed groups broadened their territorial disputes, swelled their ranks, and strengthened control over communities, while forced displacement intensified and the policy of ‘total peace’ faced growing questions, including from within the government itself”.

The FIP identified three broad areas of concern. Firstly, it highlighted the successful recruitment efforts of illegal armed groups, which it estimated had a combined total of 27,000 members as of December 2025. This represents an increase of 23.5%, or 5,000 fighters, compared with December 2024. The FIP stated that this increase has been led by the Clan del Golfo drug trafficking organisation, which picked up an additional 2,300 new members, followed by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrilla group and the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), an alliance of dissident units from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group. The report noted that “neither military operations, nor dialogue processes, nor offers of demobilisation have managed to slow their capacity for recruitment,” and blamed this on the fact that “the groups offer salaries and other incentives in territories where the State either arrives late or doesn’t arrive at all”.

At the same time, the FIP highlighted an intensification of the conflict, stating that 2025 was the year with the most armed clashes during the past decade. It stated that clashes between groups were up by 34% year-on-year as a result of internal splintering, new alliances, and growing competition to control smuggling routes, illegal economies, and local populations. As a result, the FIP said that as of January 2026, 13 territories were being disputed between rival groups, up from seven when President Petro took office in 2022.

Of the 13 disputed territories identified by the FIP, six are in the southwestern departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, and Caquetá, where territorial battles are taking place between various configurations of guerrilla groups – the ELN, EMC, Comandos de Frontera, Estado Mayor de los Bloques (EMB), and Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano (CNEB). In the western departments of Chocó, Tolima, and Antioquia, the disputes are between the Clan del Golfo, the ELN, and the EMB. In the central department of Guaviare, the conflict is between the EMB and the CNEB, while in the northern department of Magdalena it is between the Clan del Golfo and the Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN) paramilitary group. Finally, the ELN, the EMC, and the CNEB are contesting territories in the eastern departments of Norte de Santander and Arauca.

The final problem identified by the FIP is the State’s capacity to rectify this situation. It noted a reversal of Petro’s previously pacifistic approach, stating that actions by the security forces increased by 34% in 2025. However, the report accused the government of being reactive, rather than proactive, and stated that “weaknesses can be seen in intelligence, prevention, and predictions, while strategies like bombing are losing effectiveness in a conflict that is ever more fragmented and dispersed”. The FIP warned that “in this context, the risk for the civilian population increases and the State’s legitimacy is eroded”.

Total peace – doomed from the start?

As the end of Petro’s term approaches, the apparent failings of the ‘total peace’ plan mean that the next government, regardless of its ideological leanings, is likely to have a more sceptical view of armed groups’ commitment to peace talks. A return to a military-led approach is particularly likely if Colombia swings to the right, but even under left-wing continuity candidate Iván Cepeda, the next administration will have learned from the mistakes of Petro, who overpromised while misjudging both the willingness of insurgent groups to demobilise, and the extent to which those groups’ fragmentation would complicate the peace process.

This latter point was largely out of Petro’s hands and can be viewed as a consequence of the 2016 peace accords with the Farc, and the way in which that agreement was implemented. The decision of most Farc units to demobilise offered huge incentives to rival guerrilla, criminal, and paramilitary groups who sought to move into the Farc’s former territory and take control of its drug production network (according to specialist website Insight Crime, the Farc controlled around 70% of Colombian coca crops at the time of its demobilisation).

A 5 January Insight Crime article compared the situation following the Farc’s demobilisation to that which followed the dissolution of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group in 2006, in which at least 30 criminal groups attempted to fill a power vacuum before being subsumed by the Clan del Golfo – the eventual victor of these turf wars. The article cites Laura Bonilla, deputy director at Colombian NGO Fundación Paz y Reconciliación (Pares) as saying that “what’s coming is a high level of confrontation… Whoever proves most capable in this cycle of violence survives and absorbs the others”.

The struggle for control of former Farc strongholds has seen two particularly fierce flashpoints under Petro. The situation in the southwest has grown more complex due to a profusion of armed groups fighting for control of trafficking routes to Ecuador and to Colombia’s Pacific coast. There have also been intense guerrilla clashes in the Catatumbo region of Norte de Santander department, where in January 2025 the ELN launched a major offensive against the EMC [SSR-25-02].

At the same time, government efforts to negotiate with armed groups have in some cases caused them to splinter into different factions, further reducing the prospect for sweeping peace agreements. This has most obviously been the case with the EMC, which fractured due to internal divisions over whether to participate in peace talks, resulting in the birth of the EMB [SSR-24-09]. A similar story played out in the south-west, where a local faction of the ELN, the Comuneros del Sur, committed to a peace process with the government in defiance of the wishes of its parent organisation, adding to the already intense guerrilla fragmentation in that region.

The Comuneros del Sur did go on to demobilise in a process which began in April 2025, making it the only group to do so since Petro launched the ‘total peace’ initiative four years ago [SSR-25-05].

Senators in the crosshairs

On 5 February, two bodyguards were killed in an ambush on a convoy carrying Senator Jairo Castellanos in Tame municipality, Arauca department. Gunmen opened fire on the wrong car in the convoy, leaving Castellanos, of the centre-left Alianza Social Independiente (ASI), unscathed. The ELN claimed responsibility but expressed regret at the incident, saying that it took place amid confusion at a roadblock and that it did not intend to undermine the 8 March legislative elections. Then, on 10 February, Senator Aida Quilcué, of the ruling left-wing Pacto Histórico coalition, was briefly abducted by an unidentified armed group along with her two bodyguards while travelling in Totoró municipality, Cauca department. Quilcué disappeared for several hours before being found unharmed by the local indigenous guard. 

Drones

The FIP report also highlighted how armed groups are increasingly using drones to attack the security forces. It stated that in 2025, 277 explosive attacks using drones were registered, more than double the 119 drone attacks that were identified in 2024. Of these, the FIP said that the overwhelming majority (237) were carried out by the EMC guerrilla alliance.