The results are starting to come in from around the country for the 2026 Colombian presidential election first round. Abelardo de la Espriella has outperformed expectations to win the first round with over ten million votes, facing Iván Cepeda in three weeks’ time 

The ballot boxes closed at 4pm for the 2026 Colombian presidential election first round and now the tallying up of votes is underway. So far, with 99% of the votes in (19:30), Abelardo de la Espriella is outperforming expectations and has won the first round. He was expected to win between 25-30% of the vote, but now stands at 43.74%, significantly exceeding those predictions.

Read more: Abelardo de la Espriella Candidate Guide

In second place by a whisker is Iván Cepeda of the ruling Pacto Democrático. He was widely expected to come first with 40-45% of the vote and that’s where he appears to be (40.91%). The good news is that he’s matched expectations and that he’s against the candidate he most wanted to face in the second round. The bad news is that he looks set to finish second, is right at the bottom end of his target vote share and Abelardo’s performance has put the tiger among the pigeons.

Read more: Iván Cepeda Candidate Guide

The big losers of the day seem set to be the centrists and Paloma Valencia. The former are below even the extremely modest predictions they had been given, while the latter is performing beyond her worst nightmares. She had been expected to get at least into double figures, but is languishing at under 7%.

Read more: Paloma Valencia Candidate Guide

This is only the preconteo, so the votes will be formalised and fully scrutinised later. However, there is rarely a big change between the two numbers. There will still be heavy scrutiny on the data, especially with the focus on impropriety and accusations of vote-rigging (see below).

Only Abelardo de la Espriella managed to cross the symbolic ten million vote barrier, with Cepeda over 300,000 off the mark. With around 11 million votes needed for victory in the second round, things look promising for the self-styled outsider candidate.

Abelardo de la Espriella had been gaining momentum steadily in the last few weeks, but this is still a turn-up for the books and an extraordinary result for him. There is some speculation that a share of his vote comes from Pacto supporters that would prefer a run-off with him against Cepeda, but this seems unfounded.

There have been reports of private transport being laid on for rural voters to get to stations, paid for by both Cepeda and de la Espriella supporters in different regions. Supporters of both those candidates have also been accused of campaigning on the day and so forth in various reports from around the nation.

The collapse in the Centro Democrático vote isn’t hard to understand: Paloma Valencia had run a poor campaign and failed to get traction in the final weeks. What is surprising is the sheer scale of it: she’s ten to 20 points behind where she had expected to be. Questions will be asked in the Centro Democrático head offices now.

Elsewhere in the election, the dominance of de la Espriella and Cepeda left little room for anyone else. Sergio Fajardo ended his political career with over a million votes and nearly 5% of the vote, not too far off Valencia in the end. Failed Bogotá mayor Claudia López only got a quarter of the way to the 932,000 votes needed to recover her deposit. Hilariously, that’s about half the votes she gained in March’s primaries.

López did manage to squeak ahead of the reprehensible Santiago Botero, arrested in Cartagena on the morning of the election on domestic abuse charges. No surprise from a candidate who had been promising bullets for delinquents. Spare a thought, though, for Gustavo Matamoros in last place with a shade over 5,000 votes.

Turnout was higher than normal at 57.86%, with voto en blanco outranking all but four candidates and winning over 400,000 votes. As predicted, the Pacto won both coasts, the outer Amazon/llanos and Bogotá, while the right won all the central areas outside the capital. Dig deeper and the picture changes a bit: only de la Espriella won for the right, and Pacto’s vote share while winning was lower than expected in many departments (and Bogotá).

What happens next in the 2026 Colombian presidential election?

This means we are looking at a second round run-off on June 21st between Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella, the two most polarising candidates on the tarjetón today. Whichever one triumphs, Colombia will have a lot of unhappy voters. It’s easy to assume that Paloma voters will flock to de la Espriella, but that’s far from guaranteed, given the divisive nature of the candidate.

We are likely to be in coin flip territory at this point – de la Espriella won around 600,000 more votes today, which is a selnder advantage. The million voters for Fajardo should mainly go his way, but again that’s far from guaranteed. He is no longer in pole position, but also not out of the race. Both candidates have a lot of work to do now.

With a relatively high turnout this weekend, it’s unlikely that there is a well of voters that will come out only for the second round, something that Cepeda will be hoping for. However, there are millions of non-voters who could make the difference if either candidate wins them over.

There are likely to be increased attacks on the electoral system from both the president and Pacto Histórico supporters. Petro has spent months questioning its validity and claiming that the system is opaque and unclear. Today has already seen a flurry of similar comments flooding social media with claims of impropriety in various places.

Cédulas gemeleadas en anillos de corrupción en la registraduría. La señora tiene el derecho de elegir y se lo han conculcado.

Espero de la registraduria
Investigación a profundidad pic.twitter.com/8vmZDTYnVO

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) May 31, 2026

Oversight is carried out by the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral). In order to do this over the vast territory and number of stations, over 800,000 citizens are selected to be vote-counters. This is similar to jury duty in other countries and is compensated with a day off as well as a compulsory day of training a couple of weeks beforehand. As the electorate is growing, there are now some 13,000 voting sites across the country, most with multiple voting tables – 122,000 in total for today’s elections.

Petro’s concerns rest on the fact that Thomas Greg and Sons handle the software used in the election system, a firm that he’s clashed with repeatedly, especially over Colombian passport printing. He says that the systems are opaque and he has not received answers from the CNE or Registraduria over various concerns he has. However, both groups, along with Colombia’s neutral election observers MOE have been clear about the processes.

Online, there are many posts claiming that a key part of the alleged fraud will be in the reports made by the jurados. This echoes previous elections, where there was a flurry of images purporting to show electoral forms (E-14) that had been altered by the vote-counters. With AI entering the scenario, expect more of this after the first round, especially if de la Espriella or Cepeda do badly.

US senator Bernie Moreno, Bogotá-born, is in Colombia to observe the voting process, along with a significant number of international observers. Their reports will come through in the coming week, but this is only part of the story. Much of the voting irregularities here are hard to prove and difficult for outsiders to properly scrutinise.

Petro will also be under a keen eye from the electoral authorities and watchdogs over his involvement in campagining. The president is supposed to keep neutral throughout the election of his successor, but Petro has at best ridden that line very closely. He’s been accused on multiple occasions of crossing it, too, as have his ministers and Cepeda himself.

Whatever happens in the coming three weeks, the Bogotá Post team will keep you up to date with unbiased local reporting, free from vested interests or paymasters. Stay tuned to find out what twists and turns are coming in the 2026 Colombian presidential election race, as well as detailed profiles on the two candidates left in the race.

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Heard about the 2026 Colombian presidential election first round this weekend? Confused about what exactly is going on? Our guide clues you in on how it all works and why the bars and borders are shut

Tomorrow sees the first round of the 2026 Colombian presidential election. It’s been a long race which has turned particularly bitter in the final week. The candidates are largely campaigning on little more than vibes and charisma, with the centre absent.

While it’s been spiky, the country remains relatively safe on election weekends. You might well see some protests or celebrations on Sunday evening, there might be people on soapboxes in the streets in some areas, but there is unlikely to be any major disturbances in large urban conurbations. The story may well be very different in isolated rural zones, as is often the case in Colombia.

Colombia shuts down a lot over election weekend, with bars closing for ley seca and borders closing as well. There will be an increased police and military presence throughout the country, with particular focus on keeping key transport routes open.

Yesterday we looked at the candidates, how they might fare and what it would mean for the second round. Today we’re turning our attention to how things actually work in the 2026 Colombian presidential election on Sunday, including ley seca times and border closures.

How does the Colombian electoral system work?

Every Colombian over the age of majority (18) and with a correctly registered cédula ciudandanía can vote. In return, each voter gets a half day off work. Non-citizens are not eligible to vote in national elections, but holders of resident visas will be able to vote in next year’s local elections.

Oversight is carried out by the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral). In order to do this over the vast territory and number of stations, over 800,000 citizens are selected to be vote-counters. This is similar to jury duty in other countries and is compensated with a day off as well as a compulsory day of training a couple of weeks beforehand.

As the electorate is growing, there are now some 13,000 voting sites across the country, most with multiple voting tables. Colombians have to vote where their cédula is registered, so don’t be surprised to see some people trekking to other cities if they forgot to update their registration.

The polls are open from 8am until 4pm and counting is usually very fast with the results being clear before sundown. Land and fluvial borders will be closed for Colombian nationals tomorrow morning, although foreigners can cross. Airports will not be affected, so don’t worry if you are arriving on a flight.

Bogotá has entered ley seca earlier than usual, meaning no alcohol sales in bars, restaurants or shops from 6pm Friday night to Monday midday. That applies for everyone, so no representation or boozing for foreign residents, unless you do it at home. Ciclovía will also be cancelled for ease of access to polling stations.

What’s the background to the 2026 Colombian presidential election?

The run-up to the 2026 Colombian presidential election has seen a lot of criticism of the system, almost all of it coming from the national government. President Gustavo Petro has been front and centre on this issue, repeatedly questioning the neutrality of the elections.

Petro’s concerns rest on the fact that Thomas Greg and Sons handle the software used in the election system, a firm that he’s clashed with repeatedly, especially over Colombian passport printing. He says that the systems are opaque and he has not received answers from the CNE or Registraduria over various concerns he has. However, both groups, along with Colombia’s neutral election observers MOE have been clear about the processes.

Online, there are many posts claiming that a key part of the alleged fraud will be in the reports made by the jurados. This echoes previous elections, where there was a flurry of images purporting to show electoral forms (E-14) that had been altered. With AI entering the scenario, expect more of this after the first round, especially if de la Espriella or Cepeda do badly.

Voy a escribir porqué los escrutinio son opacos y vulnerables al fraude en las elecciones.

No porque crea que nuestro proyecto democrático vaya a perder sino porque es mi deber como jefe del estado al menos informar sobre uno de los peores riesgos de la democracia hasta ahora…

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 1, 2026

Of course, Petro is only claiming that electoral fraud exists against him, not in the multiple occasions in which he’s won at the voting urns. This is a well established populist tactic – calling elections into doubt before they happen. It’s likely to rally his base and provide an excuse if results are bad.

There is little credibility to most of the vote rigging claims. Colombia does indeed have some serious problems around corruption and influence buying, but this tends to be concentrated in rural zones in the periphery of the country. It’s also worth noting that these seats return candidates from across the political spectrum.

A lot of electoral impropriety is very hard to prove – the machines that promise to deliver blocks of votes are well-versed in legal limits and plausible deniability. Offering someone some free gifts in return for ‘support’, for example, is widespread and while dubious hard to prove in court.

It’s particularly noticeable that alliances between political actors in order to deliver voting blocs is both very common and very hard to stop. That’s where Nicolás Petro appeared to be operating and it is not clear quite who is exactly in bed with who at this point.

It goes without saying that political attacks on the CNE are particularly unhelpful, especially in what is still a very charged political atmosphere nationwide. The assassination of presidential pre-candidate Miguel Uribe last year was a shock to a country that has a long history of political violence.

Concerns remain over both electoral safety and fraud in much of the country, with over 200 municipios at high risk of fraud and/or violence. 39 of those are classed as very high risk and only 167 at very low risk, mainly in the Andino region.

There have been rumblings from Washington about the veracity of the 2026 Colombian presidential elections as well, with Bogotá-born Senator Bernie Moreno in the country as an observer. He can’t vote, having renounced his citizenship. The difference here is that they think Petro is going to rig the elections in his favour.

Petro himself has been rebuked by the Electoral Commission and others for participating in the 2026 Colombian presidential election. He’s repeatedly made comments that are at best close to the line of violating the constitutional neutrality of his office. 

Not only that, but a third of his cabinet have joined in, also being rebuked by the CNE. There’s over 140 public servants under investigation. Iván Cepeda himself has come under fire for a rally in Montería on Monday after campaigns constitutionally have to end. He claims it was a private event, just attended by hundreds of local people.  

Who’s in the 2026 Colombian presidential election?

Over time, the field has been whittled down to thirteen candidates on the official voting card. In reality, though, only three are at the races: Iván Cepeda, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia in order of current voting intention. Together, they account for around 80-90% of polling at the moment.

The left has been concentrated behind Cepeda, while Paloma Valencia has snaffled the centre-right position. Abelardo is the anti-establishment maverick. All the centrist candidates are languishing in the doldrums, with failed Bogotá mayor Claudia López and eternal candidate Sergio Fajardo the best of the bunch but both polling in low single figures.

There’s also the curious option of voto en blanco. Different from a spoiled vote, which is simply disregarded, this is an active protest. If it ranks highest in any race, then a rerun of the election must take place within a month with entirely new candidates and/or party lists.

Iván Cepeda is absolutely nailed on for the second round, almost certainly in first place. Who joins him is a slightly more open question. At the moment, Abelardo has the momentum and is riding high in the polls. However, polling isn’t infallible and Paloma could sneak into second place.

At best, many voters will be voting for their least-worst option in the second round. In recent years, Colombians have often cast negative votes rather than for a candidate they really support and this year is likely to be the same. Whoever wins, it will almost certainly be a loveless victory, despite their inevitable claims of popular support.

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Heard about the 2026 Colombian presidential election first round this weekend? Confused about what exactly is going on? Our guide clues you in on who’s running and what’s likely to happen

The 2026 Colombian presidential election enters its first round this weekend, with the election taking place on Sunday 31st May. If no one takes an overall majority, the run-off will take place three weeks later. It feels like a lifetime since the house elections in March and candidates have been furiously jockeying for position over the last few weeks.

At the moment, continuity candidate Iván Cepeda leads polling, with the rightists split between traditionalist Paloma Valencia and outsider Abelardo de la Espriella. The centre is currently more or less absent. Read on for more information about the candidates, the political backdrop and potential outcomes.

The polls are open from 8am until 4pm on Sunday 31st June for all Colombian nationals wherever their cédula is registered. Counting is usually very fast with the results being clear before sundown. Land and fluvial borders will be closed for Colombian nationals tomorrow morning, although foreigners can cross.

Bogotá will enter ley seca earlier than usual, meaning no alcohol sales in bars, restaurants or shops from 6pm Friday night to Monday midday. That applies for everyone, so no representation or boozing for foreign residents, unless you do it at home. Ciclovía will also be cancelled for ease of access to polling stations.

Who are the runners and riders in the 2026 Colombian presidential election?

Over time, the field has been whittled down to thirteen candidates on the official voting card. In reality, though, only three are at the races: Iván Cepeda, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia in order of current voting intention. Together, they account for around 80-90% of polling at the moment.

The left has been concentrated behind Cepeda, while Paloma Valencia has snaffled the centre-right position. Abelardo is the anti-establishment maverick. All the centrist candidates are languishing in the doldrums, with failed Bogotá mayor Claudia López and eternal candidate Sergio Fajardo the best of the bunch but both polling in low single figures.

Some interesting characters are in the also-run list. Santiago Botero has an incredibly aggressive position on crime: bullets for rapists and so on. Roy Barreras is running as a leftist alternative to Cepeda and Gustavo Matamoros represents the ecologist party of Colombia.

It won’t be third time lucky for Fajardo, who had probably the best thought-out manifesto on paper last time around. His brand of centrism is no longer en vogue and he’s announced his retirement from politics following this election.

Strangely, most of the country’s biggest parties are literally absent from the voting card. The Conservadores and Liberales dominated the last century but now don’t bother running candidates in the 2026 Colombian presidential election. Neither is there a Green candidate or a Cambio Radical candidate. Only Pacto and Centro Democrático are there.

There’s also the curious option of voto en blanco. Different from a spoiled vote, which is simply disregarded, this is an active protest. If it ranks highest in any race, then a rerun of the election must take place within a month with entirely new candidates and/or party lists.

Two candidates on the card have actually pulled out, Carlos Caicedo and Luis Gilberto Murillo. Any votes cast for them will be counted as spoiled, not for voto en blanco. Clara López pulled out earlier, which is why there is a blank space on the tarjetón.

What are the campaigns like?

The manifestos are terribly written, for the main part. There is a frankly shocking number of basic errors in most of them, suggesting that proofreaders weren’t asked to play a big part in production. Despite having had years to plan for this, it seems everybody chose to rush it instead.

Past the errors, there’s a generally low level of detail across all the manifestos. Vague numbers and targets are given with little to no consideration of how it will be achieved. That might lead one to suspect that there isn’t a high chance any of this will actually be stuck to, regardless of the outcome.

There has been no debate among all candidates. Even partial debates have been few and far between, with almost everyone preferring to stick to home turf where they have more control over questions and so forth. There’s been a host of negative publicity via influencer campaigns, with traditional electoral machines being somewhat sidelined.

Iván Cepeda is the continuity candidate, promising more of the same and offering very few details in his actual plan de gobierno, despite it being 433 pages long. He’s had an unusual campaign, turning up to dozens of rallies but offering few interviews. In many ways, he’s not the draw for his campaign.

Read More: Candidate guide to Iván Cepeda

Abelardo de la Espriella has run a controversial and divisive campaign portraying him as the outsider. That’s won him voters and he’s peaking at the right time. His manifesto is long on ideas and short on detail. He’s frequently made inflammatory comments, being accused of sexism, homophobia and racism and often leaning into that.

Read More: Candidate guide to Abelardo de la Espriella

Paloma Valencia has been faltering over the past few weeks in particular. She’s done well to make traditional political alliances, but that could be an albatross for her. Having Uribe’s support might lose as many votes as it gains. Despite this, she’s still in the race and has by far the most detailed manifesto of the three main challengers.

Read More: Candidate guide to Paloma Valencia

It’s notable that a lot of the messaging is quite similar across the candidates. Cepeda is for los nadies; de la Espriella is for los que nunca.  Both Valencia and Cepeda want 30,000km of new roads and are overshadowed by their political mentors. Paloma and Abelardo both want to turn the gas and oil taps back on.

They all support crop substitution for coca farmers and all claim to be anti-corruption. All of them support rural communities and home carers. With this level of agreement, a lot of the distinction that is being drawn is on personality and charisma, hence the two populists exploding in popularity.

So, who’s going to win the 2026 Colombian presidential election?

It’s anyone’s guess at this point, despite the polymarket predictions going wildly overboard in favour of Abelardo de la Espriella. That’s mainly from a certain type of punter that understands little about Colombian politics and is simply making a political statement via putting money on the rightist.

The last election was razor thin, with Gustavo Petro squeaking past Rodolfo Hernández (remember him?) with barely more than 50% of the vote, similar to 2018 when it went the other way for the current president. That’s very likely to be repeated more or less in full: the Pacto candidate dominating the first round then a very close run between the final two and one winning by a nose.

Iván Cepeda is absolutely nailed on for the second round, almost certainly in first place. Who joins him is a slightly more open question. At the moment, Abelardo has the momentum and is riding high in the polls. However, polling isn’t infallible and Paloma could sneak into second place.

More interesting is how many votes everyone gets. Cepeda will want 40% minimum, under that he’s probably in big trouble. If he can get over 45% he’s likely to win the second round. Anything in the middle and we’re into coinflip territory again. Note where the votes come, too. If Abelardo does well in Bogotá, a leftist heartland, that’s a good sign for him.

If Abelardo gets over 30%, he’s in a good position. If Paloma can get to that level, she’s going to be extremely happy. Those two candidates need to match Cepeda’s total at least in order to feel confident. If their combined vote share tops 50% then a rightist victory is likely.

The final numbers to keep an eye on are turnout and the centre vote. The latter will likely be 5-10% and could be crucial for the second round. The former should be over 50%. If it’s not, then the second round could be very unpredictable, especially if it’s two populists. 

Looking ahead, it’s entirely possible that someone could win with under 50% of the vote in the second round. This has become an election that is already both polarised and unstable. It is likely to become very vicious in the next phase, too.

At best, many voters will be voting for their least-worst option in the second round. In recent years, Colombians have often cast negative votes rather than for a candidate they really support and this year is likely to be the same. Whoever wins, it will almost certainly be a loveless victory, despite their inevitable claims of popular support.

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Confused about the upcoming Colombian presidential election? We’re here to help you with a set of cheat sheets on the top candidates so you can follow the local news. Today we’re looking at poll leader Iván Cepeda of the Pacto Histórico.

Who is Iván Cepeda?

Iván Cepeda Castro is a leftist politician who has served in the Colombian senate for the last 12 years. Before that, he was a Congressman for a term. Born in Bogotá to activist politician parents, the family was forced into exile in Soviet Czechia and Cuba in his youth. At 63 years of age, he’s notably older than his main rivals.

His father was assassinated for political reasons in 1994, something that has unsurprisingly contributed enormously to his sociopolitical views. He was a young communist, but long since moved away from that, preferring to concentrate on social analysis, activism and campaigning against rightist corruption.

He represents the Pacto Histórico ruling coalition, meaning that he benefits from the popularity of the current president Gustavo Petro. That’s no surprise, as they’ve been firm friends and comrades for years, with the president supporting his bid.

In comparison to his mentor, Cepeda is far more serious. Petro often plays the cuddly socialist grandpa, going off on tangents about free love and so forth. Cepeda is much more of a hardline Maoist academic who is well up for a long march through the institutions. He lacks the charisma of Petro, coming across more professorial and dry.

Is he polling well?

Very. He’s absolutely nailed on for the second round, with the only real question being how high his vote share is. There is some speculation that he may come second, but more likely he will be comfortably in front of the two rightest candidates.

The trickier part is the second round, when the right will be consolidated behind one person rather than split in two. He’s still often favourite against both Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, but likely prefers the former.

While he’s been out in front all through the campaigning process, he’s not really gone anywhere, simply sitting on 38-43% in every poll. While that’s admirable consistency, it also calls into question his ability to draw in the undecided voters.

He’s a marmite candidate, with very few informed voters neutral on him. Either you think he’s the saviour of the republic who can make Colombia more equal or you think he’s a dangerous revolutionary who will ruin the country. A lot of votes are for him under any circumstance and as many are against him under any circumstance.

What’s his campaign like?

Firmly leftist, unsurprisingly. He’s also leaning heavily into being the continuity candidate for the Petro government. That makes sense, with approval levels riding high after the giant minimum wage increase this year. While that might yet be a problem down the line, it’s electoral dynamite.

However, his campaigning has been rather lacklustre. He’s not a natural orator in the way that Petro is, and he lacks charisma, coming across as a dry theoretical academic. Perhaps aware of this, his team have arranged rallies where he can preach to the converted and otherwise keeping him out of the spotlight.

In reality, much of his campaigning is being done by others. Petro is the key figure here, with the president right up against the line of not technically campaigning. However, the head of state is taking a lot of actions that are clearly designed to help Cepeda, as well as constantly using his pulpit to call for the continuation of his ideas.

Complementing this is an incredibly powerful influencer/social push. Much of this is fairly organic, with Pacto supporters used to activism and intuitively good at promoting their candidate. It fits in well with his man of the people image. The biggest meme is ‘Solo pacto en esta mondá’. Notably, Cepeda himself isn’t the draw, with variations on the phrase namechecking Petro.

Combined with his very loose manifesto (see below), his campaign messaging is basically that only the Pacto will stand up for the people, especially those that have been treated poorly by the state. There’s little in the way of concrete offers, just a call for loyalty.

So what’s in his manifesto then?

You can read it for yourself online, but have a big pot of tea ready: it outdoes Marx and Engels at a whopping 433(!) pages long. A lot of that is AI images, while the actual propuestas are hidden away between rambling discourse, tangential essays, theoretical musings and diary entries. Notably, it is mostly in the past and present tenses.

A recurring theme is the involvement of civil society via what he calls the poder constituyente, especially youth and women’s groups. He claims he will call all political and social actors to the table in a mesa de diálogo nacional aimed at forming concrete proposals.

This will be implemented by a new Alianza Público-Popular which will allow civil groups to directly manage state funds. Both ethnic minority and campesino territories will be recognised and organised. There will be a Banco del Pueblo to improve access to financial instruments for poorer people as well as the unbanked.

Security is not a priority, but the key aim is to dismantle armed groups that are ‘successors of paramilitaries’. Iván Cepeda will continue the extant peace talks set up by Petro, but with a red line over assassinations of social leaders. Coca farmers will be encouraged to turn away from illegality via crop substitution.

Corruption will be dealt with by the Secretary for Transparency of the Presidency being given full independence and the Fiscalía receiving an Institute for Macrocorruption, as well as beefing up existing systems. Civil society will be encouraged to involve themselves in these processes.

A new Ley de Austeridad Republicana will be brought in to limit state spending via civil servants in an attempt to cut costs. He will reduce the salaries of the president’s office immediately and encourage his ministers to do the same. There will be greater scrutiny of public spending across all levels of the state. Again, no details.

More interesting is the promise to give victims of corruption resources, partially funded by seizure of illegal gains. All of this will be aimed at the parts of the country with the highest rates of corruption and impunity.

Victims of the conflict, meanwhile, will benefit from a new acuerdo nacional which will aim to deliver further reparations. He will also make sure that the 2016 peace agreement is carried out as originally planned, focusing on the Planes de Desarollo con Enfoque Territorial (PDET) for the areas most affected.

International relations will not revolve around the interests of Washington or Miami (?), but rather the national interest. The plan is for autonomy and integration, again involving civil society to work with foreign-based counterparts.

For rural areas, there will be 30,000km of minor roads built to improve connections to far-flung places, known as the vías para la paz. There will also be more rights to participate in politics, defend territory, improve connectivity and services, more land restitution and so on, none of which is clearly defined or detailed in numbers.

Rubbish is on the agenda, unlike any other candidate. He promises to strengthen and enforce recycling schemes and the basura cero initiative. Revitalisation and regrowth of urban areas is also under plan. On transport, he says he will rejuvenate trains as well as sort out the roads.

Who is he running with?

Aida Marina Quilcué Vivas is an Indigenous activist and current senator of the Republic. While she won’t bring any votes with her, this is a huge signal from the Pacto that they are serious about Indigenous representation.

Her selection shows Pacto confidence that they don’t need to reach out and form alliances with other groups. The advantage is that Quilcué and Cepeda will agree on virtually everything, in sharp contrast to Petro and Francia Márquez.

Quilcué has been an active part of the campaign, rallying supporters across the country, especially in rural and Indigneous areas. She’s chastised Abelardo for using the jaguar as a symbol. She’s also clashed with Paloma Valencia over indigenous rights in Cauca.

Is he a communist guerrilla that will expropriate my property?

No, he’s not. He was a young communist, but distanced himself from the party (against the wishes of his family) three and a half decades ago. He’s not a guerilla either and never has been, despite his closeness to M-19. He’s a leftist for sure, but that is not synonymous with communism either in act or desire.

The reason this gets so much traction is that he has certainly been close to guerilla groups, either working with them or in peace talks. He doesn’t help this by his actions, often going out of his way to avoid criticising groups that have a nominally leftist agenda, while specifying that he wants to go after ex-paras.

What’s all this about the Caso Uribe?

Iván Cepeda has been a fierce critic of Álvaro Uribe dating all the way back to when Uribe was in the Casa de Nariño. In many ways, the ex-president has defined Cepeda’s political career as much as Petro, though as sworn enemy rather than comrade. 

Cepeda accused the ex-president of links to paramilitarism, relating to the falsos positivos case and others. After repeated attacks in the Senate, Uribe filed a defamation writ against Cepeda, which was eventually annulled. In turn, Uribe found himself under investigation for allegedly attempting to influence witnesses in that case.

Vindication came last year with a Bogotá court ruling in favour of Cepeda after over a decade of deliberation. However, it was only a partial victory, with the ex-president only being declared guilty of fraude procesal y soborno en actuación judicial.

This means there is absolutely no love lost between the two, with Uribe’s preferred candidate Paloma Valencia and Iván Cepeda frequently clashing in the Senate and in the media. Abelardo de la Espriella also is close to Uribe, having represented him legally.

Any skeletons in his closet?

Yes. He has a habit of ignoring things that aren’t connected to paramilitarism or the peace process, ending up as one of the most absent senators in the last couple of years. He also has habitually evaded making clear statements on his health following his diagnosis of bowel cancer. He claims it is in remission, but rumours swirl that it is not. 

Then there’s the Operation Fénix affair. He was allegedly namechecked in emails found in a raid on a FARC base. It’s never been fully proved or denied, but has always hung over him. Added to the controversy over recent audioclips by guerrillas referring to him as a comrade, it fuels the fire for those who see him as too close to armed groups.

So, can he succeed?

Yes, he can and is probably the favourite at the moment. It would be absolutely shocking were he not to get to the second round and he matches up well with both of the two people he’s likely to face there.

Of the two rightists, he probably wants to see Abelardo against him. While he carries a threat as a markedly anti-establishment candidate in contrast to Cepeda’s life in politics, he will also turn off some of the anti-left candidates, especially those who want someone serious.

Voto en blanco could then become the decider. If we end up with a situation where a high number of voters decide they want neither option, Cepeda is likely in luck. It’s entirely possible that he could win without crossing 50% of the vote.

The popularity of Petro works in his favour, as does the minimum wage issue. Many will want further increases and see him as the best way to get that done. This may not be a vote for him so much as for the Pacto, but they all count.

However, there are no guarantees. He will get very few voters coming across from eliminated candidates. The key battle here will be turnout, which usually increases by 5-10 percentage points for the runoff.

The post Candidate guides for the 2026 Colombian elections: Iván Cepeda appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Confused about the upcoming Colombian presidential election? We’re here to help you with a set of cheat sheets on the top candidates so you can follow the local news. Today we’re looking at Paloma Valencia of the Centro Democrático.

Who is Paloma Valencia?

Paloma Susana Valencia Laserna is a conservative politician who has represented the Centro Democrático in the Senate for 12 years. She won her primary battle with three million votes in March, confirming her position as the establishment rightist candidate.

Anti-establishment types, look away now. Her paternal grandfather Guillermo León Valencia was President of the Republic from 1962-66, while her maternal grandfather Mario Laserna Pinzón founded the Universidad de los Andes.

Perhaps not coincidentally, that’s her alma mater, studying economics there before a Master’s in creative writing at New York University. She’s been heavily involved in politics for two decades now, originally as a candidate for Alas Equipo Colombia before jumping ship to the Centro Democrático.

Her faith is deeply important to her, as is tradition. Coming from the circle of the Popayán elite, she is a fairly standard conservative on most cultural and social issues. On the economy, she tacks more to a neoliberal line.

Is she polling well?

Not as well as she would like. While she won comfortably in the March primaries as part of the Gran Consulta por Colombia, she has since fluctuated around 15-25%, usually rising and falling in rhythm with rightist rival Abelardo de la Espriella.

Most recent polling has her in third place a week out from the election, which is a problem. She does outperform Abelardo in head-to-head matchups with Iván Cepeda in most polls, which her messaging will want to lean into over the coming week.

What’s her campaign like?

Centrism, slightly improbably. As one of two rightists in an election with a clearly dominant leftist candidate, two flailing centrists and a host of also-rans, she’s positioning herself as the closest to the centre of the viable options.

However, she’s firmly of the right, although tempered somewhat by her far more liberal vicepresidential candidate Juan Daniel Oviedo. This is best evidenced by the fact she is very much ‘la que dice Uribe’, clearly having the backing of the controversial yet still influential ex-president.

Her campaign logo features a cross, with religion playing a large role for her stance on many cultural and social issues. She leans heavily into those as a conservative. Colombia Más Grande is the slogan, but they don’t use it particularly well.

If elected, she would be Colombia’s first ever female head of state (with a first ever gay vicepresident too), although she’s not really leant into that much as you might think. As with much else, she’s not managing to cut through particularly well on socials or make a big splash in the national debate.

So what’s in her manifesto then?

You can read it for yourself online, under the name 111puntos. You even get an extra point for free. It’s fairly well presented, laid out and supported, but that’s not necessarily going to win any votes. Overall, other than a massive reliance on AI, there’s no big surprise or radical shakeup here, more a return to the old ways of doing things.

Paloma is certainly no dove when it comes to security and crime, promising a tough line. COP$20tn over four years for the armed forces in order to modernise and rebuild, finishing at 4% of annual GDP destined for the forces. That includes recruiting 30,000 more military personnel and the same number of police officers.

The rest of the money will go on increasing pay, conditions and so forth as well as a big push on tech. Drones are the centrepiece for investment, but cyberdefence is also highlighted as an area that needs urgent investment. 

Slightly more old-school is her plan to militarise key transportation routes immediately. More of the same with coca farms: more spraying that allegedly won’t affect ecosystems or people, combined with subsidies for substitution. The fact that neither of those things have worked for decades isn’t stopping her.

On the other side of the coin, Paloma Valencia promises zero impunity: “el que la hace, la paga”. That means more powers to seize illicit gains and more prison sentences for those found guilty of corruption, reducing the number of casa por carcel sentences. 22,000 more penitentiary places and 19,000 more prisoners.

There will be 50 new casas de justicia and mobile courts to tour the country visiting rural locations that are currently not served by the legal systems. All of this is working towards an aim to get congestion in the system from 48% down to 0. Ominously, there’s also a promise of a law to “regulate protest and punish vandalism”.

New laws on corruption are to be brought in, mostly focused around greater transparency using tech. That means blockchain to record transactions and deals as well as AI to analyse potential discrepancies. There will be greater enforcement of existing regulations and a guardian of public integrity to oversee processes.

On the economy, it’s all about recovering confidence from the international market. That will be done by getting infrastructure and mining production back up to pre-pandemic levels (6%+), USD$10mn more in exports and growth over five percent annually.

More FDI to the tune of USD$2bn annually, 25% of GDP to go into internal investment and reducing the deficit by COP$50tn. How is she going to pay for all this? With, err, tax cuts for homeowners and businesses, efficiency savings of 25% and debt refinancing. Good luck with all that.

She’s the only candidate to really take the healthcare crisis seriously. First up is a promise to resolve 10 million blocked prescriptions, appointments and so on in the first 100 days. She plans to send doctors to patients in rural areas, not the other way round.

This will be paid for by a COP$9tn investment. A third of that is destined for delivery of outstanding operations and prescriptions, the rest for paying accumulated state debt to healthcare operators. Many taxpayers won’t like the latter.

Energy faces a similar situation: paying off state debts to operators within the first three months. The goal here is to avoid blackouts and brownouts in the short term, while putting in place structures to avoid the same issues over the long term.

Turning on the taps for both oil and gas lies at the heart of this plan, with a reboot of exploration and extraction projects. Partly, this is to attract AI database and server investment. There’s also support for renewables and alternatives, but it seems more of an afterthought.

Her plan on international relations is to ride two horses. Free competition with China and more co-operation on infrastructure and exports from Colombia. At the same time, leadership in Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas project while guaranteeing that only the Colombian Armed Forces will operate in national territory.

There will be 187,000 free school places for talented children, 150,000 grants for vulnerable children and 10 public superschools. ICETEX loans, in line with other countries, will only be repayable when you have a salary. COLFUTURO will be rescued as well. The 16 biggest urban centres will have psycho-social units to look out for vulnerable children.

Businesses employing people under 28 will receive a subsidy of up to 30% of minimum wage for a year. Agricultural workers will receive better lines of credit, three million hectares of land formalised and a million new farming zones designated. Tourism is projected to double, with new routes opened for Asia and Europe.

There is a heavy focus on the grey economy. Informal workers will have access to seed capital, loans, a virtual wallet and a host of other possibilities. The goal is to offer help without persecution.

Pensioners will all be covered unconditionally, regardless of law or budget changes as well as three million vulnerable adults to receive subsidies. Each child born into poverty will have COP$500,000 put aside as seed capital to start saving.

Infrastructure starts off with 35,000km of new roads as well as increased satellite connectivity for marginalised communities. There will be 1 million new homes built, with a quarter of those directly subsidised. A million further homes will receive new or improved potable water access.

Finally, the environment. The brakes will go on for deforestation and the national parks will be protected from guerrilla activity. Local families will be given subsidies in order to protect areas of natural interest. Money generated from mining will be ploughed back into environmental protection.

Who is she running with?

Juan Daniel Oviedo, former head of DANE and candidate in the last race for Bogotá mayor. In that contest, he managed to force Gustavo Bolívar into third place in a two-horse race, showcasing his impressive campaigning ability. He came second in the Gran Consulta with over a million votes, reinforcing his reputation. 

He’s been more visible than Paloma Valencia for much of the campaign and is much more active than either of the other two undercards. That was the reason he was brought in – to appeal to more liberal voters and to provide an injection of energy on socials. He’s delivered in spades on both accounts.

However, there are a couple of issues here. Firstly, he runs the risk of overshadowing Paloma Valencia with his charisma and presence. Secondly, by joining her campaign he lost some of those centrist voters who saw it as a betrayal to join forces with the Centro Democrático.

They certainly aren’t natural bedfellows, with Oviedo a fair bit left of Valencia on a lot of economic issues. More profound splits are found on social issues. For example, Oviedo is out and proud while Valencia stands against gay adoption and marriage. Awkward at best. 

Why do people say she’s ‘la que dice Uribe’?

Pido respetuosamente votar por Paloma Valencia. pic.twitter.com/HpS5XjGdVw

— Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) May 18, 2026

That’s a bit unfair on a candidate with a long and storied political career of her own. However, while she isn’t just Uribe’s candidate, she certainly makes a lot of having his passionate backing.

That’s been a mixed blessing for a while now, with Uribe’s influence waning as the years pass. While his candidate won in 2018, they failed to even make the second round in 2014 and 2022 and we could well be on for a repeat of that.

The ex-president certainly casts a long shadow and that’s not always positive, especially with Oviedo also shining bright. Support for Uribe has dwindled over the past two decades, as Colombian demographics change profoundly.

However, Uribe does retain a large swell of support and also commands the biggest party machine of the candidates in the race. The Centro Democrático will be able to make a huge campaigning push on and offline across the entire country, which may be underreported. 

Any skeletons in her closet?

A few, mainly over her combative social media use while in the Senate. Paloma Valencia has largely avoided serious controversy though, with most of her twitterstorms being differences of opinion rather than accusations of impropriety.

She accused now-president Gustavo Petro of corruption in 2018 following the Odebrecht affair. This amounted to grainy footage of him receiving cash at an unknown point. That was archived as being far too flimsy to be evidence of anything at all.

In 2022 she defended the Colombian state’s actions during the armed conflict, saying that while there may have been errors and atrocities, they were legitimate and in defence of the country. That unsurprisingly met with a huge backlash from various quarters.

Una narrativa mucho más constructiva (y verdadera) es: Los para y la guerrrilla fueron y son monstruosos. El Estado cometió errores y atrocidades, pero era legítimo y fundamentalmente estuvo en la defensa de los ciudadanos.

— Paloma Valencia L (@PalomaValenciaL) July 29, 2022

There is one case hanging over Paloma Valencia still. Her link to Uribe led to her questioning the legitimacy of a key witness in the case against him. In turn, the witnesses defence lawyers filed a defamation case against the senator, over which the Supreme Court has ordered a conciliatory process. That has not yet concluded.

She’s also clashed with Cepeda’s vicepresidential candidate Aida Quilcué over indigenous rights in Cauca. Indeed, she’s gone as far as to suggest splitting the entire department in two, one for Indigenous Colombians only, something many view as racially motivated.

So, can she succeed?

Yes, she can. Next weekend is arguably a harder test for her than a second round would be if she gets through. Similar concerns swirled around her in the Gran Consulta por Colombia, but she ended up sailing through comfortably. 

If she can repeat that trick, she matches up better than anyone else against Iván Cepeda. However, that’s very far from guaranteed, as they’re closely matched. It’s assumed that she’ll gain a lot of Abelardo voters, but that may not be true. The anti-left will flock to her, but the anti-establishment might not.

Her main draw is presenting herself as the only viable sensible candidate. In part that’s with Oviedo on board, in part that both Cepeda and de la Espriella are seen as populist. There’s a lot of centrist voters that will hold their noses and vote for her along those lines.

Having said all that, centrism isn’t in vogue in many places globally and Colombia is no exception. That may block her even getting to a final face-off and her chances of winning rest with anti-Cepeda votes. More than any other candidate, hers would be a loveless victory.

The post Candidate guides for the 2026 Colombian elections: Paloma Valencia appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Confused about the 2026 Colombian presidential elections? We’re here to help you with a set of cheat sheets on the top candidates so you can follow the local news. First we’re looking at Abelardo de la Espriella of Defensores de la Patria.

Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?

Abelardo de la Espriella hails from Montería, which he makes great play of. He was actually born in Bogotá, as well as studying in various universities here. He rose to fame as a defence lawyer, eventually setting up his own firm, De La Espriella Lawyers Enterprise. Their clients have been varied (more of that later).

He has a colourful background alongside his legal activity, releasing two albums of classical and traditional music as well as launching De La Espriella Style, his menswear line. He also has his fingers in other pies, including rum, wine and coffee, several books and a foundation to help impoverished kids.

A former atheist, he saw the light in the pandemic and came around to Catholicism, which is convenient for winning votes in a deeply religious country. He holds Italian and US passports. He takes pride in his appearance, often suited and tidily-bearded but switching to sombreros vueltiaos or guayaberas when appropriate.

While he has a varied and successful background in business, he has no experience at all in government, either at local or national level. He is leaning into that, taking the mantle of the outsider candidate and promising to do politics differently. Courting controversy is second nature for this bullish and outspoken candidate.

Is he polling well?

He started strongly towards the end of last year, then seemed to have dipped as we moved into springtime. Since the March elections though, he’s picked up the pace again and is peaking again at just the right time.

He’s now ahead of Paloma again with most pollsters and stands a good chance of making the second round, where he faces a strong challenge against Cepeda. His incredibly divisive rhetoric and persona mean that he doesn’t match up easily in a one-on-one.

Like many populists in the caudillo mould, he splits opinions – while he wins a lot of hearts and minds, so too does he turn a lot of people against him. Very few people are neutral on Abelardo, which means he could struggle to win the more centrist voters, even against Cepeda. Expect voto en blanco to do well if he’s in the second round.

What’s his campaign like?

Pick your adjective depending on how you view him generally: controversial, innovative, problematic, fierce, strong, crass, outspoken. What’s unarguable is that it is very much focused on him, features a lot of show and spin and is extremely light on detail.

Very much in the vein of a Trump or Bukele, two key influences he acknowledges himself, he positions himself as the outsider candidate compared to the professional politicians in the race. This has not only been successful elsewhere, but almost took Rodolfo Hernández to the presidency four years ago.

Interestingly, Abelardo de la Espriella is in one way openly following a very similar line to the leftists he claims to hate. He is courting “los que nunca” against “los que siempre”, fitting his position as the outsider candidate. His promises often revolve directly around shaking everything up.

So what’s in his manifesto then?

You can read it for yourself online, or what is there at least. It’s barely a manifesto and more a collection of ideas, positions and wishes. He focuses heavily on law and order with a generous side serving of efficiency savings. Quite how any of this will get done or whether it’s viable is often unclear.

First thing on the agenda is that he’s tough on crime. He’s proposed 10 megacarceles in the Bukele mould, a ‘primera linea’ of reservists and veterans and a new bloque de búsqueda for barrios. He targets a 30% reduction in gender-based violence and 40% cut in feminicides. That involves an accelerated 24/7 judicial process in 72 hours maximum. 

More widely, he wants to reform and better fund the armed forces in order to both establish state control of territory and enforce the state monopoly on arms. That carries over into his stance on armed groups. He wants to eliminate 330,000 hectares of coca farms using any and all tools available to him. That means spraying, manual elimination, express recuperation of proceeds of crime and so on.

Para cambiar a Colombia primero hay que sobrevivirle a quienes no quieren que cambie. pic.twitter.com/h6Tf8refWr

— De La Espriella Presidente (@AbelardoPTE) May 17, 2026

The mano dura is also set to come down on politicians. He’s fiercely anti-corruption, which he defines broadly. He plans to start with Ecopetrol and then clean out state organisations of their links to “narco-trafficking, corruption and bad management”.

Politicians and administrators that are not corrupt won’t be safe, either. He promises zero tolerance for ineptitude and inefficiency. He wants results within 100 days and those with empty hands will be told to sling their hook. Ambassadors have been told they need to promote the country, not just shoot whisky on the public purse.

Tax avoidance is also on the radar – Abelardo de la Espriella wants to use AI to radically improve DIAN’s processes and deal with widespread avoidance. Subsidies will also be revised to make sure they are going to the right places.

He wants to recover energy self-sufficiency and to restart drilling and exploration as well. Gas is his main focus, although rare earth mining is also highlighted, alongside reform of the costly ElectroCaribe. A main driver is drawing a clear line between legal and illegal mining.

The national budget will also benefit from the efficiency savings – merging or abolishing agencies he sees as redundant such as the Ministerio de Igualdad. That’s part of a shock plan to save around 3.1% of GDP.

With those savings, the aim is to get the deficit to -4.8%(!) within the first year, falling to under 3.5% or lower by 2030. Dovetailing with that is a promise to anchor the debt/GDP ratio at no higher than 55%. All this will require annual growth of at least 3% with 5%+ targeted.

On education, there is to be greater focus on technology, as well as a ‘virtual university’ and free computers in schools. Unsurprisingly, details are limited. A STEM program specifically aimed at girls will be set up to deal with the tech gender gap.

Rural communities are a key part of his voter base and he’s promising 600,000 new jobs outside cities as well as 100,000 young people to receive education on improved farming methods and use of tech. 2 million hectares are to be delivered to the people.

Rounding up, there will be COP$125bn aimed at co-investment or seed capital for creative projects; mass sterilisation of stray animals to reduce populations and 200,000 carers to be given subsidies.

Who is he running with?

José Manuel Restrepo, the closest thing to an aristocrat that a two-century-old republic can have. He claims direct descendency from revolutionary hero Francisco de Paula Santander. In sharp contrast to Abelardo, he’s a classic buttoned-down conservative.

He served under Duque as Ministro de Hacienda following the botched intent at fiscal reform, having previously been at Comercio. Outside of politics he has been rector of three different universities, most notably the Rosario, his alma mater alongside Bath and the LSE. 

However, given that Abelardo de la Espriella loves the limelight, his undercard is not a key part of this campaign. While the other two real candidates have genuinely strong vice-presidential candidates, Abelardo is doing all the heavy lifting himself.

What’s all this El Tigre stuff?

Abelardo understands the importance of branding, and this is a key part of his appeal. He says that the big cat represents courage, ferocity and independence, all of which are qualities he identifies with. In a country where blankets featuring tigers are a staple of many homes, this is a good brand to have.

Tigre in Colombia can refer to tigers or jaguars, both of which he uses, though the former are more common. That means video screens with dancing tigers on them, tiger-print shoes up for sale and a whole lot more. He’s often to be seen wearing tiger-print clothes.

Cepeda’s running mate Aida Quilcué has publicly asked him to stop using jaguars as part of this, claiming they hold a special significance for Indigenous Colombians. Abelardo de la Espriella has predictably ignored that.

Any skeletons in his closet?

Sort of. There’s certainly a great deal of controversy, but a lot of it he simply leans into and doesn’t see as problematic at all. That’s true of personal attacks on Paloma Valencia,  as well as frequent homophobic and sexist outbursts.

It’s less true of his past as a criminal defence lawyer, an area that often makes him quite touchy. He has represented some pretty shady characters, including Álvaro Uribe himself. Jorge Pretelt and David Guzmán are just two high-profile clients accused of corruption that de la Espriella has defended.

In fairness, his firm has also taken on some genuinely important defences, most notably Natalia de la Ponce and Rosa Elvira Cely. However, even this is disputed, with family members taking to Instagram to dispute his take on that and suggest it was more about financial interest.

Then there’s the outstanding allegations that the firmas he collected in order to be able to run were improperly registered. He won 5 million, more than any other Colombian, of which 3 million were ruled invalid. That still leaves him comfortably over the threshold, but raises questions about his support. 

So, can he succeed?

Yes, he can. It’s nowhere near guaranteed that he’ll make the second round, of course, and he absolutely has the potential to do or say something that will torpedo his campaign. However, he’s a maverick and is campaigning well, which makes him unpredictable.

He is offering easy solutions to complex problems, but that’s often popular with the electorate. Get past the rhetoric and he identifies a lot of key problems and his proposals could be a good thing. He just doesn’t make it clear exactly how this is going to happen.

More to the point, Abelardo de la Espriella represents the outsider position compared to everyone else: he really is not a professional politician like them, for good or for bad. Again, that’s popular with many voters after decades of incompetence from technocrats.

Comparisons with Trump in the USA or Bukele in El Salvador are clichéd, but they stand up. He frequently flirts with sexism and homophobia while mocking opponents, but claims innocence, he promises a hard line on crime and he avoids clarity over his proposals. Both those candidates won comfortably with similar electorates to Colombia.

If he gets to the second round, he could win due to a dislike of the other candidate, as that will almost certainly be Cepeda. In that case, there could be a lot of voters holding their noses to vote either for or against him. At the moment, that’s a coin flip.

The post Candidate guides for the 2026 Colombian elections: Abelardo de la Espriella appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

A large military contingent has been sent to Cauca today to halt clashes between members of the Nasa and Misak communities fighting over ancestral territory.

The first of 500 troops arrived in Popayán, the department capital, to be ferried by helicopters to the hills around Sylvia in northern Cauca where members of both indigenous groups were fighting on Thursday. The violent confrontation led to seven deaths and more than 100 people injured, some seriously, according to latest reports.

Colombia’s minister of defence Pedro Sánchez, announcing the troop deployment, said the death toll was likely to rise as both military and state institutions gained access to the zone.

Videos posted online showed people from both communities fighting with machetes, spears and home-made explosives. But many dead and injured had gunshot wounds, suggesting firearms were being used, said Sánchez.

Leaders called for calm today, and Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro appealed to both sides to re-start talks over the contested land.

“I have requested a meeting with the highest authorities of the Misak and Nasa peoples to guarantee peaceful coexistence,” tweeted Petro. He offered to broker talks next week.

Petro’s government has been attempting to resolve historical territorial issues with indigenous communities who often lack legal land titles through the Agencia Nacional de Tierras (ANT), the national land agency.

An “interethnic pact” was urgently needed in Cauca to return fertile land to original communities for agricultural crops, said Petro. The expertise of indigenous farmers could turn the tide of drug trafficking in the region, he added.

Conflict hotspot

Cauca, in southwest Colombia, is one of the country’s most conflicted regions with multiple armed groups in conflict with the state.

It is also home to some of Colombia’s largest indigenous communities, such as Nasa that inhabit large tracts of highlands that span the Andean massif and defend their land with both political bodies – powerful lobbies such as the CRIC or Consejo Regional Indigena del Cauca – and self-defense forces known as Guardia Indigena.

In Cauca, the Guardia Indigena are frequently targeted by armed groups and members of CRIC are victims of kidnap or assassination.

See also – Cauca bombs: What’s Going On?

Vice-presidential candidate Aida Quilcué, herself Nasa, survived an abduction attempt in February this year when armed men intercepted her vehicle in the highlands of Cauca. She was rescued by Guardia Indigena who trailed her into the mountains.

This week’s clashes erupted after simmering dispute over 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of páramo highlands bordering the Pitayó Reserve, belonging to Nasa, and Guambia territory of the Misak.

Political twist

According to members of the communities, the plot of land had three springs and was of cultural and spiritual significance to both groups. But in 2023 the ANT appeared to award titles to Nasa based on colonial maps from the colonial era of the 1750s, and act that infuriated Misak who also claimed it as their ancestral territory.

In the aftermath of Thursday’s clashes, opposition politicians were quick to blame the Petro government for fomenting the violence, accusing the ANT of favoring the Nasa reserve and CRIC – widely seen as allied with Petro’s Pacto Historico party – of using the ANT judgment to invade Misak territory.

In a Facebook post right-wing presidential candidate Paloma Valencia accused Nasa’s community in the Pitayó reserve of breaking negotiations to take the disputed territory by force.

In a further twist, Valencia implicated Quilcué, the running mate of her main political rival Iván Cepeda in this month’s presidential elections. Quilcué, who previously led CRIC and was openly supported by the organization in her vice-presidential bid, had pushed the dispute, claimed Valencia.

“Instead of deciding to resolve the issues, the Nasa then decided to advance and invade the Misak territory,” she added.

Allowed to fester

According to an analysis by El Espectador, the conflict stemmed from a misunderstanding of 2023’s ANT declaration, which was an interim finding leaving a “wide margin of interpretation” for who owned the land.

Nasa interpreted the finding as an excuse to use the land traditionally inhabited by Misak, and in return the Misak community blocked access roads.

In March this year the governor of the Pitayó reserve Edinson Pacho condemned the Misak for causing economic damage to farmers unable to take their products to market.

In turn, this week Misak representative Liliana Pechenche accused the “armed forces of the CRIC” – the Guardia Indigena – of killing at least two Misak men and kidnapped 10 more of the Guambia community during the escalation.

She also denied the Misak were armed, claiming this was false information spread by the Nasa to justify their armed incursion: “We are at risk of physical extermination through persecution; we are a peaceful people.”

Both sides agreed on one thing: that the government and its ANT agency had allowed the misunderstanding to fester for several years despite warning signs that violence was brewing.

CRIC, which according to its website represents many indigenous groups including Misak in Cauca, rejected the appropriation of the conflict by national politicians.

“These situations cannot be used to deepen the division between fraternal communities,” it said in a statement.

“These conflicts…are the result of historical decisions and institutional omissions …to generate disputes, confusion, fragmentation and confrontations between indigenous groups,” it concluded.

By Friday a tense calm had settled on the area according to observers, with hopes for a quiet weekend before talks planned for next week.

The post Troops arrive in Cauca to calm clashes between indigenous communities. appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

2025 was worst humanitarian crisis in over a decade, says report.

Colombia’s armed groups must stop targeting civilians, urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this week in a report highlighting the country’s intensifying conflict.

In 2025 the impact of armed conflict on communities was the worst recorded in a decade, said the ICRC, with all indicators showing mistreatment of civilians on the rise.

Quoting statistics from Colombia’s victim support unit – the UARIV – the human rights organization reported more than 87,000 persons displaced in mass events by conflict or threats, and a further 235,000 forced to uproot their lives individually.

Also in 2025, at various times more almost 177,000 people were confined in their communities by aggression by armed groups, either by combat or closing of transport routes.

And in a shocking figure, 965 persons were killed or injured by explosives, often delivered by drones, an increase of 34% on the previous year (2024). Most victims were civilians.

“The scale of this human tragedy cannot be described by numbers alone but is reflected in the suffering of entire communities living in fear of fighting,” said the ICRCs Colombia chief Olivier Dubois, presenting the findings.

“Families are forced to leave everything behind in order to survive, the search for thousands of missing persons, and the shattered lives of boys and girls scarred by war,” he added.

New forms of warfare

The ICRC has a key role in promoting International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in armed conflicts – the so-called ‘rules of war’ – of which an important part is keeping civilians out of the crossfire. The Geneva-based organization, which has been present in Colombia for decades, said upholding these rules depended on decisions by the armed actors themselves.

This was an increasingly difficult task given the breakdown of formerly hierarchical armed groups into numerous factions. And with new forms of warfare.

“In 2025, our teams worked in a context marked by the intensification and transformation of armed conflict dynamics, including an increasing use of new technologies, such as the use of drones, with significant consequences on civilians’ daily lives,” said Dubois.

The increase of explosive hazards – booby traps, landmines and drone bombs – affected civilians as clashes intensified in departments such as Norte de Santander, Cauca, Antioquia and Valle.

In these areas a total of 75 civilians were affected by landmines, and more than 540 injured or killed by “controlled detonation devices and launched explosive devices”, a term that includes a range of improvised devices from roadside bombs to armed drones and clumsy pipe mortars firing cooking gas cylinders packed with explosives.

Intimidation and power

The rise in drone-dropped bombs had not only intensified in the conflict but “generated fear, uncertainty and serious harm among affected communities”.

The report also described scant regard for civilian spaces as explosives were found scattered in fields, roads and even schools, stated the report.

“The way in which hostilities are conducted, and weapons are used, has direct implications for civilians and civilian property”, it added.

The ICRC also warned of the horror of sexual violence within the conflict framework, though often hidden and unreported. From its own presence in zones dominated by armed groups, the ICRC was aware that rape and abuse survivors faced stigmatization and fear of reprisals.

This created barriers for victims seeking care and assistance and under-reporting of cases: “The available figures do not reflect the true scale of this phenomenon,” said the report.

Armed groups used sexual violence as a form of intimidation and a show of power, but in some cases also as a form of punishment in communities under their control.

The report also called on armed groups to stop recruiting minors: “No person under the age of 18 should be recruited, used or involved in hostilities under any circumstances,” it said.

The humanitarian crisis observed last year was not a sudden phenomenon, explained the ICRC, but rather the culmination of year-on deterioration since 2018.

Bad month for civilians

The report follows a calamitous month for Colombia in terms of civilian victims. In late April, 21 bus passengers were killed in Cauca when the EMC armed group exploded a roadside bomb by a queue of stopped traffic.

And in early May a young journalist was tortured and murdered by suspected Frente 36 dissidents in a rural area close to Briceño, Antioquia.

See also: Colombian journalist found dead days after being reported missing

The report’s findings chime with those from thinktanks and UN agencies that have rung alarm bells over growing conflict and abuses by armed groups.

In February, UNICEF warned of a spike in child recruitment with numbers rising 400 per cent over five years, with one minor forced into conflict on average every 20 hours.

The same month thinktank Fundacion Ideas para la Paz (FIP) published data showing that Colombia’s illegal armed groups had grown by 84 per cent during the three years of the Petro government’s Paz Total policy

Armed groups had cynically used rounds of negotiations to expand both in numbers and territory, FIP analyst Gerson Arias told The Bogotá Post.

“As such, the policy gave a gigantic strategic advantage to the armed groups to strengthen their fighting forces,” he said.

War without ideology

A common theme between conflict commentators was the lack of ideology among today’s armed groups, lowering any humanitarian impulses. This even though these groups at times mimicked the uniforms, logos and terminology of former rebel movements with social agendas such as the FARC-EP.

“Any ideological dimension of these groups has been replaced by the dynamics of illegal markets,” Gerson told The Bogotá Post last week. “The dimension now is military strength to sustain those markets.”

From the 1960s to the 1980s Colombia’s guerrilla movements were close to rural communities. That relationship was now predatory, said Gerson. “Communities in Cauca, for example, don’t feel represented or protected by these armed groups who attack them, confine them and recruit their children,” he explained.

The question now is: will the current crop of combatants heed the ICRC’s call this week to respect civilian communities?

ICRC’s Olivier Dubois said that while the context was challenging, international humanitarian law should be foremost in the minds of all fighters in the conflict.

In particular, he called on armed groups to protect children from war, and respect spaces such as schools. He also called for an end to forced disappearances, of which the ICRC recorded 308 new cases last year, on top of the 132,000 historical cases reported by the authorities over six decades of conflict.

“No one should go missing, and no family should have to endure the uncertainty of not knowing what happened or where their loved one is. Preventing the disappearance of persons is an obligation imposed by Interntional Humanitarian Law on all parties to armed conflicts,” he said.

“Upholding international humanitarian law is fundamental to limit suffering in armed conflicts. When these rules are not respected, suffering is exacerbated”.

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Today the world is celebrating Global Big Day, a 24-hour birding event open to families, scientists, and nature lovers across the planet. 

Birders have 24 hours to record as many species as possible, and Colombia, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, aims to keep the country perched atop the worldwide leaderboard. 

Last year, the country recorded around 1,500 species and 12,000 checklists, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism (MINCIT).

Colombia, of course, has a leg up on other countries. It’s home to the highest number of identified bird species on the planet: 1,900. That’s 20% of all known bird species. 

The country is also a temporary home to over 200 migratory species each year. 

“Colombia’s global ranking is opening doors for regions that were once isolated but still hold incredible natural resources,” Luisa Aguirre, Technical Director of Sustainability and Innovation for Environmental Culture at the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca (CAR), told The Bogotá Post. 

The event schedule is centered on Saturday, but people can still report their findings between May 10 and 12. On May 16, CornellLab, the organizers of Global Big Day, will present the preliminary results.

“Beyond just spotting birds, these activities help us learn more about the world we live in and create a real sense of emotional well-being,” Aguirre stated.

The participants (beginners and experienced birders) can share their observations on the eBird platform, managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is used as the main global data repository. In the case of Colombia, the goal is to surpass the 1,600 species targeted and defend its current crown.

Colombia’s neighbor, Peru, is hovering close behind. Last year the Andean nation took second place, recording 1,400 species. 

If you’re from Colombia, you know the people love a good regional rivalry, and birders are no different. Different regions of Colombia are vying for bragging rights as a top birding destination. 

For example, CAR, which plans and executes environmental projects in the department of Cundinamarca in central Colombia, activated 29 strategic natural parks and lakes, including the Embalse del Neusa, El Hato, and Laguna del Cacique de Guatavita for the global event. 

Within driving distance from the country’s megametropolis capital city Bogotá, there are plenty of great birding destinations. 

In Cundinamarca, Puente Sopó is a local birding favorite, with 160 registered species in 2025, while Neusa and Cacique de Guatavita areas hosted approximately 140 species each during the past year; this is also due to their high-mountain ecosystems.

​All around the country, hummingbirds, macaws, blue tanagers, and the majestic Andean condor are some of the most recognized species of Colombia’s biodiversity. While spotting the condor represents a real challenge, hummingbirds and woodpeckers are some of the easiest species to catch a glimpse of. 

Beyond the ecological data, these places also offer a deep connection to the region’s historical and ancestral roots. In the Cacique de Guatavita Lake, for example, the Muisca community from Sesquilé (an indigenous community) guides foreign and national visitors on a hike while sharing one of the most recognized stories in Colombia’s history: the Legend of El Dorado.

“Watching birds in a place full of history and spirituality is a unique chance to promote a more conscious and sustainable type of tourism,” said Aguirre. 

“Birdwatching has become a great opportunity to support local businesses and promote the country’s biological heritage fairly and responsibly,” she added. “This event is a huge recognition of the hard work that local communities, guides, and researchers do for nature conservation”.

By opening these protected areas, the region aims to show its variety of endemic and migratory species. It also offers specialized routes for thousands of observers, strengthening Colombia’s position as a top nature tourism destination.

“The best advice is to just go for it… You need to be patient and take the time to really watch the habits and colors of the birds,” Aguirre concluded.

Featured image credit: GlobalBigDayColombia.com

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Colombian politician Germán Vargas Lleras died Friday in the capital Bogotá, according to Semana magazine. His death brings an end to a political career spanning more than 30 years, including as a senator, minister, vice president, and two-time presidential candidate. 

On Monday, Vargas Lleras was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo Cancer Treatment and Research Center in Bogotá. He was later transferred to another hospital where he lost a battle with cancer he had been fighting for years. He was 64 years old. 

Political career

Born in Bogotá on February 19, 1962, Vargas Lleras grew up in a political family. His grandfather, former President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, was a pillar of the country’s Liberal Party. 

He would go on to make a name for himself on his own, serving as a city councilman, congressman, minister, and ultimately leader of the Cambio Radical political party.

Vargas Lleras first ran for president 2009. He traveled the country, participated in debates, and garnered nearly 1.5 million votes. It wasn’t enough to win, but he finished third. 

The winner of the election, Juan Manuel Santos, would later call on him to serve as a minister in his cabinet. 

In 2014, Santos chose him as his running mate for reelection. Together they won in the runoff, and Vargas Lleras took office as vice president on August 7 of that year. 

Once his term as vice president ended, Vargas Lleras did not sit idle. In 2018, he ran again for president, this time with the “Mejor Vargas Lleras” coalition backed by Cambio Radical. 

His policy proposals included  infrastructure, housing, and a more efficient public administration.

In the first round, he received over 1.4 million votes but finished fourth, knocking him out of the runoff race. His campaign stated that he would not officially endorse either of the remaining candidates, Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro. 

Over time, he kept a lower profile, though he never completely stepped away from politics.

During his career, Vargas Lleras would survive two assassination attempts and a “parapolitics” scandal in which he was accused, but never charged, with benefitting politically from his connections to warlord “Martin Llanos”.

Health issues

In his later years, his health gradually got in the way of politics; reportedly, he suffered from a benign meningioma, a tumor in the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, which was detected in 2016 after a fainting spell. 

On March 11, former President Álvaro Uribe commented on his condition, saying, “My best wishes for the health of Dr. Germán Vargas Lleras, a distinguished patriot whom I respect despite our occasional disagreements.”

During his final months, the former vice president stayed out of the public eye, though he briefly reappeared on March 3  in a video concerning the March 8 parliamentary elections. 

Upon learning of his death, former President Santos wrote on X that he is “deeply saddened” and described Vargas Lleras as “an exceptional colleague.”

Current President Gustavo Petro also mourned the political leader’s death: “Both in the Senate and on the campaign trail, he behaved like a gladiator. As someone who often disagreed with him, I regret that his seriousness in debate will be lost,” he said on his X account.

Featured image: Germán Vargas Lleras

Image credit: Germán Vargas Lleras via Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Latin America Reports and was republished with permission.

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Authorities in Colombia confirmed the discovery of the body of Mateo Pérez Rueda, an independent journalist and Political Science student at the National University in Medellín, who had traveled to Briceño, Antioquia, to document the security situation in that region, where the 36th Front of the dissidents of the former FARC operates.

The body has been released to the family following dialogues between organized crime groups and humanitarian organizations, including the ICRC. The family wasn’t allowed to enter the zone either.

“He was murdered by Jhon Edison Chalá Torrejano, from the Darío Gutiérrez front, which is a divided group from the 36th Front, fragmented into various criminal groups,” stated President Gustavo Petro through his X account.

The 25-year-old reporter had become an important voice for the communities of northern Antioquia, founding and serving as the director of the digital media outlet El Confidente de Yarumal.

In this role, he covered issues related to organized crime, administrative corruption, public order, security, and local politics in municipalities where organized crime and illegal armed groups operate actively, such as Valdivia, and Ituango. Because of this, he faced legal prosecutions, conciliation summons, and other hostile acts against him.

The country entered into an active search for Mateo following the report of his disappearance on May 5 in the rural hamlet of Palmichal, where local residents and relatives of the victim had reported that the journalist had been murdered by members of the criminal group led by alias Calarcá Córdoba.

Alias Calarcá is a guerrilla leader participating in President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” negotiations, and his arrest warrant was suspended by the government to facilitate talks with the armed group.

According to local media, Mateo contacted several officials seeking someone to accompany him to a rural area to get information about the ongoing armed conflict in the region.

Reports state that authorities and neighbors reportedly recommended that he should not leave the urban center, as no one, even government officials, have guaranteed safety going into these sectors; the journalist reportedly ignored these warnings and set off on his motorcycle.

Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez initially handled the case as a disappearance, but Mateo’s loved ones pointed out that it could be a kidnapping and murder just a few hours after losing contact with him, when his vehicle, wallet, cell phone, and keys were found abandoned. 

Sánchez also offered a 300 million COP (around $80,500 USD) reward for information leading to those responsible for Mateo’s suspected murder. 

This situation also highlights the ongoing risks for those practicing journalism in Colombia, mostly in rural territories and conflict zones. 

According to the FLIP, a press freedom foundation, since 2022, armed groups have attacked the press 387 times, using threats and displacement to force silence.

Featured image: Mateo Pérez Rueda

Image credit: FLIP

This article originally appeared on Latin America Reports and was republished with permission.

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Unexploded device sparks alarm after suspected links to armed groups.

Bogotá’s security agencies were on full alert this week after a drone rigged to carry explosives was found on the outskirts of the city less than six kilometers (3.7 miles) from El Dorado international airport.

Anti-terrorist units working along side Colombian air force specialists discovered the drone bomb in woodland close to the Bogotá River in the Kennedy district on Wednesday afternoon.

The drone was close to a makeshift camp, though it was unclear from official reports of the artefact had crashed there or was discarded and hidden.  

An air force spokesman said the site was detected with the help of intelligence services after a tip-off from investigators in Cauca, a conflict region of Colombia where drone bombs are frequently used by armed groups.

The bomb itself was made from 260 grams of powerful C4 explosive stuffed in a PVC tube with a medical syringe rigged as a detonator, a device more commonly seen in Colombia with artisanal landmines, and a camera for guidance.

One unusual element of the drone was its unconventional control system using fiber-optic cables, said the spokesman. This style of drone, pioneered in the Russia – Ukraine conflict, can overcome signal jamming technology making it harder to intercept.

“This type of threat is now present in the cities, we call on the community to call in any suspicious activities,” said the spokesman. Citizens should phone 107 to report drone sightings.

Meanwhile the device had been disarmed and handed over to experts at the CTI (Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación) for forensic analysis, he added.

The improvised weapon’s discovery followed a week of alerts of unauthorized drones seen flying over El Dorado airport, in some cases causing temporary shutdowns. In the most recent incident, an Avianca crew spotted a drone close to the terminal building leading to a10-minute flight suspension.

Aeronáutica Civil, Colombia’s airspace agency, later declared the sighting a false alarm.

Rise of the drones

Armed drones are increasingly being used in Colombia with combatants dropping airborne explosives on rival gangs and state forces, often from home-made devices fabricated from small drones and accessories available on the high street.

The technological race to gain a performative edge on the battlefield has created game-changing tactics in the country’s decades-old conflict, but also brought misery to civilians caught in the crossfire.

According to website Razón Publica, there were 418 drone bombings across the country in 2024 and 2025, with 28 fatalities, of which 10 were civilians. Another 300 people were injured.

See also: Drone attack kills three, injures one

Three of Colombia’s largest armed groups, the ELN, Clan del Golfo and EMC dissidents, were perfecting these improvised devices while state security forces were scrambling to keep up, said the publication.

Drone attacks were reported in all of Colombia’s conflict hotspots, particularly Cauca, Valle, Norte de Santander, Antioquia and Caquetá.

Civilians were often collateral victims – bombs are dropped from several hundred meters and frequently miss their targets – and armed groups also used drones to control communities.

“The drone go beyond attacks: they monitor, intimidate, and generate displacements,” said Razón Publica.

On May 8th, a police station was attacked by five armed drones in the Cauca town of Suárez, according to the local mayor.

#Atención A esta hora disidentes atacan con drones cargados de explosivos la estación de Policía en Suárez, Cauca. La alcaldía suspendió la atención al público y ordenó a sus habitantes a permanecer resguardados en sus viviendas. pic.twitter.com/qcNmg8sDOB

— BLU Pacífico (@BLUPacifico) May 8, 2026

Security chiefs speculated this week that the Bogotá drone bomb could have been planned for military installations based at El Dorado.

Colombia’s main international airport lies alongside the large hangars of CATAM, or Comando Aéreo de Transporte Militar, a large logistical base for military operations, as well as FAC (Air Force) and police facilities.

Cauca link

As for the drone’s origin, some clues pointed to EMC armed group currently fighting state forces in Cauca in the southwest of the country.

According to reports on the El Tiempo news site, the Bogotá drone was only found after prosecutors in Popayán alerted their counterparts in the capital of its location, and this tip-off came two days after the capture in Cauca of two suspected explosives experts – José Musse and José Valencia – accused of belonging to the Frente Carlos Patiño, one of the major fighting units of the EMC.

Cauca was the scene last month of one of Colombia’s worst conflict atrocities when a roadside bomb planted by the EMC exploded killing 21 civilians traveling close to Popayán, the departments regional capital.

See also: Cauca bombs: What’s going on?

When captured on May 4^th in Cauca, Musse and Valencia were found with an “artisanal drone that could be used to attack official installations”, said local prosecutors.

The fact the pair had knowledge of the Bogotá drone – and where to find it – suggested a link to the EMC, said El Tiempo, though there was no evidence they were directly involved.

So the question remains who put a drone bomb in Bogotá? And was it linked to the drone alerts at the airport? With the presidential elections around the corner, many rolos will be hoping for some answers.

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As the civilian death toll rises to 21, here’s a closer look at conflict in southwest Colombia.

Colombian armed group the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) has admitted its role in the massive roadside bomb near the small town of Cajibío that killed 21 civilians and injured 60 others in Cauca on April 25, the worst such attack in the country’s recent history.

In a message, the EMC said “we cannot hide or justify the error” which resulted from buried explosives aimed at military targets but which they detonated in a queue of vehicles held at a roadblock.

See also: Dissident bomb kills 20 civilians at roadblock in southwest Colombia

Cajibío was one of 37 coordinated attacks over five days in Cauca and the neighboring Valle department, conflict analyst Gerson Arias of Fundacion Ideas para la Paz (FIP) told The Bogotá Post.

“This was a message of terror from the EMC who wanted to show their military superiority in the region,” he maintained.

And despite admitting its error, the EMC showed no signs of slowing its offensive in recent days. On Thursday police experts defused 600 kilos of explosives found wedged in a drainage tunnel near Piendamó, Cauca, potentially avoiding a fresh tragedy.

Civilian targets

Military sources told news media after the Cajibío bomb that the EMC fighters had likely set a trap on the Via Panamericana, the main route linking Cali and Popayán. They buried the massive bomb then forced trucks to block the highway before retreating to the wooded hillsides as a long queue of traffic formed on the busy road.

When troops arrived in their heavily armored tanquetas – fortified troop carriers with turret guns – they sensed a trap and parked several hundred meters from the blocked road, then moved on foot through the wooded hillside to engage the guerrillas.

An EMC fighter then remotely detonated the roadside bomb striking 15 civilian vehicles, killing 21 people and injuring 60. The combatants escaped in the aftermath.

Arias believes that despite their original plan to kill military targets, the EMC fighters chose to blow up civilian vehicles: “They decided to detonate; it was a decision by the EMC.”

The resulting carnage was one of the highest civilian death tolls from a single incident in Colombian history, last seen on this scale in 2002 when a gas cylinder packed with high explosives detonated in a church in Bojayá, Chocó, killing 79 local people.

The deadly nature of homemade bombs, or ‘IEDs’ as they are called in military parlance (Improvised Explosive Devices), was shown again in August last year when 13 policemen were killed in Antioquia by a buried cylinder bomb that destroyed a helicopter.

Armed groups growing

Who was behind the Cajibío bomb? The EMC are remnants of the FARC’s 6^th Front, formed by guerrillas that rejected the 2016 peace process, now called ‘disidencias’, or dissidents.

The EMC still uses the FARC name, uniforms and logo, and its leaders mimic the ideology of former FARC icons such as ‘Tirofijo’ insisting it is a “political insurgent force”.

Last week Colombia’s defense minister was swift to blame the EMC’s Frente Jaime Martínez which is under the command of alias Marlon, a former FARC commander freed from jail in 2016 as a signatory to the peace deal but who returned to the fray.

The Cauca-based Frente Jaime Martínez numbered around 600 combatants, one of the most powerful units in the Bloque Occidental of the EMC, explained Arias. FIP data showed the EMC numbering around 3,300 fighters spread across southern Colombia, an estimated growth of 23% during 2025. Around 60% of those were concentrated in southwest Colombia.

“Cauca is a strategic point for illicit mining and narcotrafficking, all the armed groups are seeking dominance, and this means intensive recruitment of young people into their ranks,” said Arias.

The mountainous department is a heartland of Colombia’s illicit economies, straddling both the Andean cordillera and the Pacific lowlands with topography perfect for both hiding rebel armies and providing lush hillsides for coca crops and marijuana.

Cocaine production needs large cropping areas, 32,000 hectares of coca bushes covered the Cauca hillsides by the last count (Indepaz, 2024).  And since Spanish colonial times the lowland riverbeds have provided a source of gold, today mined illegally with destructive heavy machinery paid for by cocaine profits.

Inland links

Cauca has no proper roads linking the highlands coast, though there are numerous clandestine ‘conflict tracks’, mule trails and navigable rivers to the Pacific.  A labyrinth of mangrove swamps provides cover for boats running an estimated 70% of Colombia’s cocaine product to central America and beyond.

The department’s east is formed by the ‘Cauca Boot’, a foot-shaped chunk of mountainous terrain long held by rebel groups which penetrates as far as the Caquetá jungle linking the eastern Llanos plains and Amazon region to the Pacific coast.

This corridor created a vital link between the interior of the country and the EMC’s Bloque Oriental, in the eastern plains and jungles, Arias told The Bogotá Post.

Cauca was also bisected by the Via Panamericana, the highway running down the mountain and linking three main cities – Cali, Popayán, Pasto – and on to Ecuador to the south. This neuralgic route was easily blocked or attacked by armed groups, he said.

Combat units like the Frente Jaime Martínez would likely have autonomy from the top leadership of the EMC and could plan and execute their own actions, explained Arias.

“They articulate and communicate with the EMC structure, but are not necessarily subordinate,” he said.

Failed peace plan

The EMC was originally included in Petro’s sweeping Paz Total (Total Peace) initiative in 2022, but after repeated infractions by the armed group – including murdering four indigenous children the group had forcibly recruited – talks broke down in 2024.

In October that year Petro called off the talks and ordered the military to attack EMC heartlands in Cauca. The ensuing Operation Perseus sparked intense combat around the town of El Plateado in the Micay Canyon, historically a hideout for the FARC and now an EMC stronghold.

FIP has been critical of Paz Total and in February this year published data showing that armed groups had used the façade of peace talks to expand both their ranks and territory.

See also: Peace plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank.

According to Arias, Petro’s government failed to understand the strategic importance Cauca had to the armed groups, as well as underestimating the control the EMC had over local communities.

Many rural families were reliant on coca growing and gold mining in a region lacking state presence: “There’s been a historical process of armed groups coopting civilian and ethnic communities,” said Arias.

This was evident in the civilian uprisings – asonadas – against state forces leading to incidents such as the 57 soldiers forcibly detained by a community in El Tambo in June 2025.

But the armed groups also preyed on the host population, he said, particularly victimizing the indigenous communities which make up 20% of Cauca’s population. EMC commanders frequently forced indigenous youth to join their ranks, creating conflict with the Nasa and Misak people of the area.

Contacts ofThe Bogotá Post living in rural Cauca – who declined to be named – said that armed groups controlled communities with networks of spies and even used surveillance drones to monitor movements.

A person needing to travel in or out of the zone controlled by a particular armed group needed permission and had to carry ID cards issued by community councils under orders of the armed group.

Anyone rejecting these restrictions was threatened and displaced, and particularly social leaders who spoke out against the armed groups risked being assassinated: 12 in Cauca so far in 2026.

The Cauca cauldron

Strength in numbers was a contributing factor to EMC aggression in the region, said Arias. FIP data showed a steady increase in armed attacks against both civilian structures and military targets since 2016, peaking at 175 recorded incidents last year (see graph below).

Not all events involved state forces; the EMC was under pressure from rival groups such as the ELN, Segunda Marquetalia and EMBF dissidents. All want a share of Cauca’s illicit economies.

And while waging a conflict of asymmetric warfare, often resorting to terror tactics, the EMC was also demonstrating military dominance with armed drones that put the Colombian military on the back foot.

“Out of 500 attacks, 408 were using drones,” said Arias. “The conflict is changing direction, but state strategies are not adapting to respond to this new technology.”

But beyond a military response, the state needed to implement a strategy of well-planned and sustainable social interventions to stem the resurgence of the armed groups.

In Cauca, this was a huge challenge, said Arias. For now, groups like the EMC were sticking to illicit gold and narcotrafficking, even if it meant constant conflict to deter and weaken state forces.

“They are on the attack to show they are the bosses,” he said.

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Colombia’s troubled corner of Cauca was struck by another tragedy Sunday when a monster truck plowed into spectators at a car show killing three persons and injuring dozens more.

Harrowing footage posted online showed spectators scrambling to escape the path of the customized jeep after it inexplicably left the track in Popayán, the regional capital of Cauca department. Others were not so lucky and crushed by the huge tires. A ten-year-old girl was reported among the dead.

Sunday’s incident was at a fun family event held during the Mayday bank holiday weekend. For many of the 1,500 attendees the car show would initially have been a welcome respite from the grim news that has emerged from Cauca in recent weeks.

The accident struck eight days after a roadside bomb killed 21 vehicle passengers on a highway 30 kilometers north of the city. Dissident fighters from the EMC armed grop later claimed responsibility for the attack, claming that is was targeting military troops but killed civilians by mistake.

See also: Dissident bomb kills 20 civilians at roadblock in southwest Colombia

At the car show event the monster truck, called La Dragona, was being driven by Colombian Sonia Segura. According to event organizers Colombian Monsters SAS, Segura is only woman in Latin America permitted to drive such oversized vehicles.

Monster failure

In an Instagram video posted before Sunday’s event she presented La Dragona and its “1,500 horsepower motor”.

The outdoors display, which also featured a monster truck called Godzilla and motocross competitions, had already appeared at several Colombian cities and has made regular tours of the country over the years.

According to their Facebook page, Colombian Monsters SAS is a Colombian company based in Bogotá but has trucks brought in from the U.S.

#ATENCIÓN. Lamentable balance en Popayán: asciende a 3 la cifra de fallecidos y al menos 12 heridos tras el accidente en la exhibición de Monster Truck en el Boulevard Rose. Entre los lesionados se encuentran varios menores de edad que recibían atención en centros asistenciales.… https://t.co/IsPHNJ0W6H pic.twitter.com/YuYcIncITT

— Colombia Oscura (@ColombiaOscura) May 4, 2026

Footage of Sunday’s crash showed Segura driving La Dragona over crushed cars then turning towards the crowd and accelerating before hitting a concrete post that eventually stopped the vehicle. Ambulance and fire brigade then scrambled to assist the trail of crushed spectators.

Talking to El Tiempo after the tragedy, the Popayán’s police chief Julián Castañeda said that the accident was caused by mechanical faults. Segura was also injured and in hospital in a stable condition, he added.

“This was a private event. There was a mechanical failure, and the vehicle went off the road. The vehicle accelerated, the driver couldn’t brake.”

One video showed the truck engine on fire, though it is not clear if this is a feature of La Dragona or part of any mechanical problem.

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Since 1970, when Italian collectibles company Panini launched its first official World Cup sticker collection in Mexico, the brand has focused on churning out collectible sticker albums for each subsequent World Cup. In Colombia, the tradition has deep roots.

“I believe that [in Colombia], there is a very deep-rooted culture of collecting. People collect toy cars, dolls, and jerseys; therefore, the Panini football album is no exception,” sports journalist Diego Chiriví told The Bogotá Post. 

Although the global fever began in the ‘70s, it was during the 1980s and, especially, during the 1990 World Cup, that the ritual became a national phenomenon in the country.

“We are one of the top five countries in the world for sticker sales. For us, Panini is a tradition—a legacy we share from generation to generation with every World Cup,” Luis Felipe Gallego, Commercial Vice President at Continente (Panini’s official distributor in Colombia), told The Bogotá Post.

Initially, completing the album was an activity reserved for specialized football fans. However, over the decades, this hobby has expanded its reach, becoming a massive social phenomenon that now captures the country’s attention.

This shift solidified in 2014, when the collection moved from being a niche hobby to a popular tradition.

“In 2014, the Colombian National Team united the entire country. The team represented hope, reaching the quarter-finals for the first time in history. When they returned, over a million people welcomed them in Bogotá. It was the most unforgettable team of this generation, and since then, the ‘fever’ for the Panini album has only grown,” said Chiriví.

Read more from 2014: Panini Madness Strikes

Indeed, this passion has moved from private collections to the streets, becoming a social ritual where ‘cambiatones‘, or sticker swaps, take center stage. 

These massive gatherings in parks and shopping malls have turned the hobby into a collective mission, where people of all ages trade ‘monas‘ (stickers) to complete their albums.

“It’s a family tradition—grandparents, uncles, parents, everyone is involved,” explained Elie Milhem, Panini’s CEO in Colombia. “People love seeing which players will make it to the World Cup, and that passion has made us one of the top ten countries for Panini sales in the world.”

The “repetidas” (duplicates) are what make the hobby exciting. Even though every sticker is printed in the same quantity, the random packs make some feel impossible to find. This struggle is what pushes people to meet and trade, turning the album into a competitive race to see who can finish first.

This year, the challenge is bigger than ever. For the first time in World Cup history, 48 teams will participate, meaning the album now features 112 pages and 980 stickers. This massive scale makes completing the collection an even more difficult mission for fans.

The stickers also come in four different versions: gold, silver, bronze, and the common ones. The gold, silver, and bronze versions are considered real treasures because they are much harder to find. Getting one of these in a pack feels like winning a prize, and they are often the most valuable pieces to trade during the ‘cambiatones.’

“I would say the Lionel Messi sticker, in any of its years, but especially the 2018 Russia version, was incredibly tough to find,” Chiriví shared. “In 2022, it was much easier, but because of what happened four years prior, the 2018 Messi sticker became almost impossible.”

Surely, Colombians will be on the hunt this year as their national team kicks off soccer’s biggest tournament facing Uzbekistan on June 17.

The post Panini album fever begins in Colombia ahead of World Cup   appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Increasing numbers of travelers being denied entry after interrogations at the border.

Five foreign tourists flying into Colombia were turned back at Medellín airport Tuesday last week after other passengers reported them for “conversing on the plane about their plans for sexual encounters”.

Although not clear who exactly denounced the travelers, or what other evidence was produced, immigration officers barred them entry after declaring their reasons to visit Colombia as “illegitimate”.

The case is part of a growing crackdown by immigration authorities against sex tourism in Colombia, which has been on the rise in recent years.

The five U.S. citizens were interviewed by immigration officials after arriving at José Maria Cordova airport on a United Airlines flight from Houston.

According to posts by Migración Colombia, the men were overheard during the inbound flight discussing hiring sex workers to “fulfil their fantasies”.

The cases highlighted a trend of increasing sex tourism but also stronger measures to prevent it, said immigration officials this week.

“We are focusing immigration control on detecting these types of offenders, fighting sexual exploitation, and protecting children not only in Antioquia but throughout the country,” said Gloria Arriero, director of Migración Colombia.

Data showed that 60 tourists were denied entry at airports in the first four months of 2026, compared to 110 in all of 2025. 

Watching angels

The problem existed in tourist destinations like Cartagena and Bogotá, but was most evident in Medellín, the capital of Antioquia and Colombia’s second city, said Arriero, with 48 of the cases registered at the José María Córdova Airport. Of the persons barred this year 51 were U.S. citizens.

In the last week alone 15 foreign nationals, mostly U.S. nationals, were denied entry including the five passengers overheard on the plane. Many of the suspects were arriving on flights from Houston, Miami and New York, added Arriero.

The latest expulsions followed a campaign by Medellín’s mayor Fico Gutiérrez to stamp out a rise in human trafficking and sexual exploitation, particularly of children, linked to organized crime and visitors to the city.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia although immigration officers have autonomous powers to deny entry to travelers if they suspect them of sex tourism. Checks have gathered pace in recent years under the “Angel Watch” system that allows Colombian immigration to identify foreign travelers with criminal records or reports of sexual offences against minors before they enter the country.

Angel Watch, which has been running in Colombia since 2024, gives immigration officers real-time access to data from national sex offender registries and state websites in the U.S, including the Department of Homeland Security and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

The U.S.-based Angel Watch Center then alerts overseas authorities to its citizens with convictions for sexual crimes against minors. Specialized police task forces in Colombia also use international alerts from INTERPOL to intercept other nationalities.

Angel Watch alerts can catch potential offenders at points of entry or prevent undesirables from obtaining or extending visas, if they are long stayers. The system blocks around 50 travelers a year detected with a history of pedophilia or sexual aggression.

Cell phones searches

For other cases border authorities rely on old-fashioned detective work, such as the case of the five travelers hauled in for questioning after reports of their lewd talk on the plane.

In February, two men were netted after being spotted filming children during the inbound flight. On investigation, border officers found bans from multiple countries for sexual offences involving minors.

Others have been interrogated based on items detected in their luggage; in February, a Lithuanian was sent home after inspectors found a huge haul of sex toys. These were decreed “inconsistent with his declared purpose for visiting Colombia” according to a press release at the time.

Migración has also revealed cases where large numbers of condoms, lingerie, or exaggerated quantities of “potency drugs” triggered interrogations and cell-phone searches which then revealed plans for sex tourism.

Migration officers also accompanied police units in sweeps where foreigners were suspected to be involved in wrongdoing. Tactics included visiting hotels and hostels which had registered visitors with previous convictions, but also monitoring their social media profiles for incriminating material.

Disturbing the peace

Earlier in April, Migración deported in a blitz of publicity Medellín-based influencer ‘Chill Capo’ (real name Steve Newland) who was sent back to the U.S. after being detained at a party in the city’s Parque Lleras, a hotspot for sex workers.

“We found he repeatedly used his social media to invite and organize sex parties at various establishments where the main focus is on women, viewed as just another object to attract foreigners,” said director of the regional migration office Paola Salazar.

#Medellín | Ruso, con extenso historial de quejas por alteraciones al orden público, fue expulsado, por parte de la autoridad migratoria.
El individuo abordó un vuelo con destino a Miami luego de que la entidad consolidara un contundente expediente basado en múltiples denuncias pic.twitter.com/wMcuQSz2zk

— Migración Colombia (@MigracionCol) April 13, 2026

The 42-year-old content creator denied the accusation claiming his on-line videos of sleaze-fests were simply to encourage “a safe experience” for clients seeking the services he advertised on social media. But since Newland’s visa had expired, he was slung out anyway and banned from the country for five years.

In another recent case, a U.S-Russian citizen living in the El Poblado district was detained and deported after two years of loud music, partying, and a constant parade of bikini-clad women in and out of his flashy flat. 

40-year-old George Wolfe held day-long parties on his rooftop flat and accumulated dozens of fines for disturbing the peace.

Wolfe, who claimed to be a lawyer, threatened to sue immigration authorities but they reminded him that the state “has the discretion to admit, not admit, or expel foreign citizens”.

The question circulating on social media after Wolfe’s deportation was if Colombia was now less welcoming to overseas visitors. But statistics suggest otherwise since more than nine million tourists visited last year. Instead, the message for Migración seems increasingly clear: sex tourists aren’t welcome.

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A bomb attack attributed to fighters from the EMC armed group killed 20 travelers trapped on the busy highway connecting Colombia’s southwestern cities on Saturday.

The tragic events in the El Tunel sector, close to the town of Cajibío, unfolded after the dissidents mounted a checkpoint on the main Via Panamericana south of Cali and 30 kilometers (20 miles) before Popayán.

The busy road runs through a mountainous region dominated by gangs run by the former guerrillas dedicated to a booming cocaine industry in hidden canyons beyond state control. At the illegal checkpoint the fighters forced truck drivers to block the road and abandon their vehicles, causing a long queue of traffic.

According to video posted online, soon after a midday the huge explosion rocked the valley mangling around 15 vehicles caught blockade including two minibuses with civilian passengers.

The governor of Cauca, Octavio Guzmán, confirmed the 20 dead civilians caught in the blast were 15 women and five men, all adults. A further 47 people were injured, of whom three were critical. Five children were recovering in hospital. Eleven of the affected persons came from the same village of Pedregosa, close to Cajibío, he added.

“What happened on April 25th constitutes the most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades in the department of Cauca,” the governor later announced.

The bomb had displaced 200 cubic meters of soil, he said, creating a crater five meters deep in the Panamericana highway, the main route linking Cali to Popayan and on to Ecuador. Despite the damage, road crews were able to partially reopen the road six hours after the blast.

Saturday’s attack, one of the worst atrocities in recent years, comes against a background of rising conflict between state forces and dissident armed groups in the southwest of Colombia.

#ULTIMAHORA

A nuestro medio de comunicación llega video #PRIMICIA del momento exacto donde explota el artefacto explosivo en el sector conocido como el TÚNEL CAJIBIO CAUCA entre popayan y piendamo @Noti90Minutos @DELAESPRIELLAE

Noticia en desarrollo pic.twitter.com/g4KEcSroYd

— SARCASTICO DE DERECHA (@esco27438) April 25, 2026

Terrorist tactics

Just in the last four days communities across three departments – Valle, Cauca and Nariño – reported a series of what appear to be coordinated attacks against civilian and military targets. These included:

• 24 April – A bus bomb exploded close to base of the Pichincha Battalion in the south of Cali, causing damage and three injuries.
• 24 April – In the nearby town of Palmira, Valle, an army base came under attack from cylinder bombs launched from a passing vehicle, no injuries were reported.
• 25 April – Two attackers launched grenades at a petrol station in Rozo, Valle, damaging vehicles.
• 25 April – A police station in the rural community of Potrerito, close to Jamundí, came under gunfire attack in the early hours of the morning.
• 25 April – In another morning attack, Aeronáutica Civil reported drones launching explosives against a hilltop air traffic station close to El Tambo (Cauca), damaging antennas and leaving the radar inoperative.
• 25 April – a chiva rural bus was hit by explosive charges while traveling on Route 25 near to Mercaderes, south of Popayan. Police reported several injured including a child but no deaths
• 26 April – four men were gunned down in a bar in Toro, Valle, between Cali and Pereira.

According to a tally by thinktank Indepaz, the Toro deaths were the 48^th massacre recorded in 2026. In Colombia a ‘massacre’ is defined by the intentional killing of three or more people at the same time.

This weekend’s attacks were typical of a return to terrorist tactics such as car bombs, motorbike bombs, drones dropping home-made explosives and other artisanal artefacts.

Saturday’s Cajibío attack was initially reported as a boobytrap bomb, or “IED” (Improvised Explosive Device) which are caches of high explosives buried by the roadside by rebel groups, usually aimed at passing military patrols

But later reports suggested the civilian vehicles were struck by a pipeta mortar. These are fashioned from household gas bottles and clumsily launched from mortars made of industrial piping.

Notoriously inaccurate, a pipetas have claimed many civilian lives in the Colombian conflict, most notably in the Chocó town of Bojayá in 2002 when a charge launched by FARC guerrillas struck a church killing 79 civilians sheltering inside.

Behind Saturday’s atrocity was alias ‘Marlon’ of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), said Colombia’s defence minister of defence Pedro Sanchez. The state offered a reward of US$140,000 for information leading to his capture.

Original dissidents

Marlon, whose real name is Iván Idrobo, was formerly in the ranks of the FARC guerrillas where he trained as a bomb maker. He is now thought to lead the EMC’s Frente Jaime Martínez which according to the Defensoria del Pueblo controls the cocaine trade, illegal gold mining and extortion rackets around the town of Suárez in the northwest of Cauca.

The EMC, lead by former FARC chief Iván Mordico, has proven to be the most intransigent of the myriad of armed groups which the current Petro government has tried to broker peace with under his controversial Paz Total policy.

See also: Peace Plan has Caused more Conflict, says Thinktank

Seen as the “original” dissidents that rejected the partly successful peace process under former president Manual Santos in 2016, the EMC initially agreed to negotiate when Gustavo Petro came to power in 2022 but soon engaged in bitter infighting with rival armed groups creating a rupture with Paz Total.

For his part, Petro tweeted his disgust at the Cajibío attack and the EMC “narco-terrorists” behind it.

“The groups led by Iván Mordisco in Cauca are criminals who have committed crimes against humanity and must be treated as such,” he said.

Some pundits commented that Petro’s early treatment of the EMC as a political actor had given the armed group room to expand, contributing to the current security crisis. In the heat of next month’s elections, others turned their ire on presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, seen as an architect of Petro’s struggling peace plans.

Rival right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia accused Cepeda of his role in “tying the hands of state forces, the rampant increase in illicit crops, the historic numbers of massacres, and waves of violence like today’s”.

Valencia also rounded on Petro for posting photos of his birthday celebrations even as the country was reeling from the horrific footage of the Cauca bombing. “Show some respect,” she messaged.

The post Dissident bomb kills 20 civilians at roadblock in southwest Colombia appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Crucial Santa Marta conference will include voices of communities long opposed to the exploitation of fossil fuels.

Thirty years ago, Colombia’s U’wa people were ready to commit mass suicide by jumping off a 500-meter cliff. The close-knit indigenous community would rather die with dignity than succumb to oil exploration on their ancestral land.

The U’wa announced their dilemma in 1995 in an open letter that ricocheted around the world. It was no empty threat: 400 years before their ancestors had jumped from the Alto de los Infieles (Cliff of the Infidels) rather than submit to the Spanish colonial yoke.

“The U’wa were the first to call oil the ‘blood of the earth’,” explains Kevin Koenig, director of climate and energy at Amazon Watch, a U.S.-based non-profit. “The U’wa were the first to say that oil needs to stay in the ground. They warned against its extraction and its impact on the world.”

Amazon Watch has supported the U’wa to resist extractive industries over the same three decades, along with dozens of other at-risk communities in Latin America.

This week, in a ground-breaking conference in Santa Marta, some of those efforts will come full circle at the first global summit on “Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels”.

The six-day conference, starting April 24, will host 50 country delegations plus dozens of civil society organizations.

This “road map towards renewable energy” is backed by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, an alliance of nation states, technical bodies, communities and individuals working to secure a “global just transition from coal, oil and gas”.

For the organizers the timing is critical with climate upset, fuel shortages, war in the Middle East and big oil’s sticky grip on geopolitics more exposed than ever. There’s never been a better moment to move to renewable energy.

A key part of the conference will be representation from indigenous communities; the U’wa, along with many others, will have a voice at the table.

Glacier gone

For Koenig, it is also significant that the inaugural meeting is in Colombia, one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, but also an oil producer moving to curb fossil fuels and embrace renewables.

There is further symmetry in the location: the small coastal city of Santa Marta is “just over the hill” from the U’wa territory which straddles the tropical glaciers of the El Cocuy mountain range, Koenig tells The Bogotá Post.

A hiking route over the same mountains is known as Colombia’s climate change trail – see the ice before it melts.

Prophetically, just three weeks before the conference’s kick-off, the IDEAM climate agency reported that a glacier in the heart of U’wa territory had melted for good.

“Satellite monitoring confirms that Los Cerros de la Plaza glacier coverage is today at zero square kilometers,” it announced matter-of-factly.

Living these realities gives indigenous communities such as the U’wa, wedded to nature and geography, a powerful voice in the transition from fossil fuels.

This experience has often come at a high cost, says Koenig. In countries like Colombia, particularly in the Amazon, oil companies are an existential threat to both the natural environment and the communities it supports. Drilling is invariably a catalyst for violence.

“Some countries use oil extraction as a reason to open areas, saying ‘we can militarize it and it will be safer’. In fact, oil and energy infrastructures are a magnet for armed groups, for political attacks or blackmail,” he explains.

Amazon Watch has supported many indigenous communities to resist oil companies in the Amazon regions of southern Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, often through practical means such as providing solar power and communications equipment, trainings and legal resources, but also by raising their voices to the outside world.

The organization’s latest report, The Amazon Under Siege, highlights how extractive industries and the armed groups that trail in their wake are putting Amazon communities in the crossfire.

Oil addiction

Colombia might have turned a corner with its oil moratorium in Amazon regions but neighboring countries are on a different path, one that might be summed up by U.S. president Donald Trump’s call to “drill, baby, drill”.

“Ecuador is going in the opposite direction with new oil auctions, and two new exploration blocks in remote rainforest,” says Koenig. Peru is following suit in jungle areas hitherto untouched. Perhaps not surprisingly, neither of the Andean countries is attending the Santa Marta transition conference.

According to Koenig, Peru and Ecuador are already in the throes of social violence but now risk replicating Colombia’s conflict with its rural oil pipelines that are constantly attacked or bombed, or oil lines tapped by fuel thieves, creating spills in biodiverse hotspots.

Added to that, drilling new wells makes little economic sense, he says. Current markets are signalling peak oil demand by 2030 even while wind and solar are taking a bigger share of energy output.

By doubling down on oil extraction both countries are “gambling with their future.” Aside from the moral and ethical issues of drilling in remote rainforest with indigenous peoples, getting banks to fund these ventures against the headwinds of renewables is not guaranteed.

“This is the moment where we are seeing both wars linked to fossil fuels politics and dependencies, but also for the first time renewables energies are not just theoretical, they are real, and decision-makers know they are scalable,” notes Koenig.

Fresh air

This seismic shift is reflected in the sassy subtext of the Santa Marta conference: climate deniers not invited. Meetings are reserved for a “coalition of the willing”, Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez, a key organizer of the event, told the Guardian this week..

For campaigners like Kevin Koenig this attitude is a breath of fresh air. Previous climate change conferences, run by the UN, have failed to pin global warming on big oil, he says.

“We know that fossil fuels are the number one source of carbon emissions but that’s nowhere to be found in the Paris [climate change] agreement. That’s due largely to the influence of the oil industry and lobbyists,” says Koenig.

Changing the narrative requires an alignment between traditional knowledge and science, he says. Indigenous communities, the original resisters, are now part of that with their wealth of experience.

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Presidential spat intensifies after Ecuadorian leader revisits old rumors that Petro met with drug gang during state visit.

President Petro says he will sue Daniel Noboa over an interview in which the Ecuadorian president accused his Colombian counterpart of associating with feared drug baron Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias ‘Fito’, during a state visit to Ecuador.

“I have decided to file a criminal complaint against President Noboa for his slander,” wrote Petro on his X account, following statements made by Ecuador’s leader to Semana News.

In Sunday’s interview Noboa made references to Petro’s visit to Ecuador in May, 2025, as part of a state visit to attend the right-wing president’s own inauguration.

After the event Petro took a three-day visit to the coastal city of Manta to rest and write his book, the Colombian president later explained.

But this hiatus from the public eye – Petro is rarely out of the spotlight – and his choice of destination sparked rumors that the Colombian president was holding secret meetings with underworld figures. Manta is both a tourist destination with Pacific beaches and the ground zero for violent armed gangs that control Ecuador’s drug trafficking.

Rumors started with unfounded comments by Ecuadorian politicians that Petro was “holed up” in a luxury house on the coast, adding tantalizing details that officials “could not confirm or deny” that Fito or persons related to the gang leader were present.

“What we know is that Gustavo Petro was in Manta inside a house for his entire stay. We can’t confirm whether Fito was there. It’s been said that certain political figures were with him,” Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg stated to news media at the time.

“He arrived at a luxury house and stayed there for two days. He never left, not even to eat. He was locked inside. I can’t say who he met with.”

Manta on his mind

Noboa reinforced the slurs this week, stating without evidence that the house rented in Manta was “directly or indirectly linked to drug trafficking”.

The Colombian president “never has any real explanations for his actions”, pressed Noboa, suggesting the book writing was a cover for more suspicious motives. But he failed to provide any motive as to why Petro would want to meet with Fito or his associates from Los Choneros gang, Ecuador’s most violent armed group.

Fito has been likened to Mexico’s El Chapo, with a history of repeated prison breaks. The career criminal was re-arrested again in Manta in June last year – a month after Petro’s visit – hiding in a bunker, and has since been extradited to the U.S.

For his part, Petro hit back claiming the Ecuadorian president had been himself been well aware of his plans to holiday in Manta, a visit accompanied by the Ecuadorian army and a Colombian security detail. These and other witnesses could vouch for his book writing, he said.

“I don’t know if going anywhere in Ecuador raises suspicions of shady dealings. Manta is a beautiful place worth visiting.”

Petro stayed in a “wooden cabin with a sea view”, he said, and not the luxury condominium conjured up by Noboa.  

Petro linked Noboa’s verbal attacks on the recent trade war between Colombia and Ecuador and Petro’s request that Noboa released former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas currently jailed for corruption.

See also: Ecuador doubles trade tariffs on Colombia to 100 per cent.

Both disputes have put relations between the two countries at rock bottom.

Behind those disagreements lie long-standing accusations by Ecuador that Colombia has exported violence and criminality over the shared border during Petro’s tenure, a claim supported by a recent report by Amazon Underworld.

Illegal drugs passing through Ecuador came mostly from Colombia, said the report, and Colombian armed groups like the Comandos de La Frontera had established a permanent presence on the Ecuadorian side of the border.

Political prisoner

The high tariffs imposed by Ecuador, which seem out of U.S. President Trump’s playbook, seem designed to punish Colombia for its internal security policies and Petro’s left-wing government at political poles from the Noboa administration.

The spat over Jorge Glas stems from the former vice-president’s jailing after being found guilty of corruption in public office.

Glas was VP to left-wing leader and former president Rafael Correa, and accused of corruption in contracting cases. In 2017 he was jailed for six years. After his release was again accused of fresh crimes related to corruption.

Faced with these new accusations, in 2024 the politician took refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Quito but was quickly captured by Ecuadorian state forces who violated international protocols by invading the protected site, creating a diplomatic crisis with Mexico.

For his part, Petro conferred Colombian citizenship on Glas, declared him a ‘political prisoner’, and demanded his extradition to Colombia. Meanwhile Petro has been highlighting the former VPs stark prison conditions on social media.

“Just as I demanded the freedom of political prisoners in Venezuela and Nicaragua, I believe that Jorge Glas should be released,” he wrote, angering Noboa who recalled his ambassador from Bogotá earlier this month.

The rift between the two leaders also widened after announcements of joint military operations between the U.S. and Ecuador, with tension mounting after an air bombardment of the border left an unexploded bomb on Colombian territory.

In Sunday’s message Petro alluded to coordinated plots by political opponents in Ecuador, Colombia and “the extreme right in Florida” to drag up dirt from his Mantra trip.

Events this week should clarify if Petro has grounds to sue his Ecuadorian counterpart in a court of law, or if the battle continues on social media.

The post Petro says he will sue Noboa for slander appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

A plan to swap Colombian cocaine for guns was exposed last week when a Lebanese-Syrian smuggler Antoine Kassis – a cousin of deposed Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad – faced trial for his attempt to send Russian-made armaments to ELN guerrillas.

The failed plot, which played out in a U.S. federal courtroom last week but seemed more suited to a Hollywood movie, risked putting military-grade weapons sourced from Syrian arsenals in the hands of the Colombian rebels.

In exchange, the ELN planned to send 500 kilos of cocaine disguised in a cargo container of Colombian fruit, according to U.S. Justice Department documents.

A federal jury convicted Antoine Kassis on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization after a five day hearing. He now faces at least 20 years in a U.S. prison.

Kassis, 59, who had links to proscribed organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, offered the ELN drones, grenades, assault rifles, missiles, mortars and heavy machine guns in exchange for the cocaine smuggled to a Syrian port.

He eventually hoped to sell the Colombian-supplied narcotics throughout the Middle East.

Captured in Kenya

The deal was initially brokered in 2024 before the fall of al-Assad but unraveled after a sting operation mounted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2025.

As court documents revealed, Kassis traveled to Africa in February last year after reassuring the Colombian guerrillas that the cocaine swap was still on – even after the unexpected fall of his cousin’s brutal dictatorship in Syria at the end of 2024.

Kassis claimed he could bribe Syrian port staff US$10,000 per kilo of cocaine to import the illicit drug through Latakia, a well-known route for drugs in and out of the eastern Mediterranean.

Despite the fall of al-Assad, he could still access “all the toys”, he told the Colombians, referring to the military-grade weapons.

Unknown to Kassis, DEA investigators had already infiltrated the Colombian end of the deal and sent an undercover agent posing as an ELN weapons expert to the crucial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kassis was arrested with the help of Kenyan police and extradited weeks later to the U.S.

Meanwhile the suspected ELN counterparts, named by news website Infobae as Alirio Rafael Quintero and Wisam Kherfan Okde, were arrested in Colombia. They are currently detained in Bogotá’s La Picota prison pending extradition requests from the U.S.

Missed missiles

Evidence from the Kassis investigation pointed to a vast money-laundering operation based in Colombia that shifted million-dollar drug profits in cryptocurrencies across four continents. According to court documents, the plot roped in Palestine’s Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

The Kassis case also showed that the ELN was attempting to upgrade its weapons arsenal even as the armed group was engaged in on-off peace negotiations with Colombia’s Petro government. Talks are currently on hold.

The Marxist rebel group, properly known as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional, has been fighting the Colombian state since 1964 and is currently said to have 3,600 armed combatants, many based in neighboring Venezuela where it controls drug routes and illegal mining camps.

The latest round of peace talks, under Petro’s controversial Paz Total initiative, has seen the ELN expand in both territory and numbers within Colombia, with an estimated growth of 9 per cent in the last two years. Attempts to obtain Russian-made weapons via Syria are likely linked to that expansion.

See also: Peace Plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank.

Of note was the missiles included in the thwarted Syrian cargo. Though exact details were not given in the court documents, these could refer the portable shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, highly coveted by Colombia’s armed groups for their ability to down helicopters and small attack aircraft used by state forces against insurgent groups.

In recent months Colombian armed forces have returned to aerial bombing of suspected guerrilla camps, a controversial practice that risks killing or injuring civilians and children. Bombing campaigns against dissident FARC groups in Guaviare late last year left at least 15 minors dead, according to news reports from the time.

And on February 4 this year, an air attack ordered by President Petro on an ELN camp in the Catutumbo region left seven ELN fighters dead, with no reports of child victims.

The ELN have in the past experimented with home-made anti-aircraft missiles, such as found in a hidden cache in Cauca in 2018, and some of their combatants are thought to have been trained in the use of Russian-made Igla-S missiles, of which 5,000 are used by state forces in Venezuela.

Hezbollah’s Latin American hubs

The Kassis case highlighted links between Colombian armed groups and the Middle East that include designated terror groups such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

According to expert testimony at a U.S. senate caucus on narcotics in October last year, groups like Hezbollah received funds via drug trafficking and money laundering in Latin America, with hubs in Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela and Colombia.

“Hezbollah capitalized on a combination of weak local governance, corruption, and the presence of sympathetic diaspora communities to create cells and recruit financial facilitators,” former treasury official Marshall Billingslea told the caucus in October last year.

Billingslea suggested that Hezbollah could source up to a third of its income from Latin America, and until recently had close links through its Iranian backers Venezuela, now in flux with the forced removal of former president Nicolás Maduro to the U.S. in January this year.

Hard pivot to Colombia

But while its Venezuelan ties were more often reported, the Lebanese Shi’ite group had also made inroads into Colombian crime circles with a long history of deals, such as cocaine shipments sent by the Oficina de Envigado cartel, and drugs-for-weapons swaps with the former FARC guerrillas, he said.

In 2016, U.S. prosecutors brought charges against a Hezbollah laundering ring based in Medellín, according to reports in the Miami Herald at the time. Funds were connected to jailed Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Billingslea explained that groups like Hezbollah also saw Colombia as a refuge for foreign operatives who obtained fake passports and ID cards. Recent turmoil in the Middle East could stimulate armed groups there to increase their interests in countries like Colombia, he said.

 “Now, with their Lebanese infrastructure in shambles, and with robust financing from Iran again in doubt, I believe Hezbollah will make a hard pivot to Latin America and to the drug trade in particular.”

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