Doris Suárez Guzmán, once a guerrilla fighter, is skeptical about the prospects for peace in Colombia.
She was one of roughly 13,000 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerrilla group, that signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
Since then, former FARC fighters have been elected to Congress, obtained university degrees, and, like Ms. Suárez, opened businesses and civil society organizations.
Why We Wrote This
Colombia has struggled with armed conflicts for decades. President Petro set a lofty goal of “total peace,” but some fear peace is moving further out of reach.
When President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla fighter himself, came into office in 2022, he promised to take peace even further, pledging “total peace.” It’s meant to tackle conflicts beyond the FARC, including organized crime and other insurgencies.
But only one-third of the commitments in the original 2016 peace agreement had been fully implemented by November 2023, according to a report by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. And so far, Mr. Petro’s total peace experiment hasn’t lived up to the lofty goals its name implies.
While many former guerrillas like Ms. Suárez have thrived, nearly 500 have been killed, mostly because of their earlier links to the FARC. Ms. Suárez can’t help but wonder if she could be next.
“What confidence will [other armed groups] have” to build peace, if they see people like her, who signed on for it, living in fear? Ms. Suárez asks.
Violence has ticked up in recent years, punctuated over the weekend by the daytime shooting of a high-profile politician and presidential hopeful, Miguel Uribe Turbay. Colombia hasn’t seen this level of political violence in nearly three decades, observers say, with some calling the assassination attempt an attack on Colombia’s democracy.
As Mr. Petro enters his final year in office, there’s skepticism around whether, in a country that’s lived through so much conflict, peace is even within reach.
“Peace isn’t really about making big agreements. It’s about everyday life, it’s about culture,” says Daniela Castillo Aguillón, a former government official previously involved in Mr. Petro’s total peace process. “It is difficult to make peace; making war is easier.”
Total peace promise
The 2016 agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC, the world’s oldest insurgency at the time, granted 10 congressional seats to FARC representatives and set out a 15-year plan for rural land reform, transitional justice, and the reintegration of former guerrillas. But it left territorial and criminal-power vacuums that have since been filled by other criminal groups.
The peace deal was initially narrowly voted down in a referendum in October 2016 with 50.2% voting against it. The president at the time made over 50 amendments to address citizen concerns, and a new version passed through Congress. It became clear that despite wanting an end to the conflict, many Colombians had deep reservations about negotiating with armed groups – and that skepticism persists today.
Mr. Petro sought to expand the peace deal to a handful of armed and criminal groups operating in Colombia – whether they were ideologically driven, like the FARC, or not.
“The president’s entire political life is about peace,” says Duvalier Sánchez Arango, a congressman from Colombia’s Green Alliance party.
Yet, his efforts have not delivered the desired results. In Catatumbo, a northeastern region bordering Venezuela, over 57,000 people have been displaced since January due to violence. Since 2021, the number of Colombians living in territories controlled by armed actors has increased by 70%, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Ceasefires brokered by the government have often allowed these entities to regroup and grow stronger, making peace in Colombia increasingly fragile, says Mr. Sánchez.
The president has also leaned into polarizing language around perceived opponents being paramilitary members and armed enemies. Analysts are placing some blame for the shooting of Mr. Uribe, a conservative politician who is hospitalized and in critical condition, on the president’s own violent rhetoric.
A long path ahead
Peace was always going to be a long process – something Ms. Suárez and her colleagues at La Trocha – La Casa de la Paz, a four-story cultural center and pub in Bogotá run by ex-combatants, understand well.
“Reincorporating into civilian life has been difficult, you get stigmatized,” says David Villegas, a former guerrilla who was sentenced to eight years in prison and completed three before signing the 2016 deal.
Behind him at La Trocha, where he works, Marxist posters and slogans like “We were not born for war” cover the walls. The house’s name – la trocha, slang for a narrow, rugged path – symbolizes the group’s vision. “It’s a path toward peace,” Mr. Villegas says. “You have to keep walking, because otherwise the path will close in front of you.”
Colombia’s conflict dates to the late 1940s when civil war between liberals and conservatives broke out based on deep social, political, and economic inequalities. It morphed over the decades, becoming increasingly complex as more groups entered the fray, each with its own interests.
Mr. Petro has treated a complicated conflict in a simple way, says Ms. Castillo, the former government worker. His peace negotiations, she says, have lacked technical depth and group-specific strategies.
Many criminal groups profit from booming illicit economies like drug trafficking and illegal mining, and for those who do want to demobilize, there are limited opportunities and stigma.
“If you want a country in peace, you have to speak with everyone,” says Leonardo González Perafán, director of Indepaz, Colombia’s Institute for Development and Peace Studies.
But “A good negotiation is not enough,” adds Mariano Aguirre, associate fellow at Chatham House and former senior adviser on peace-building at the United Nations in Colombia.
“You need to implement change.”
Is peace any closer?
Despite persistent violence and sluggish reforms, the Colombian government has implemented social programs aimed at disincentivizing criminal activity – though with limited effects on violence. These include cash transfers to youth to stay out of gangs, or a new coca crop substitution program that pays farmers to stop growing illicit crops.
Civil society has played an important role, too, pushing peace from the ground up.
Take La Trocha, which is visited by around 400 patrons a week. Former fighters promote peace and leftist ideas through education, social events, and job creation – for both ex-combatants and victims of the conflict.
“We shouldn’t be killing each other over ideas,” says Ms. Suárez, who once fought in Antioquia’s mountains for her leftist ideals. Now, she is concerned about political polarization.
Saturday’s attack on Mr. Uribe could further fuel political polarization. An Invamer poll from February shows 70% of the population thinks total peace plans are going in the wrong direction, while 45% says they believe it would be better to abandon peace talks and try to defeat armed groups militarily. That’s up from 21% when Mr. Petro took office almost three years ago.
Ms. Suárez, who spent 16 years behind bars before signing the peace deal, says she understands both the cost of war and the payoff that can come with a life in peace. Peace, so far, has not worked the way she imagined it would for her, but, despite the ongoing challenges, she’s putting her faith in it for now as the only viable path forward.
“I thought I was going to die in prison,” she says. Every day since has been a “celebration.”
