Colombias

Catatumbo, Colombia – The Catatumbo region, which stretches along the border with Venezuela in the department of Norte de Santander, is Colombia’s most volatile frontier.

Endowed with oil reserves and coca crops but impoverished and neglected, this border area has historically been a site of violent competition between armed groups fighting for territorial control.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla force, maintains a strong and organised presence, operating across the porous border with Venezuela.

It is there that some of their fighters pick up an Al Jazeera reporting team and drive us to meet their commanders.

Tensions remain high in this region. In January, thousands of people were displaced because of the fighting between the ELN and a dissident faction from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that continues to operate in some parts of the country in spite of peace agreements brokered in 2016.

The fight is over control of the territory and access to the border with Venezuela, which is a crucial way to move drugs out of the country.

Entering the area, it’s immediately apparent that the ELN is in total control here. There is no evidence of the country’s military. ELN flags decorate the sideroads, and the signs give a clear message of the way the group’s members see Colombia right now.

“Total peace is a failure,” they say.

There is also no mobile phone signal. People tell the Al Jazeera team that telephone companies do not want to pay a tax to the armed groups controlling the territory.

When President Gustavo Petro took office, he promised to implement a total peace plan with Colombia’s armed groups. But the negotiations have not been easy, especially with the ELN.

Government offcials suspended the peace talks because of the fighting in Catatumbo, but now say they are ready to reinitiate talks.

Al Jazeera meets with Commander Ricardo and Commander Silvana in a small house in the middle of the mountains. The interview has to be fast, they say, as they are concerned about a potential attack and reconnaissance drones that have been circulating in the area.

The commanders are accompanied by some of their fighters. Asked how many they have in the area, they respond, “We are thousands, and not everyone is wearing their uniforms. Some are urban guerrillas.”

The government estimates the ELN has around 3,000 fighters. But the figure could be much higher.

Commander Ricardo, who is in charge of the region, says he believes there could be a chance for peace.

“The ELN has been battling for a political solution for 30 years with various difficulties,” he says. “We believed that with Petro, we would advance in the process. But that did not happen. There’s never been peace in Colombia. What we have is the peace of the graves.”

The group and the government had been meeting in Mexico prior to the suspension of the talks. “If the accords we had in Mexico are still there, I believe our central command would agree [it] could open up the way for a political solution to this conflict”, Commander Ricardo tells Al Jazeera.

US drugs threat

But it’s not just the fight with the Colombian state that has armed groups here on alert. The United States military campaign against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific – and the US’s aggressive posture towards the government of neighbouring Venezuela – have brought an international dimension to what was once an internal Colombian conflict.

The administration of US President Donald Trump refers to these people not as guerrillas but “narco-terrorists”, and has not ruled out the possibility of attacking them on Colombian soil.

The US operation, which began in early September, has killed more than 62 people, including nationals from Venezuela and Colombia, and destroyed 14 boats and a semi-submersible.

Some of the commanders have an extradition request from the US, and the government says they are wanted criminals.

The US strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the military build-up in the region to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are seen by the ELN as another act of US imperialism.

The US government claims one of those boats belonged to the ELN. “Why don’t they capture them and show the world what they captured and what they are they trafficking?” Commander Ricardo asks. “But no, they erase them with a bomb.”

He also warns about the possibility of the ELN joining in the fight against the US. “In the hypothesis that Trump attacks Venezuela, we will have to see how we respond, but it’s not just us,” he says. “[It’s] all of Latin America because I am sure there are going to be many, many people who will grab a weapon and fight because it’s too much. The fact that the United States can step over people without respecting their self-determination has to end.”

The ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution. But over the years, it has been involved in kidnappings, killings, extortion, and drug trafficking.

Commander Silvana, who joined the group when she was a teen, says the ELN is not like other armed groups in the country.

“Our principles indicate that we are not involved in drug trafficking,” she says. “We have told this to the international community. What we have is taxes in the territories we have been controlling for over 60 years. And if there is coca, of course, we tax it, too.”

Colombia has been a crucial US ally in the region over the decades in the fight against drug trafficking. But Petro has increasingly questioned the US policy in the Caribbean, arguing that Washington’s approach to security and migration reflects out-of-date Cold War logic rather than the region’s current realities.

He has criticised the US military presence and naval operations near Venezuela, warning that such tactics risk increasing tensions instead of promoting cooperation.

Trump has accused Petro, who is a former guerrilla, of being a drug trafficker himself.

Petro responded angrily, writing on X, “Colombia has never been rude to the United States. To the contrary, it has loved its culture very much. But you are rude and ignorant about Colombia.”

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry also condemned Trump’s remarks as offensive and a direct threat to the country’s sovereignty, and vowed to seek international support in defence of Petro and Colombian autonomy.

The belligerent US approach to Venezuela and Colombia, both led by leftist presidents – and the heightened possibility of a US military intervention – risk turning a local Colombia conflict into a broader regional one.

Everyone on the ground is now assessing how they will respond if the US government gives its military the green light to attack Venezuela.

MEXICO CITY — The United States slapped sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday and said it was sending a massive aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, a new escalation of what the White House has described as a war against drug traffickers in the region. Also Friday, the U.S. military conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, killing six people in the Caribbean Sea.

The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Petro, his wife, his son and a political associate for failing to stop the flow of cocaine to the United States, noting that cocaine production in Colombia has risen in recent years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Petro of “poisoning Americans.”

Petro denied those claims in a statement on X, saying he has fought to combat drug trafficking for decades. He said it was “quite a paradox” to be sanctioned by a country with high rates of cocaine consumption.

The sanctions put Petro in the same category as the leaders of Russia and North Korea and limit his ability to travel to the United States. They mark a new low for relations between Colombia and the United States, which until recently were strong allies, sharing military intelligence, a robust trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that while Petro and the U.S. government have had disagreements over how to tackle trafficking — with the Americans more interested in eradicating coca fields and Colombians focused on cocaine seizures — the two countries have been working for decades toward the same goal.

“To suggest that Colombia is not trying is false and disingenuous,” Dickinson said. “If the U.S. has a partner in counternarcotics in Latin America, it’s Colombia. Colombian forces have been working hand in hand with the Americans for literally four decades. They are the best, most capable and frankly most willing partner the U.S. has in the region.

“If the U.S. were to cut this relationship, it would really be the U.S. shooting themselves in the foot.”

Many viewed the sanctions as punishment for Petro’s criticism of Trump. In recent days, Petro has accused the U.S. of murder, saying American strikes on alleged drug boats lack legal justification and have killed civilians. He has also accused the U.S. of building up its military in South America in an attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The quickened pace of U.S. airstrikes in the region and the unusually large buildup of military force in the Caribbean Sea have fueled those speculations.

On Friday, a Pentagon official said the U.S. ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.”

The USS Ford is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea along with three destroyers. It would probably take several days for the ships to make the journey to South America.

The White House has increasingly drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.

Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an “armed conflict” with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.

When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasn’t the plan.

“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead,” Trump said during a roundtable at the White House with Homeland Security officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Petro, however, did acknowledge that a disruption in the two countries’ military cooperation could have serious consequences.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has indicated that a suspension of aid from the United States would mean little to his country, but that changes to military funding could have an effect.

“What happens if they take away aid? In my opinion, nothing,” Petro told journalists on Thursday, adding that aid funding often moved through US agencies and employed Americans.

But a cut to military cooperation would matter, he added.

“Now, in military aid, we would have some problems,” Petro said, adding that the loss of US helicopters would have the gravest impact.

US President Donald Trump had threatened over the weekend to raise tariffs on Colombia and said on Wednesday that all funding to the country has been halted.

Colombia was once among the largest recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, but the flow of money was suddenly curtailed this year by the shuttering of USAID, the government’s humanitarian assistance arm. Military cooperation has continued.

The Trump administration has already “decertified” Colombia’s efforts to fight drug trafficking, paving the way for potential further cuts, but some US military personnel remain in Colombia, and the two countries continue to share intelligence.

Petro has objected to the US military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the actions.

Trump has responded by calling Petro an “illegal drug leader” and a “bad guy” – language Petro’s government says is offensive.

Petro has recalled his government’s ambassador from Washington, DC, but he nevertheless met with the US’s charge d’affaires in Bogota late on Sunday.

Although Trump has not announced any additional tariffs on top of the 10-percent rate already assessed on Colombian goods, he said on Wednesday he may take serious action against the country.

Petro said Trump is unlikely to put tariffs on oil and coal exports, which represent 60 percent of Colombia’s exports to the US, while the effect of tariffs on other industries could be mitigated by seeking alternative markets.

An increase in tariffs would flip a long-established US policy stance that free trade can make legitimate exports more attractive than drug trafficking, and analysts say more duties could eventually bolster drug trafficking.

Although his government has struggled to take control of major hubs for rebel and criminal activity, Petro said it has made record seizures of 2,800 metric tonnes of cocaine in three years, partly through increased efforts at Pacific ports where container ships are used for smuggling.

He also repeated an accusation that Trump’s actions are intended to boost the far right in Colombia in next year’s legislative and presidential elections.

Returning home

About 70 percent of the Nukak population remains displaced from their ancestral lands, according to the FCDS.

Most families have been pushed into sedentary lifestyles, settling in makeshift camps on the edge of towns, where addiction and child sexual exploitation became widespread.

Others have settled on small plots in rural areas, where tensions with settlers flared over land disputes.

“The settlers took over the land as if it were vacant. They say there were no Nukak, but what happened was that the Nukak got sick and left,” said Njibe.

In the most remote reaches of the Amazon, where the Nukak reservation is located, the Colombian government has little presence.

The Nukak, therefore, have few legal protections from settler violence when they try to reclaim their lands.

But in recent years, Nukak members like Njibe, tired of waiting for government action, resolved to return on their own.

The idea gained traction in 2020, when several clans retreated into the jungle for fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But after returning to their relative isolation, the clans considered staying for good. They called on nongovernmental organisations like FCDS for support.

At that time, Njibe was living on a small farm inside the limits of the Nukak Maku reservation.

Even within the reservation, decades of colonisation had razed large swaths of the forest. Grassy pastures dotted with cows had replaced the Amazon’s towering palm trees.

Deforestation had increased in the wake of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC. The rebel group previously limited deforestation in the Amazon in order to use its dense canopies as cover against air surveillance.

But, as part of the deal, FARC — the largest armed rebel group at the time — agreed to demobilise. A power vacuum emerged in its place.

According to FCDS, powerful landowners quickly moved into areas formerly controlled by the FARC, converting the land into cattle pastures.

Armed dissident groups who rejected the peace deal also remained active in the area, charging extortion fees per cow.

“The colonisation process has caused many [Nukak] sites to be either destroyed or absorbed by settler farms,” said a FCDS expert who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

Still, in 2022, the FCDS forged ahead with a pilot programme to support seven Nukak communities as they settled deeper into the reservation, where the lush forest still remained. There, the Nukak hoped they could revive a more traditional, if not completely nomadic, way of life.

But many of the expeditions to identify permanent relocation sites failed.

Initially, Njibe hoped to move to a sacred lake inside the reservation that he recalled from his childhood, but once he arrived at the site, he found that it was now part of a ranch.

When he asked the settler who ran the ranch for permission to stay there, the rancher rejected his request, and Njibe was forced to choose another place to live.

He considered returning to a forested area — about 24 hectares (59 acres) wide, roughly the size of 33 football fields — that he considered his childhood home.

But that too lay within a ranch. This time, however, the settler in question, who Njibe said was more sympathetic to his land claims, allowed him to stay.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s government has introduced a new tax reform bill in Congress to cover the $6.3 billion shortfall in the 2026 budget. It is the third tax reform of his administration and is intended to secure the $139 billion the state says it needs next year.

In 2022, Petro introduced his first tax reform, which was approved and raised $2.7 billion. In 2024, however, Congress rejected a similar proposal seeking $3 billion, leaving the 2025 budget unfunded and forcing the executive branch to issue it by decree.

The initiative, presented Sept. 1 by Finance Minister Germán Ávila, faces strong opposition in Congress and has become the center of a political battle over fiscal sustainability, public security and the finances of millions of Colombians.

The bill calls for higher taxes on high-income individuals and wealth, along with new levies on fuel, liquor and gambling. It would also tax foreign companies that provide digital services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO.

Petro contends the bill seeks greater equity and will not affect the middle class or the poor, but will instead target the “mega rich.”

However, opposition leaders have rejected the measure, calling it poorly timed and harmful to the economy.

They argue that higher fuel taxes would raise food prices, directly affecting household budgets. They also criticize the government for imposing new burdens on citizens instead of cutting public spending.

On one of the most criticized points of the reform, Óscar Darío Pérez, a representative of the Democratic Center Party, said raising the income tax surcharge already paid by financial institutions — including banks, insurers and brokerage firms — 50% from 40% — would lead to more expensive loans or less access to the formal credit market.

Bruce Mac Master, president of the National Business Association of Colombia (Andi), has warned of a domino effect from the reform. He said it could raise production and transportation costs, hurting the country’s competitiveness.

“This reform will probably be the one that most affects Colombian families of all the projects presented in recent years,” Mac Master told local media.

Opposition lawmakers in Congress have vowed to block the bill, underscoring the governing challenges facing Petro, who needs support from the economic committees for the reform to advance.

“The government presents this only to follow the same strategy as last year. It puts forward impossible proposals and then blames Congress because this has no chance of passing,” Darío Pérez said.

“Colombia has a long history of tax reforms, with more than 21 attempts since 1990 and at least 14 significant reforms since 2000,” political analyst Mauricio Morris noted.

He added that each administration has pursued changes with different aims, from broadening the tax base to encouraging investment or confronting fiscal crises.

The island of Santa Rosa sits in the Amazon River between Colombia and Peru, with the government in Lima recently naming it a federal district.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused the neighbouring country of Peru of annexing a disputed island on the Amazon River, resuscitating a longstanding disagreement between the two nations.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Petro said that Peru had acted to “unilaterally” assert control over the small island of Santa Rosa in a recent congressional vote.

“The Peruvian government has just appropriated it by law,” Petro wrote on the social media platform X.

He added that Peru’s actions could block the Colombian city of Leticia from accessing the Amazon River. “Our government will resort to diplomacy to defend our national sovereignty.”

Petro’s comments appeared to be a response to a vote in June, whereby Peru’s Congress designated the island of Santa Rosa a district in its Loreto province.

Who controls the island has been a subject of debate between Peru and Colombia for nearly a century.

Peru has claimed ownership based on treaties from 1922 and 1929, and it has administered Santa Rosa for decades.

But Colombia maintains that the island of Santa Rosa had not emerged from the Amazon River at the time of the treaties and therefore is not subject to them.

It has also argued that the treaties set the boundary between the two countries at the deepest point of the Amazon River, and that islands like Santa Rosa have emerged on the Colombian side of that dividing line.

“Islands have appeared north of the current deepest line, and the Peruvian government has just appropriated them by law and placed the capital of a municipality on land that, by treaty, should belong to Colombia,” Petro wrote.

He warned that Peru’s claims to Santa Rosa could inhibit travel and trade to nearby Leticia, which boasts a population of nearly 60,000.

“This unilateral action”, Petro wrote on Tuesday, “could make Leticia disappear as an Amazonian port, taking away its commercial life”.

Petro said he would hold celebrations commemorating Colombian independence from Spain in Leticia on Thursday, framing the island’s status as a symbol of national sovereignty.

The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said in a social media post that it would push for further diplomacy in determining the nationality of newly emerged islands.

“For years, Colombia has maintained the need to carry out bilateral work for the allocation of islands,” the ministry wrote. Colombia, it added, “has reiterated the position that ‘Santa Rosa Island’ has not been allocated to Peru”.

The Amazon River is one of the longest waterways in the world, with the most water discharged of any river.

But those powerful currents deposit and rearrange sediment throughout the river basin, forming – and sometimes erasing – islands.

Santa Rosa is one of those newer islands. The land now contains forest and farmland, as well as the village of Santa Rosa de Yavari.

That town is home to a population of fewer than 1,000 people, according to Peru’s latest census, and is largely reliant on tourism, based on its proximity to the Amazon.

The Peruvian government has argued that making Santa Rosa a district was necessary to ensure it received federal funds and could collect taxes.

“Peru is complying firmly with its obligations under international law and with valid bilateral treaties,” the Peruvian government said in a statement.

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been sentenced to 12 years of house arrest following his conviction for witness-tampering and bribery, according to local media reports.

The sentencing hearing on Friday also resulted in Uribe, 73, receiving a fine of $578,000 and a ban from serving in public office for 100 months and 20 days — or just over eight years.

He is now required to report to authorities in Rionegro, in his home province of Antioquia. Afterwards, Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia ordered him to “proceed immediately to his residence where he will comply with house arrest”.

With his conviction on July 28, Uribe has become the first former Colombian president to be found guilty in a criminal trial.

But Uribe’s defence lawyers have already announced that they plan to appeal.

The sentencing culminates a six-month trial and nearly 13 years of legal back-and-forth for the popular conservative leader, who is considered one of the defining forces in modern-day Colombian politics.

His house arrest also comes less than a year before Colombia is set to hold presidential elections in May 2026.

Allegations of human rights abuses

The case centres around Uribe’s role in Colombia’s more than six-decade-long internal conflict, which has seen government forces, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing rebel groups and drug-trafficking networks all fighting for control over parts of the country.

During his tenure as president from 2002 to 2010, Uribe led a strong-armed offensive against left-wing rebels like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest such group at the time.

But that approach earned him criticism for alleged human rights abuses, which he has denied.

Under his presidency, the Colombian military faced increasing accusations that it was killing civilians to boost the number of enemy fighters it could report as dead.

This practice, known as the “false positives” scandal, has been implicated in the deaths of at least 2,000 people, with experts indicating that the number could be far higher. As many as 6,402 killings have been investigated.

Critics have also questioned Uribe’s ties to right-wing paramilitaries, another allegation the ex-president has rejected.

But more than a decade ago, Uribe took action to silence one of his most prominent critics, left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda, sparking his current trial.

Cepeda and others had drawn connections between Uribe’s rise in politics in the 1990s and the creation of the paramilitary group Bloque Metro.

A legal boomerang

In 2012, Uribe filed a libel complaint against Cepeda with Colombia’s Supreme Court, after the senator launched a probe into the ex-president’s paramilitary contacts.

But in 2018, the case took a surprising new direction: The Supreme Court dismissed the complaint against Cepeda, and the court system instead started to weigh charges against Uribe instead.

Prosecutors accused Uribe of seeking to pressure paramilitary witnesses to change or suppress their testimony. While Uribe has admitted to sending lawyers to meet former members of Colombia’s paramilitaries, he has denied taking illegal actions.

Two paramilitaries have testified that Uribe’s lawyer, Diego Cadena, who also faces criminal charges, offered them money to give favourable evidence.

Their witness statements were also being used in a murder trial featuring Uribe’s brother, Santiago Uribe.

Uribe’s conviction was announced after a 10-hour hearing in which Judge Heredia said there was ample evidence that the ex-president sought to change witness testimony.

But that decision has sparked backlash from the United States, where the administration of President Donald Trump has shown a willingness to place political pressure on countries like Brazil that pursue criminal cases against former right-wing leaders.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media in defence of Uribe, repeating charges of judicial bias that have become commonplace under Trump.

“Former Colombian President Uribe’s only crime has been to tirelessly fight and defend his homeland,” Rubio said. “The weaponization of Colombia’s judicial branch by radical judges has now set a worrisome precedent.”

But Democrats in the US accused Trump of seeking to subvert the rule of law overseas for political gains.

“The Trump Admin is saying that foreign leaders shouldn’t be subject to rule of law if they say nice things about Trump,” Representative Jim McGovern wrote in reply to Rubio’s message.

“It is very wrong to support impunity for a strongman held accountable by courts in his own country. This statement is shameful, and you know it.”

The Colombian leader opened a new embassy in Haiti, while talks have been focused on security and the fight against drug trafficking.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has travelled to Haiti for the second time this year in a significant show of support, as spiralling gang violence continues to plague the Caribbean country.

Petro’s visit, which began Friday, has focused on talks on security, commerce, education, agriculture and the fight against drug trafficking, the Colombian government said.

Petro announced the opening of a Colombian embassy in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince.

He has also pledged to help Haiti strengthen its security, offering to train Haitian officers. Haitian delegations have visited a state-owned arms manufacturing company in Colombia to learn about its defence capabilities.

The Colombian government shared a brief clip of Petro speaking at the new embassy: “The time has come to truly unite.”

Por fin, tenemos embajada en Haití.

¿Qué fuerzas impedían en la cancillería que hubiera una embajada en el país desde donde salió nuestra independencia?

¿Sería porque nuestra libertad salió fue de los esclavos negros que se liberaron a sí mismos? pic.twitter.com/tpdpmBptCz

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) July 19, 2025

Translation: Finally, we have an embassy in Haiti. What forces in the Foreign Ministry were preventing the establishment of an embassy in the country from which our independence originated? Could it be because our freedom came from the Black slaves who liberated themselves?

Petro landed in Port-au-Prince, where 90 percent of the capital is under gang control. He was accompanied by officials, including Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez.

During his visit, Petro met with Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and its transitional presidential council, which is under pressure to hold general elections before February 2026.

The officials arrived less than a week after Haitian authorities killed four suspected drug traffickers and confiscated more than 1,000kg (2,300lb) of cocaine off the country’s north coast.

The seizure was unexpectedly large for Haiti’s National Police, which remains understaffed and underfunded as it works with Kenyan police leading a United Nations-backed mission to help quell gang violence.

While most of the violence is centred in Port-au-Prince, gangs have razed and seized control of a growing number of towns in Haiti’s central region.

At least 4,864 people have been killed from October to the end of June across Haiti, with hundreds of others kidnapped, raped and trafficked, according to a recent UN report.

Gang violence has also displaced 1.3 million people in recent years.

Petro previously visited Haiti in late January. Before his visit, Haitian officials invested some $3.8m to more than double the runway at the airport in the city of Jacmel, renovate the town and restore electricity to a population living in the dark for at least three years.

The two countries are additionally strengthening their ties as judges in Haiti continue to interrogate 17 former Colombian soldiers accused in the July 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moise.

July 11 (UPI) — With approval ratings falling and key reforms stalled in Congress, Colombian President Gustavo Petro enters the final year of his term facing a surge in illegal armed groups, growing tensions with the United States and continued cabinet turnover.

Petro’s signature “total peace” policy — central to his security strategy — has drawn sharp criticism as Colombia contends with mass displacement, the killings of community leaders and weakened government institutions.

“With 11 months until the May 31, 2026, presidential election, Petro’s administration is entering an early final stage. There’s political fatigue, and many promises have amounted to little more than good intentions,” said Rafael Botero, director of the School of Public Management in Bogotá.

One of Petro’s most persistent challenges has been his strained relationship with Colombia’s Congress. The ambitious reforms he promised during his campaign — focused on healthcare, pensions and labor — have stalled in a fragmented legislature in which the opposition has grown increasingly unified.

“The lack of a solid majority has forced the government into complex negotiations and concessions that have slowed, and in some cases stalled, progress on its legislative agenda. This paralysis has frustrated Petro’s electoral base and has been used by the opposition as proof of the government’s ineffectiveness,” Botero said.

Petro’s “total peace” policy — his central approach to ending Colombia’s armed conflict through dialogue with all illegal groups — has been criticized as vague and ineffective, weakening state authority without securing meaningful progress toward demobilization or territorial justice.

Although Petro reached cease-fire agreements with armed groups, including the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and FARC dissidents, those deals have not led to any meaningful improvement in public safety.

In 2024, violence surged across Colombia. More than 50,000 people were displaced and more than 138,000 confined to their homes and hundreds of disappearances, according to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Hundreds of people have gone missing, and attacks on healthcare services have increased.

Mass killings also have increased. Between January and September 2024, 47 massacres left 168 victims, according to the INDEPAZ observatory. The data suggests that violence is not just rising — it is diversifying and spreading into new regions.

In addition, the absence of tangible results on the ground has fueled a perception of impunity and leniency toward armed groups.

Organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, warn that these groups have taken advantage of cease-fires to expand their presence, recruit minors for criminal activities, control illegal economies and co-opt local communities.

The resignation of Colombia’s foreign minister, Laura Sarabia, on July 3 shook the country’s already turbulent political landscape. Political analysts cite tensions with the presidency over sensitive issues, including Colombia’s positions on international conflicts, its alignment with geopolitical blocs such as BRICS and its handling of bilateral crises that may have strained cabinet unity.

“The foreign minister’s departure not only creates a void in the country’s foreign policy leadership, but also signals a possible rift within the government’s inner circle,” Botero said.

Relations with the United States have been strained following controversial remarks by the Colombian president, who criticized Washington’s migration and anti-drug policies. Although Petro recently sent a letter of clarification to President Donald Trump, diplomatic tensions remain high, raising concerns over key bilateral agreements and strategic cooperation.

Meanwhile, public opinion in Colombia shows growing signs of discontent. A June Opinómetro poll found that 63.1% of respondents disapprove of the way Petro is running the country, while just 30.1% approve of his performance.

According to an Invamer poll conducted June 7 to 16, Petro’s disapproval rating rose in June to 64% from 57% in April, while approval fell to 29% — the second-lowest level since he took office.

The shift comes amid growing political and social unrest following the attempted assassination of presidential pre-candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay. The attack deepened political divisions and reinforced the perception of instability in the country.

“Unfortunately, Petro’s government isn’t leaving behind any infrastructure projects people will remember,” said Sergio Escobar, executive director of the Medellín Global Center for Strategic International Studies..

“There were only ideas — like a rail line from Buenaventura on the Pacific to Barranquilla on the Atlantic, a superhighway, passenger trains linking the center of the country to the north, just to name a few. All logical, all necessary — but at no point did the national government show any serious intent to implement them.”

President Gustavo Petro says freeing the seized soldiers ‘is imperative’.

The Colombian army says more than 50 soldiers have been seized by civilians in a southwest mountainous area.

A platoon of soldiers was the first to be seized on Saturday during an operation in El Tambo, a municipality that is part of an area known as the Micay Canyon, a key zone for cocaine production and one of the most tense in the country’s ongoing security crisis.

On Sunday, another group of soldiers was surrounded by at least 200 residents as they headed towards the town of El Plateado, in the same region.

“As a result of both events [both kidnappings], a total of four noncommissioned officers and 53 professional soldiers remain deprived of their liberty,” the army said on Sunday.

General Federico Alberto Mejia, who leads military operations in the southwest, added in a video that it was a “kidnapping” by rebels who had “infiltrated” the community.

The Colombian army has maintained that the civilians in the region receive orders from the Central General Staff (EMC), the main dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refused to be part of a peace deal with the government in 2016.

President Gustavo Petro, who has pledged to bring peace to the country, said on social media that freeing the soldiers “is imperative”.

The left-wing leader has been trying for months to ensure that the country’s armed forces gain access to Micay Canyon.

But his government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after the peace deal.

This has made many Colombians fearful of a return to the bloody violence of the 1980s and 90s, when cartel attacks and political assassinations were frequent.

Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the government broke down last year after a series of attacks on Indigenous communities.

President Gustavo Petro has sought to call a referendum, in a move the opposition say violates the constitution.

Colombia’s Council of State has suspended a decree by President Gustavo Petro that sought to call a referendum on a labour reform, citing a lack of Senate authorisation.

The move on Wednesday comes after Petro last week bypassed legislative opposition and signed a decree summoning voters to the polls in August to decide on the labour reform.

The package includes provisions for an eight-hour daytime workday, higher weekend and holiday pay, and mandatory social security contributions from delivery app drivers – key social policies the left-wing leader has pushed for.

A majority of the social and economic reforms promised by Petro – who was elected in 2022 on pledges to right centuries of inequality in the Andean country – have been rejected by lawmakers.

The decree sparked criticism from the opposition, which argued that Petro’s decree violates the Political Constitution of Colombia and destroys the separation of powers of the country’s three branches of government.

Under Colombian law, the Senate must rule on the advisability of referendums. If the referendum were to be held, each measure would need to be approved by the majority of at least 13.5 million voters, a third of Colombia’s electoral roll, to be valid.

Political opponents also said the costly referendum was really aimed at boosting Petro’s party ahead of 2026 elections, when he cannot seek re-election.

Despite the failure to call a referendum, the Senate on Tuesday approved a revised version of the labour reform bill after extensive debate, with 57 votes in favour and 31 against.

The Senate previously rejected the reform bill in April, but it was revived after Petro warned he would declare a referendum to put the measure to a public vote.

The presidency dubbed the bill “a historic step toward decent work” in a post on X shared by Petro.

Protests were recently held in the capital Bogota and other major cities by advocates of Petro, who expressed their support for his proposed labour reform.

Colombia is still reeling from bombing attacks in the southwest of the country that left seven dead and an attempted assassination on conservative opposition senator, and presidential hopeful, Miguel Uribe Turbay, which sparked fears the country could return to its darker days of assassinations and prolonged violence.