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The ‘test’ of a new country

This longing is shared by Angelica Angel, a 24-year-old student activist in exile.

She had grown up with tear gas and police beatings in Venezuela. After all, she had started protesting at age 15.

“They’ve pointed their guns at me, beaten me and almost arrested me. That’s when you realise that these people have no limits: They target the elderly, women and even young girls,” Angel said.

But the increasing political repression ultimately made her life in Merida, a college town in western Venezuela, untenable.

After 2024’s disputed presidential election, Angel decided to voice her outrage on social media.

Maduro had claimed a third term in office, despite evidence that he had lost in a landslide. The opposition coalition obtained copies of more than 80 percent of the country’s voter tallies, showing that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won the race.

Protests again broke out, and again, Maduro’s government responded with force.

Military and security officers detained nearly 2,000 people, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights lawyers.

When Angel denounced the arbitrary detentions on TikTok, she began receiving daily threats.

By day, anonymous phone calls warned her of her impending arrest. By night, she heard pro-government gangs on motorcycles circling her home.

Fearing detention, she fled to Colombia in August 2024, leaving her family and friends behind.

But living outside Venezuela gave her a new perspective. She came to realise that the threats, persecution and violence she had learned to live with were not normal in a democratic country.

“When you leave, you realise that it isn’t normal to be afraid of the police, of unknown phone calls,” said Angel, her voice trembling. “I’m afraid to go back to my country and to be in that reality again.”

For exiled Venezuelans to return safely, Angel believes certain benchmarks must be met. The interim government must end arbitrary detention and allow opposition members, many of whom fled Venezuela, to return.

Only then, she explained, will Venezuela have moved past Maduro’s legacy.

“Exiles being able to return is a real test of whether a new country is taking shape,” she said.

Tehran, Iran – Several of Iran’s former leaders, including some who are currently imprisoned or under house arrest, have released damning statements over the killing of thousands during nationwide protests, garnering threats from hardliners.

The Iranian government claims that 3,117 people were killed during the antiestablishment protests. The government has rejected claims by the United Nations and international human rights organisations that state forces were behind the killings, which were mostly carried out on the nights of January 8 and 9.

The United States-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified 6,854 deaths and is investigating 11,280 other cases.

“After years of ever-escalating repression, this is a catastrophe that will be remembered for decades, if not for centuries,” wrote Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former reformist presidential candidate who has been under house arrest since the aftermath of the Green Movement of 2009.

“How many ways must people say that they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough. The game is over.”

Mousavi told state forces to “put down your guns and step aside from power so that the nation itself can bring this land to freedom and prosperity”, and stressed that this must be done without foreign intervention amid the shadow of another war with the US and Israel.

He said that Iran is need of a constitutional referendum and a peaceful, democratic transition of power.

A group of 400 activists, including figures from inside and outside the country, backed Mousavi’s statement.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a prominent jailed former reformist politician, said that he wants Iran to “move beyond the wretched conditions that the guardianship of Islamic jurists and the failed rule of the clergy have imposed on the Iranian nation”.

In a short statement from prison last week, he said this would be contingent upon the “resistance, wisdom, and responsible action of all citizens and political actors” and called for an independent fact-finding mission to uncover the true aspects of “atrocities” committed against protesters last month.

‘Major reforms’

Other former heavyweights have heavily criticised Iran’s current course, but have avoided calling for the effective removal of the Islamic Republic from power.

Former President Hassan Rouhani, who many believe is eyeing a potential future return to power, last week gathered his ex-ministers and insiders for a recorded speech, and called for “major reforms, not small reforms”.

He acknowledged that Iranians have been protesting for a variety of reasons over the past four decades, and insisted the state must listen to them if it wants to survive, but did not mention the internet blackout and killing of protesters during his tenure in November 2019.

Rouhani added that the establishment must hold public votes on major topics, including foreign policy and the ailing economy, in order to avoid further nationwide protests and prevent the population from looking to foreign powers for help.

Mohammad Khatami, the reformist cleric who was president from 1997 to 2005, adopted a softer tone and said violence derailed protests that could have helped “expand dialogue to improve the country’s affairs”.

He wrote in a statement that Iran must “return to a forgotten republicanism, and an Islamism that embraces republicanism in all its dimensions and requirements, placing development together with justice at the core of both foreign and domestic policy”.

Mehdi Karroubi, another senior reformist cleric who had his house arrest lifted less than a year ago after 15 years, called the protest killings “a crime whose dimensions language and pen are incapable of conveying” and said the establishment is responsible.

“The wretched state of Iran today is the direct result of Mr. Khamenei’s destructive domestic and international interventions and policies,” he wrote, in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in absolute power for nearly 37 years.

Karroubi noted one prominent example as the 86-year-old leader’s “insistence on the costly and futile nuclear project and the heavy consequences of sanctions over the past two decades for the country and its people”.

Political prisoners rearrested

Three prominent Iranian former political prisoners were arrested and taken to prison by security forces once again last week.

The Fars news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said the reason for the arrests of Mehdi Mahmoudian, Abdollah Momeni, and Vida Rabbani was that they had sneaked out Mir Hossein Mousavi’s statement from his house arrest.

Mahmoudian is a journalist and activist, and co-writer of the Oscar-nominated political drama movie, It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Momeni and Rabani are also political activists who have previously been arrested by the Iranian establishment multiple times.

The three were among 17 human rights defenders, filmmakers and civil society activists, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi and internationally recognised lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who co-signed a statement last week that put the blame for the protest killings on the supreme leader and the theocratic establishment.

“The mass killing of justice seekers who courageously protested this illegitimate system was an organised state crime against humanity,” they wrote, condemning the firing on civilians, the attacks on the wounded, and the denial of medical care as “acts against Iran’s security and betrayal of the homeland”.

The activists called for holding a referendum and constituent assembly to allow Iranians to democratically decide their political future.

Hardliners incensed

In hardline-dominated circles and among their affiliated media, the mood has been entirely different.

On Sunday, lawmakers in parliament donned the uniforms of the IRGC, which was last week designated a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union.

They chanted “Death to America” and promised they would seek out European military attaches working at embassies in Tehran to expel them as “terrorists”.

Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a cleric who represents northeast Mashhad in the parliament, told a public session of parliament on Sunday that former President Rouhani must be hanged for favouring engagement with the West, echoing a demand also made by other hardline peers in recent years.

“Today is the time for the ‘major reform’, which is arresting and executing you,” he said, addressing Rouhani.

Amirhossein Sabeti, another firebrand lawmaker, condemned the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian – but not Khamenei or the establishment – for proceeding with mediated talks with the US.

“Today, the people of Iran are waiting for a pre-emptive attack on Israel and US bases in the region, not talks from a position of weakness,” he claimed.

Khan Younis, Gaza – The headlines read that Israel has finally reopened the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, allowing injured Palestinians desperate for medical aid to leave.

However, the reality is that on the first day of the opening, on Monday, Israel only allowed five patients to exit Gaza via the crossing, forcing hundreds, if not thousands, of others to wait.

Mohammed Abu Mostafa is one of the lucky five. The 17-year-old travelled on Monday with his mother, Randa, to southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, and then on to Rafah, which has been closed by Israel for two years as it waged its genocidal war on Gaza, killing more than 70,000 Palestinians.

Randa told Al Jazeera that she had received a phone call on Monday morning informing her that Mohammed had been included in the first list of wounded patients scheduled to travel, and that they were instructed to head immediately to the Red Crescent Hospital in Khan Younis.

The reopening of Rafah, Gaza’s only land crossing that does not go through Israel, has been much touted as evidence of the progress of the second phase of the United States-backed Gaza “ceasefire” deal.

But events on Monday revealed a different reality, marked by strict security restrictions, complex procedures, and limited numbers being allowed to cross, falling far short of expectations and the scale of Gaza’s accumulated humanitarian needs.

Each of the five patients being allowed to leave was accompanied by two people as per Israeli orders, bringing the total number of travellers to 15, according to information provided to Gaza’s health authorities.

Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Medical Complex, told Al Jazeera that this was the only group that departed, despite prior plans with the World Health Organization (WHO) – the body overseeing coordination between Egypt and Israel – for the departure of 50 patients daily.

Egyptian official sources have told Al Jazeera that 50 Palestinians were also permitted to return to Gaza via the Rafah crossing, though no information is yet available on whether they have actually reached the Palestinian side.

Ismail al-Thawabta, the director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, highlighted just how low these numbers are compared with the approximately 22,000 people needing to leave Gaza for treatment abroad. Meanwhile, about 80,000 Palestinians who left Gaza during the war want to return, he said.

Eye injury

Mohammed was injured in an Israeli air attack a year and a half ago, near where his family had been displaced in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, Randa said. He sustained a direct injury to his eye, severely affecting his optic nerve and ability to see.

“My son has been suffering immensely since his injury. Day after day, his condition kept worsening, and there is no treatment available for him in Gaza,” Randa said, while waiting in the hospital courtyard alongside other patients and their relatives.

Despite her joy at finally being able to accompany her son on his journey, Randa feels a sense of anguish at having to leave four of her six children behind, as she was only permitted to take one child as a second companion.

“What matters to me now is that my son regains his sight and can see again with his own eyes. That is my only concern at the moment,” Randa said.

“I also hope to return to Gaza soon after my son recovers, that the blockade will be lifted, and that all patients will be able to travel, just like my son.”

Israeli restrictions

In the Red Crescent Hospital courtyard, dozens of patients on travel waiting lists expressed frustration over the first-day restrictions at Rafah.

Several patients, including those with amputations, gathered at the hospital, hoping to be permitted to travel to Egypt for treatment.

Despite patients and their families arriving early in the morning with high hopes, Israeli authorities refused to permit more than five patients to leave, leading to widespread dissatisfaction with the complex mechanisms accompanying the crossing’s partial reopening.

The multi-stage security procedure of Palestinians moving through the Rafah crossing begins with the preparation of daily lists of candidates for travel, which are then referred to the Israeli side for pre-travel security screening.

No one is allowed to pass through the crossing or enter it without explicit Israeli approval. The European Union Border Assistance Mission deployed to Rafah is limited to monitoring the process and verifying identities.

Arrivals in Gaza, after initial identity verification at the crossing under European supervision, are subject to additional inspection procedures at checkpoints located in areas under Israeli military control.

Raed al-Nims, the Gaza Red Crescent’s head of media, told Al Jazeera that the organisation was still waiting for updates regarding the transfer of more patients for treatment through the crossing.

He added that a group of patients was successfully transferred to Israel on Monday through the Kerem Abu Salem crossing, in coordination with the WHO.

Desperate need

Ibrahim Abu Thuraya was also one of the five patients allowed to leave Gaza on Monday.

Ibrahim was injured in the early months of the war, sustaining wounds that led to the amputation of his left hand and an injury to his left eye, where shrapnel is still embedded.

“Day after day, my eye condition is deteriorating, and I feel severe pain, especially since the shrapnel is lodged behind it and there are no medical capabilities in Gaza to deal with it,” he said from Khan Younis, before he travelled to Rafah. “Doctors told me that I need to travel abroad.”

Ibrahim was informed on Monday morning by the WHO and Gaza’s Ministry of Health that he had been approved for travel. He will be accompanied by his wife, Samar, and their son.

“I have suffered greatly for two full years just to be able to leave for treatment, and there are thousands of wounded like me,” he said. “I hope the crossing will be opened permanently.”

All about the numbers

The Petro administration has also continued to target criminal networks that traffic in cocaine through arrests and the seizure of shipments.

In November, Petro announced the Colombian government had made its largest drug bust in a decade, with law enforcement nabbing nearly 14 tonnes of cocaine.

Gloria Miranda was appointed by Petro in 2024 to lead Colombia’s Directorate for the Substitution of Illicit Crops, the agency overseeing the voluntary eradication efforts.

She believes that the Petro administration’s efforts have been mischaracterised as ineffective.

“There’s been a narrative that Colombia isn’t doing anything in the fight against drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“But we’ve seized 276,000 kilogrammes [608,500 pounds] of cocaine, destroyed 18,000 laboratories, arrested 164,000 people, and are replacing more than 30,000 hectares [about 74,100 acres] of illicit crops.”

But critics — including Trump — argue Petro’s measures have yet to translate into results. Coca cultivation and cocaine production remain stubbornly at record levels.

According to the latest United Nations figures, coca cultivation rose in Colombia by about 10 percent in 2023. Potential cocaine output also jumped 53 percent to about 2,600 tonnes.

Petro has questioned the accuracy of those numbers, though. Last week, ahead of Petro’s meeting with Trump, his government announced it would no longer use the United Nations figures, arguing that they rely on an “obscure statistical method”.

Michael Weintraub, the director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED) at the University of the Andes, told Al Jazeera that some of Petro’s pushback is political.

But he added that there is a genuine basis for questioning the UN’s methodology.

“The ‘potential cocaine production’ measure has a lot of baked-in assumptions that make it very difficult to trust,” Weintraub said.

It predicts coca production from selected plots, but yields vary by region and season. The UN itself has admitted there are limitations in its method.

Despite these concerns, coca cultivation in Colombia has trended upward for decades.

Analysts note one overriding factor: demand. Consumption in North America and Europe remains strong, and new markets have emerged in Asia, Africa and South America.

“Coca can only grow in limited places due to climate, soil and elevation,” Weintraub said. “So Colombia is likely to remain a major producer for the foreseeable future.”

Name of Israeli military facility at Gaza crossing with Egypt linked to Zionist anthem and pro-settler NGO, signalling a shift, analysts say. from security control to West Bank-style land grab and dehumanisation of Palestinians.

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has reopened partially for a few Palestinians after an 18-month closure in tandem with an added restriction to control the movement of returnees. The Israeli army has set up a checkpoint called Regavim in an area under its control outside the crossing for those entering Gaza from Egypt.

As the first trickle of humanity passed through the gates on Monday, official Israeli military documents gave it a name that indicates the facility is no longer being treated as a border crossing but as an operation for population control.

In an official statement published on its website on Sunday, the Israeli army announced the completion of what it called the “Regavim Inspection Nekez”.

While the Israeli military frames this technical language as routine, analysts told Al Jazeera that the choice of the words “Regavim” and “Nekez” indicates Israel’s long-term intentions.

Al Jazeera spoke to Israeli affairs experts who argued that these terms reveal a dual strategy: invoking Zionist nostalgia to claim the land while using engineering terms to dehumanise the Palestinian people.

Historical code: ‘Clod after clod’

For analyst Mohannad Mustafa, the name Regavim is not random; it is a deliberate ideological trigger intended to resonate with the Israeli government’s far-right base.

“In Hebrew, Regavim means ‘clods of earth’ or patches of arable land,” Mustafa explained. “But it is not just a word. It is a trigger for the Zionist collective memory of land redemption.”

The term is inextricably linked to the Zionist children’s song and poem Dunam Po Ve Dunam Sham (A Dunam Here, a Dunam There) by Joshua Friedman, which was an anthem for the early settlement movement. The lyrics celebrate the acquisition of land: “Dunam here and dunam there/Clod after clod (Regev ahar regev)/Thus we shall redeem the land of the people.”

“By officially naming the Rafah corridor Regavim, the army is sending a subliminal message,” Mustafa said. “They are framing their presence in Gaza not as a temporary security mission but as a form of ‘redeeming the land’ identical to the ideology of the early pioneers.”

Political code: The ‘West Bank model’

Beyond the historical nostalgia, the name has a direct line to the present-day architects of Israel’s annexation policies: the Regavim Movement.

This far-right NGO, cofounded in 2006 by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has been the primary force behind the expansion of Israeli control in the occupied West Bank. A 2023 investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz detailed how the organisation essentially became the “intelligence officer” for the state, using drones and field data to map and demolish Palestinian structures in Area C, the 61 percent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control.

Mustafa argued that applying this name to the Rafah crossing signals the transfer of the “civil administration” model from the West Bank to Gaza.

“It suggests that Gaza is no longer a separate entity but a territory to be managed with the same tools used to prevent Palestinian statehood in Judea and Samaria,” Mustafa said, using the Israeli terms for the West Bank.

Operational code: A ‘political brand’ and a ‘drain’

Analyst Ihab Jabareen takes the name Regavim a step further. He argued it has evolved beyond its linguistic meaning into a modern “political brand” for the settlement right and is being used to normalise a long-term Israeli presence.

However, Jabareen said the use of the term Nekez in the Israeli military statement portends even more danger.

“While Regavim operates as a political brand, Nekez reveals the cold, engineering mindset of the military,” Jabareen told Al Jazeera. “A Nekez is a drainage point. It is a hydraulic term used for managing sewage, floodwaters or irrigation – not for processing human beings.”

Jabareen argued that describing a human border crossing as a “drain” reflects three chilling assumptions now formalised in military doctrine:

1. Dehumanisation: “The Palestinian is no longer a citizen. They are a ‘fluid mass’ or a ‘flow’ that must be regulated to prevent overflow,” Jabareen said.
2. The end of negotiations: “You do not negotiate with a drain. Rafah is no longer a political border subject to sovereignty. It is an engineering problem to be managed.
3. Infrastructure, not a border: “Security is now being managed like a sewage system – purely technical, devoid of rights.”

“This is colder and more dangerous than standard settlement rhetoric,” Jabareen warned. “It converts the political issue of Gaza into a permanent technical function.”

A formula for ‘quiet control’

Both analysts agreed that the official adoption of these two terms points to a reality that is neither a full withdrawal nor declared annexation.

“It is a formula for ‘quiet control’,” Jabareen explained. “Israel doesn’t need to declare immediate settlement to control the territory. By treating the land as ‘Regavim’ (soil to be held) and the people as a ‘Nekez’ (a flow to be filtered), they are establishing a long-term reality where Gaza is an administered space, never an independent entity.”

Mustafa concurred: “The name ‘Regavim’ tells the settlers: ‘We have returned to the land.’ And the official designation ‘Nekez’ tells the security establishment: ‘We have the valve to turn the human flow on or off at will.’”

Beirut, Lebanon – Before Israel’s war on Lebanon, Ali (full name withheld for safety reasons) lived in Haddatha, a village in the Bint Jbeil district in the south, about 12km (7.5 miles) from the border with Israel, surrounded by nature where agriculture was intrinsic to life.

Then came Israel’s “hellfire”.

At least nine people were killed and some 3,000 injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, when thousands of pagers exploded, nearly simultaneously, overwhelming hospitals on September 17, 2024.

Six days later, Israel escalated its attacks across the south, killing nearly 600 people, in what was the country’s deadliest day since the country’s ruinous civil war ended in 1990, and displacing more than one million people.

“Our house was destroyed,” he told Al Jazeera. Ali took refuge in a town about 20km (12.5 miles) north of Haddatha, called Burj Qalaway.

But more than a year later, he is yet to return home despite a ceasefire. He is one of tens of thousands who are still displaced from their homes around Lebanon and who say that what little they have received in support from the Lebanese state or Hezbollah is not enough to rebuild their lives or homes destroyed during the war.

South ‘not safe’

On November 27, 2024, a ceasefire came into effect between Hezbollah and Israel. The agreement brought to an end more than a year of cross-border attacks and a two-month-long Israeli intensification that killed thousands in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and devastated civilian infrastructure.

Under the ceasefire, cross-border attacks were supposed to stop, Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, which runs across south Lebanon, and Israel was to withdraw troops that had invaded south Lebanon in October.

Israel, however, never stopped attacking. Its army still occupies five points in southern Lebanon, and during the ceasefire, it razed several villages to the ground.

An estimated 1.2 million people, more than a quarter of the Lebanese population, had been displaced during the war. On the morning of November 27, hundreds of thousands of people streamed south to their villages to return home. But tens of thousands more have been left behind and are still unable to go home.

“The south is not safe,” Ali said. “I am afraid that I might be walking somewhere and a raid will attack a car next to me.”

Israeli attacks continue across the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east on a near-daily basis, with the Lebanese government counting more than 2,000 Israeli violations of the 2024 ceasefire deal in the last three months of 2025.

Ali is not alone. The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 64,000 people are still internally displaced in Lebanon, according to figures compiled in October 2025.

Entire villages ‘razed’

Some of the 64,000 cannot return to their homes along the border region with Israel. Israeli soldiers still hold five points on Lebanese territory, managing large swaths of south Lebanon through violence and technology: using drones, air raids, shelling or gunfire. Since the ceasefire, Israel has killed more than 330 people in Lebanon, including at least 127 civilians.

Melina*, from Odaisseh, a village on the southern border, lived most of her life in Nabatieh. During the war, she was displaced to Sidon, a southern city about 44km (27 miles) south of Beirut.

“I haven’t been able to visit my village,” she told Al Jazeera. “Psychologically, I can’t bear to see our house, which was completely destroyed, and the entire village was razed to the ground.”

“The security situation remains extremely dangerous,” she said. “You could be shot at by the Israeli side at any moment, and it’s unsafe to travel without a Lebanese army escort.”

Ali runs a market in Burj Qalaway, but he says the income is not enough to rebuild his home. There are also other concerns. Israel has attacked reconstruction equipment in southern Lebanon, drawing criticism from human rights groups.

“Amid the ceasefire, Israeli forces have carried out attacks that unlawfully target reconstruction-related equipment and facilities,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a December 2025 report. “After reducing many of Lebanon’s southern border towns to rubble, the Israeli military is now making it much more difficult for tens of thousands of residents to rebuild their destroyed homes and return to their towns.”

Some Lebanese also fear a renewed Israeli offensive similar to the one in 2024.

‘Couldn’t see 2cm in front of me’

On July 30, 2024, at about 7:40pm, Ramez* was sitting in his bedroom at home in Haret Hreik, a neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs referred to locally as Dahiyeh, an area often targeted in the past by Israel for the Hezbollah presence there.

His cats were roaming around the room, and he was busy on his phone when he heard loud explosions.

The war had been raging in the south, but attacks on Beirut and its suburbs were not yet as common. “I heard more than nine bangs,” Ramez said. He ran out of his bedroom to help his family evacuate. He left his door open, he said, so his cats could escape. While telling his mother to grab her things, he heard the loudest bang.

“The whole neighbouring building just collapsed and fell on us,” he said. Israel had just levelled the building next to his, killing Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander.

“I couldn’t see 2cm in front of me because of the fog and the dust.”

Ramez’s family escaped unscathed, though their house was badly damaged and his sister’s car was destroyed. His cats also survived. He found them the next day.

“I always wondered how people just go through something like this and just move on, saying, OK, Alhamdulillah, everyone is alive,” he says, though, “at that point I kind of understood it”.

Since the end of the war, he has been able to return to his family home in Haret Hreik. But his family had to pay for most of the reconstruction themselves, with little help from the government or any group.

They registered with the government for assistance but said they received only a one-time payment of 30 million Lebanese pounds (a little more than $330).

Hezbollah also sent engineers to assess the damage. In December 2024, the Reuters news agency reported that Hezbollah would pay about $77m and rent to families affected by war. Some locals said payments from the group helped a bit, but others said it had stopped paying nonmembers or tried to undervalue their losses.

“They were very stingy with payments,” Ramez said. “They tried to make us accept low payments, but my mom stood her ground and said it is enough.”

Other people who were displaced by the war told Al Jazeera that the aid provided by the state and Hezbollah was very limited.

War is ‘most terrible’

Reports are mixed over Hezbollah’s financial capability, and it is difficult to determine how badly they have been hit financially after the group’s political and military leadership was devastated by 2024’s war and suffered several Israeli assassinations, including their longtime charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria also dealt Hezbollah a serious blow, disrupting the land route to its main benefactor, Iran – itself now reeling from deadly protests and bracing for a possible US attack. The group is under immense pressure from the Lebanese government to disarm, with the United States and Israel applying pressure.

Further compounding the crisis is the fact that Lebanon is now almost seven years into one of the worst economic crises in more than 150 years, according to the World Bank. This has hit locals hard, with many having their bank accounts frozen and the currency devaluing by more than 90 percent.

This has left many of the displaced feeling abandoned and unsure of how to continue.

There were violent Israeli air raids in the south on Saturday, which continued on Sunday. In the meantime, people like Ali have to continue figuring out ways to survive as their displacement carries on well past the one-year mark.

“We love life, but the situation is not good. Wars break your back,” Ali said. “War is the most terrible thing in the world.”

*Real names withheld for safety reasons.

Joao Sousa contributed to this report.

Gaza City – With what remains of her wounded forearms, Nebal al-Hessi scrolls on her phone to follow news updates on the reopening of the Rafah land crossing from her family’s tent in an-Nazla, Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Nebal’s hands were amputated in an Israeli artillery attack on the home where she had taken shelter with her husband and her daughter in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, on October 7, 2024.

More than a year later, the 25-year-old mother is one of thousands of wounded people placing their hopes on the reopening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as they seek access to adequate medical treatment outside the besieged Palestinian territory.

“It’s been a year and five months since I got injured … Every day, I think about tomorrow, that I might travel, but I don’t know,” Nebal tells Al Jazeera in a quiet voice.

Recalling the attack, Nebal says she was sitting on her bed holding her baby daughter Rita, trying to communicate with her family in northern Gaza, when the shell hit suddenly.

“I was trying to catch an internet signal to call my family … my daughter was in my lap… suddenly the shell hit. Then there was dust; I don’t remember anything else,” Nebal says.

“It was the shell fragments that amputated my hands,” she recounts.

‘Life is completely paralysed’

Nebal was taken to the hospital with severe injuries, including complete amputation of both upper limbs up to the elbows, internal bleeding, and a leg injury. She underwent two abdominal surgeries.

She spent about 40 days in the hospital before beginning a new stage of suffering in displacement tents, without the most basic long-term care.

Today, Nebal, an English translation graduate and mother to two-year-old Rita, relies almost entirely on her family for the simplest daily tasks.

“I can’t eat or drink on my own … even getting dressed, my mother, sister, and sister-in-law mainly help me,” she says sorrowfully.

“Even going to the bathroom requires help. I need things in front of me because I cannot bring them myself.”

Nebal talks about the pain of motherhood left suspended, as her daughter grows up before her eyes without her being able to hold her or care for her.

“My little daughter wants me to change her, feed her, give her milk, hold her in my arms like other mothers… she asks me, and I can’t,” Nebal says with sorrow.

“My life is completely paralysed.”

Doctors tell Nebal that she urgently needs to travel to continue treatment and have prosthetic limbs fitted, emphasising that she needs advanced prosthetics to regain a degree of independence, not just cosmetic appearance.

“Doctors tell me that I need a state or an institution to adopt my case so I can gradually return to living my normal life,” she adds.

With Palestinian authorities announcing arrangements to open the Rafah crossing today for batches of wounded people and medical patients, Nebal, like many others, lives in a state of anticipation mixed with fear.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, thousands of wounded still require specialised treatment unavailable inside the Strip, while the scheduling of names depends on medical lists and complex approvals, amid the absence of a clear timetable or publicly announced priority criteria.

Nebal says she received repeated calls over the past months from medical organisations informing her that she would be among the first on the travel lists.

“They contacted me more than once, told me to prepare… they gave me hope,” she adds. “But this time, no one has contacted me yet.”

Today, Nebal fears her case might be overlooked again, or that the crossing’s opening could be merely a formality, disregarding the urgent needs of patients like her.

“I die a little every day because of my current situation … not figuratively. I’ve been like this for a year and four months, and my daughter is growing up in front of me while I am helpless,” she says.

Uncertain future

Nada Arhouma, a 16-year-old girl whose life has been completely altered by a single injury, is also hoping the crossing opens as soon as possible.

Nada, who was displaced with her family from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza amid Israel’s two-year genocidal war on Gaza, was hit in the face by shrapnel while inside a displacement tent in Sheikh Radwan, Gaza City.

The incident caused the complete loss of one eye, in addition to fractures in her facial bones, orbital damage, and severe tissue tearing.

Her father, Abdul Rahman Arhouma, 49, says that her health deteriorated over time despite treatment attempts in Gaza.

“She entered the ICU at al-Shifa Hospital, then was transferred to Nasser Hospital. She stayed there for about two and a half months. They tried multiple times to graft her eye, but each operation failed, and the disfigurement worsened,” he says.

According to her father, Nada underwent three surgical attempts using tissue from her hand and other facial areas, but all failed, further complicating her medical and psychological condition.

“My daughter bleeds from her eye every day, and she has pus and discharge,” he says. “I am standing helpless, unable to do anything.”

Today, Nada needs constant assistance to walk and suffers from persistent dizziness and balance weakness. Her vision in the healthy eye is also affected.

“Even going to the bathroom, my sisters help me. I can’t walk alone,” Nada tells Al Jazeera in a soft voice.

Nada has an official medical referral and urgently needs to travel for reconstructive surgery and the implantation of a prosthetic eye. But her ability to get the treatments remains uncertain pending the reopening of Rafah – as is the case for other patients and wounded individuals.

“Since I’ve been in the hospital, I hear every week: next week the crossing will open. Honestly, I feel they are lying. I’m not optimistic,” Nada says.

Her father told Al Jazeera that the continuing wait for the Rafah crossing to reopen was “disappointing”.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t understand anything. All the reports came from Israeli sources, and it seemed Rafah looked like a gate for prisoners, not for travel,” he says.

“Our situation is difficult, and it’s clear we face a long wait to secure my daughter’s right to treatment.”

Pilot reopening

Sunday was the first pilot reopening day at Rafah, amid ambiguity and a lack of clarity about the mechanism, particularly regarding the number of patients and wounded who would be allowed to travel.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, thousands of patients and wounded people require urgent medical transfers outside the Strip, amid the collapse of the healthcare system and lack of resources.

The World Health Organization has repeatedly confirmed that Gaza’s health system is “on the brink of collapse”, and that delays in travelling for critical cases threaten their lives.

Meanwhile, Israel has said it will only allow those whose names it has approved in advance to cross, without any clear announcement on daily numbers or approved criteria, leaving families of patients in constant anticipation and frustration.

For Nada’s family, this “experimental opening” means little so far.

“We can’t plan, neither to stay nor to leave,” her father says. “The decision is not in our hands. One lives in a whirlpool, unable to decide what happens. Even the Ministry of Health has not disclosed anything.”

‘Devastating’ struggle to access treatment

Raed Hamad, 52 and a father of four, is also desperate to leave Gaza in order to seek treatments and medication that are not available in the war-ravaged territory.

Hamad was undergoing kidney cancer treatment a year before the war started. He underwent kidney removal after tumour detection to prevent its spread. But the outbreak of the war in October 2023 halted his treatment protocol, significantly affecting his health.

Hamad lives in the remains of his destroyed home in Khan Younis, amid the devastation left by the war, under deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

He describes his current struggle to access treatment during the war, alongside other cancer patients he meets in the hospital’s oncology department, as “devastating.”

“The war has made it almost impossible to obtain medicines and medical supplies. Cancer treatments and known treatment protocols are unavailable,” he says.

“Food, its nature, and the harsh crises we’ve endured during the war—all of this has greatly affected my health.”

Raed’s weight dropped from 92kg (203lb) to 65kg (143lb) due to complications from the disease, lack of treatment, and malnutrition.

“I continue my treatment whenever I can at my own expense,” he says. “Every time I go to the hospital, I cannot find my treatment and see that capabilities in Gaza are extremely limited. My immunity is low, and every day I face new hardships.

“I need to complete my protocol, undergo nuclear scans, and obtain some essential medications to continue my treatment.”

Kurmin Wali, Nigeria – Like most Sundays in Kurmin Wali, the morning of January 18 began with early preparations for church and, later on, shopping at the weekly market.

But by 9:30am, it became clear to residents of the village in the Kajuru local government area of Nigeria’s Kaduna State that this Sunday would not be a normal one.

Gunmen known locally as bandits arrived in the village in numbers, armed with AK47 rifles.

They broke down doors and ordered people out of their homes and the village’s three churches.

They blocked the village exits before taking people and marching dozens into the forest at gunpoint.

Some captives were taken from church, while others were forcibly kidnapped as gunmen moved from house to house.

In one house, more than 30 members of an extended family were abducted.

Jummai Idris, a relative of the family that was taken, remains inconsolable.

She was home the day of the attack and did not go out.

“When I heard shouting, I took two children and we hid behind a house. That was how they [the bandits] missed us,” she told Al Jazeera.

“But I heard every shout, every cry and footstep as they picked up people from our house and surrounding houses,” she added, between sobs.

With tears streaming down her face, Idris recounts how she kept calling out the names of her missing family members – men, women and children.

Her house sits on the edge of the village, close to a bandits’ crossing point.

“I don’t know what they are doing to them now. I don’t know if they’ve eaten or not,” she said.

A total of 177 people were abducted that day. Eleven escaped their captors, but about a quarter of Kurmin Wali’s population remains captive.

Initially, state officials denied the attack had taken place.

In the immediate aftermath, Kaduna’s police commissioner called reports a “falsehood peddled by conflict entrepreneurs”.

Finally, two days later, Nigeria’s national police spokesman, Benjamin Hundeyin, admitted an “abduction” had indeed occurred on Sunday. He said police had launched security operations with the aim of “locating and safely rescuing the victims and restoring calm to the area”.

Uba Sani, Kaduna state’s governor, added that more than just rescuing the abductees, the government was committed to ensuring “that we establish permanent protection for them”.

There has been a police presence in Kurmin Wali since then. But it is not enough to reassure villagers.

Locals say the police are not there to protect the village, but merely to compile the names of victims they for days denied existed.

At the premises of Haske Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church, the largest church in the village, days after the attack, a rust-coloured door lay on the floor, pulled off its hinges. Inside the mud-brick building, the site was chaotic.

Plastic chairs overturned in panic were strewn around the room – just as the kidnappers had left them.

‘Only the recklessly bold can stay’

The church building was where the captors brought everyone before marching them into the forest surrounding the village.

Residents said the gunmen divided themselves into different groups, targeting homes and churches in the village.

Maigirma Shekarau was among those taken before he managed to escape.

“They tied us, beat us up, before arriving us into the bush. We trekked a long distance before taking a break,” he said of his journey with his captors.

Shekarau, a father of five, was holding his three-year-old daughter when he and others were taken.

“When we reached an abandoned village, I ducked inside a room with my little daughter when the attackers weren’t looking. I closed the door and waited. After what seemed like eternity, and sure they were gone, I opened the door and walked back home, avoiding the bush path,” he said, now back in the village.

But on returning home, his heart sank. He and his three-year-old were the only ones who made it home. The rest of the family is still held by the kidnappers.

Standing in a parched field of long dried grass, Shekarau says the village no longer feels like home.

The village chief was also taken, but managed to escape. He now presides over a community hopeful for the return of the missing – but too scared to stay.

“Everyone is on edge. People are confused and don’t know what to do. Some haven’t eaten. There are entire families that are missing,” said Ishaku Danazumi, the village chief.

Danazumi says the kidnappers regularly visit and loot the village grain stores and the villagers’ possessions, including mobile phones.

Two days after the attack, residents said the bandits rode through their village again.

On that day, the community also received a ransom demand.

“They accused us of taking 10 motorcycles they hid in the bush to evade soldiers who operated here the week before,” Danazumi said. “But we didn’t see those bikes.”

The chief said the captors told him the return of the 10 bikes was a precondition for the return of his people.

But deep inside, he knows, more demands will follow.

In the village, residents wait in their thatch and mud-brick houses, hoping for their loved ones to return.

But because of fear and the tense situation, many are leaving the farming community.

“Anyone thinking about remaining in this village needs to reconsider,” said Panchan Madami, a resident who also survived the attack.

“Only the recklessly bold can stay with the current state of security here.”

Villagers said that before the January 18 attack, 21 people kidnapped by the bandits were returned to them after a ransom was paid. But just two days later, a quarter of the village was taken.

“It will be stupid to stay here, hoping things will be OK,” added Madami.

The government says it will establish a military post to protect the community from further attacks. But that is not comforting enough for Idris, who has also made up her mind to leave.

“I’m not coming back here,” she said, gathering her belongings to leave the village where she grew up and married. “I just hope the rest of my family gets back.”

In Dhaka’s political chatter, one word often keeps resurfacing when people debate who really holds the reins of the country: “Kochukhet”.

The neighbourhood that houses key military installations has, in recent public discussions, become shorthand for the cantonment’s influence over civilian matters, including politics.

Bangladesh is weeks away from a national election on February 12, the first since the 2024 uprising that ended then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s long rule and ushered in an interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

The army is not vying for electoral power. But it has become central to the voting climate as the most visible guarantor of public order, with the police still weakened in morale and capacity after the upheaval of 2024, and with the country still reckoning with a “security apparatus” that watchdogs and official inquiries say was used to shape political outcomes under Hasina.

For nearly a year and a half now, soldiers have policed the streets of Bangladesh, operating under an order that grants them magisterial powers in support of law and order. On election duty, the deployment will scale up further: Officials have said as many as 100,000 troops are expected nationwide, and proposed changes to election rules would formally list the armed forces among the poll’s “law-enforcing agencies”.

Bangladesh, a nation of more than 170 million wedged between India and Myanmar, has repeatedly seen political transitions hijacked by coups, counter-coups and military rule, a past that still shapes how Bangladeshis read the present.  Analysts say that the army today is not positioned for an overt takeover, but it remains a decisive power centre: an institution embedded across the state, able to narrow civilian choices through its security role, intelligence networks and footprint inside government.

The military’s role now

Thomas Kean, the International Crisis Group’s senior consultant on Bangladesh and Myanmar, said the army has been “backstopping the interim government” not only politically but also “through day-to-day security amid police weakness”.

He said the institution is eager to see a transition to an elected government so the country returns to a firmer constitutional footing and so troops can “return to their barracks”.

“There are different factions and views within the army, but overall I would say that the army wants to see the election take place as smoothly as possible,” Kean told Al Jazeera.

Kean argued that if the army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, and the military “had wanted to take power, they could have done so when the political order collapsed on August 5”, the day Hasina fled to India amid a popular student-led revolt. But the military chose not to, he said, in part because it had learned from the fallout of past experiments with its direct political control.

Asif Shahan, a political analyst and professor at Dhaka University, said the military was aware that a takeover would have also jeopardised key interests, including Bangladesh’s United Nations peacekeeping deployments, which carry both financial benefits and reputational weight for the armed forces. Bangladesh has for decades been one of the biggest suppliers to UN peacekeeping missions, and receives between $100m and $500m a year in payouts and equipment reimbursements for these services.

But Shahan argues that the military remains “an important political actor”. Today, he said, its influence is “less about overt intervention than the institutional weight it carries through the security and intelligence apparatus”.

He also pointed to what he called the army’s “corporate” footprint. That footprint spans involvement in major state infrastructure projects, the military’s own business conglomerate, and the presence of serving and retired officers across commercial and state bodies.

Shahan said the last Hasina government “gave them a share of the pie”, leaving “a kind of culture of corruption … ingrained”. He suggested that this could translate into informal pressure on whoever governs next to do the same, and anxieties inside the force over whether “the facilities and privileges” it has accumulated will shrink.

On the election itself, Shahan too said that the possibility of the army trying to gain overt control was “very low” unless there is such a major law and order breakdown that there is public demand for the army to step in as the “only source of stability”,

Others who track the military closely agreed. Rajib Hossain, a former army officer and author of the best-selling book Commando, said he “strongly believes” the army will avoid partisan involvement for its own sake. “The army will play a neutral role during this election,” he said. “What we’ve observed on the ground over the past year and a half, there is no record of the army acting in a partisan way.”

But, he added, pressure on the institution has been intense since 2024. “Internally, there’s an understanding that if the army fails to act neutrally, it could lose even the public credibility it still has,” he said.

Mustafa Kamal Rusho, a retired brigadier general at the Osmani Centre for Peace and Security Studies, also told Al Jazeera that the military does not have “any clear intent” to influence politics, though “it still remains a critical power base”.

That leverage was clearest during the 2024 uprising, Rusho said, when Bangladesh’s political crisis reached a point that many Bangladeshis and international watchdogs viewed the military’s posture as decisive. “If the military did not take the stand that it took, then there would have been more bloodshed,” he said.

With protests escalating, the military refused to fully enforce Hasina’s curfew orders and decided troops would not fire on civilians. It enabled Hasina to flee to India on an air force plane, and the army chief then announced an interim government would be formed.

In an Al Jazeera documentary on the uprising last year, Waker-uz-Zaman, who is related to Hasina and was appointed less than two months before her collapse, also stressed that his forces would not turn their guns on civilians. “We don’t shoot at civilians. It’s not in our culture … So we did not intervene,” he said.

In the same interview, he added: “We believe that the military should not engage in politics … It’s not our cup of tea.”

When the military ruled

That hasn’t always been the military’s position.

After the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader and then-president, by a group of military officers, the country entered a period marked by coups, counter-coups and military rule upheavals that reshaped the state and produced political forces that still dominate elections.

One of them was the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by army general-turned-ruler Ziaur Rahman, who emerged as the country’s most powerful figure in the late 1970s before moving into civilian politics. Rahman was assassinated in 1981 in a failed coup attempt by another group of military officers. The BNP remains a key contender in the February 12 vote, now led by Rahman’s son, Tarique Rahman, who has returned to front-line politics after a long exile.

In 1982, then army chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad seized power and ruled for much of the 1980s. Writer and political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed has described Ershad’s takeover as coming only months after he publicly argued that “the army should be brought in to help run the country”.

Eventually, a pro-democracy movement led by Zia’s wife, Khaleda Zia, and Hasina, also Mujibur Rahman’s daughter, forced him from office. The BNP won a landmark election, and in 1991, Khaleda became the country’s first female prime minister.

Since then, Rusho said, the military’s influence “became more indirect”, though Bangladesh still saw an abortive May 1996 showdown when the then army chief, Lieutenant General Abu Saleh Mohammad Nasim, defied presidential orders, and troops loyal to him moved towards Dhaka. Nasim was arrested and removed from office.

A decade later, in 2007, the military in effect “fully backed” a caretaker government that was formed to replace Khaleda’s second administration, which had ruled between 2001 and 2006. That caretaker government was installed in January 2007 after a breakdown in the election process and escalating political violence. The International Crisis Group described the caretaker administration as “headed by technocrats but controlled by the military”, while then-army chief Moeen U Ahmed argued the political climate “was deteriorating very rapidly” and that the military’s intervention had “quickly ended” street violence.

It was only after 2009, when Hasina came back to power – her Awami League had first ruled between 1996 and 2001 – that the military became “subordinate to the civilian regime”, Rusho said.

Blurred lines

But even though the military today insists that it does not want power, it has often drifted into the political terrain.

A major moment arrived just weeks after Hasina’s ouster, in September 2024, when General Zaman told the Reuters news agency he would back Yunus’s interim government “come what may”, while also floating a timeline for elections within 18 months. The interview, which critics described as something unprecedented for a serving army chief, placed the military close to the country’s central political debate.

Hossain, the former army officer and author, criticised the public nature of the intervention. “If he [Zaman] had discussed this after sitting with all the stakeholders … the interim [administration], political parties, protest leaders … and then gone to the media, that would be acceptable,” he said. “But here, he declared it unilaterally and blindsided the government from his position of power. He had no authority to do that.”

“You may say this is an extraordinary, transitional time and the military has a role to play,” Hossain added. “But then, why do we have an administration at all?”

Shahan, the Dhaka University professor, said Zaman “came very close” to crossing the line and explained it as a product of military institutional culture after August 5. “Military organisations … like to follow standing operating procedures, order, stability,” he said. But August 5, he added, was “a political rupture” that forced the army and the nation into uncertainty: about the interim government’s longevity, legitimacy and how it would deal with the military.

Those anxieties, Shahan said, likely pushed Zaman to speak. In principle, he said, it is reasonable for the army chief to say elections are needed for stability. But “when he set a specific timeline – within 18 months – that is beyond his role”, Shahan said. “It then appears as if he is dictating.”

Shahan added that the problem becomes sharper when that kind of specificity appears to respond to a party demand; he was referring to a time when only the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was repeatedly pushing for a vote timetable.

Eight months later, in May 2025, Zaman again weighed in, telling a high-level military gathering, according to local media reports, that his position had not changed and that the next national vote should be held by December 2025. After that, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special adviser to Yunus, wrote on Facebook that “the army can’t meddle in politics” and argued that the military chief had failed to maintain “jurisdictional correctness” by prescribing an election deadline.

Around the same period, rumours emerged suggesting that Yunus had considered resigning amid political discord.

The shadow Hasina left

Another reason that analysts say the military’s role is being debated so intensely now is because of Bangladesh’s recent wounds.

During Hasina’s 15-year rule, human rights organisations argued Bangladesh’s security apparatus was often used for political control. Human Rights Watch has described enforced disappearances as a “hallmark” of Hasina’s rule since 2009.

When the United States sanctioned the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2021 over allegations of extrajudicial killings, the US Department of the Treasury said, “These incidents target opposition party members, journalists, and human rights activists.” Critics argue that security institutions became central to governance, and questions about how that machinery was used are now part of the post-Hasina political settlement.

Hossain, the former officer, said the Hasina-era legacy still echoes inside the top brass. “If you look at the leadership, the general, five lieutenant generals, and some major generals and brigadier generals, a lot of them were part of Hasina’s apparatus,” he said, “aside from a handful of professional officers”.

A report by Bangladesh’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances says disappearances were used as a “tool for political repression” and that the practice “reached alarming levels during key political flashpoints”, including in the run-up to elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024. The commission said it verified 1,569 cases of enforced disappearance.

In cases where political affiliation could be confirmed, the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing accounted for about 75 percent of victims, while the BNP and its affiliated groups accounted for about 22 percent. Among those “still missing or dead”, the BNP and its allies accounted for about 68 percent, while the Jamaat and its affiliates accounted for about 22 percent, the report said.

The commission also noted that the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military-run intelligence agency, had been “accused of manipulating domestic politics and interfering in the 2014 parliamentary elections”, and argued that perceived alignment with the Awami League compromised its neutrality.

Several senior military officers, including 15 in service, are now facing trial in a civilian tribunal on charges of enforced disappearances, murders and custodial tortures.

The proceedings have become a delicate issue in civil-military relations, as cases against serving officers in civilian courts are rare in Bangladesh’s history.

Former army chief Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan wrote on Facebook that local media had reported disagreements over the “trial process” for officers accused of crimes against humanity and that those disagreements had created what he described as a “chasm” between the interim government and the army’s top leadership.

Hossain, the former officer, however, said he disagreed. “These trials are not defaming the army,” Hossain said. “Rather, they are a kind of redemption for the institution to recover from the stigma created by the crimes of some self-serving officers.”

He argued that accountability could motivate younger officers and reduce the risk of the military being politically exploited again. Rusho, the retired brigadier general, also argued that politicisation under Hasina was driven less by formal doctrine than by executive control over careers.

“Promotions, important postings, placements … they were influenced considerably by the executive branch,” he said. “When you influence postings, some people’s loyalty often gets diverted to political masters, [and] it affects … professionalism and capability.”

Kean of the International Crisis Group said the real test for Bangladesh now would be whether it can stop the security state from being reabsorbed into partisan politics.

“The military is going to remain a powerful institution in Bangladesh, with a level of influence in domestic politics,” he said. “One hopes that the lesson of the past 18 months is that the military is better to support civilian administrations rather than be in power directly – that it can be a stabilising force, and one that is ultimately committed to democracy and civilian leadership.”

But, he added, the onus to do that isn’t only on the generals. Civilian politicians, too, needed to resist the temptation to misuse the military. That alone, he suggested, would help Bangladesh keep the army in the barracks and politicians accountable to the people, not to men in khakis.

Pop artist Kii Arens made a name for himself in music over the years, creating concert posters for bands and vocalists such as Radiohead, Elton John, Dolly Parton, the Weeknd, Sonic Youth, Tame Impala, Diana Ross and more.

That work is taking center stage at Arens’ new downtown Los Angeles gallery, FAB LA, in a show titled “And the Winner Is.” Curated by Arens and featuring poster art of Grammy winners, the exhibition is set to open Friday, two days before the 2026 Grammys descend on the city, and just in time to welcome plenty of visiting celebrity faces to the gallery’s third-ever event.

A glittering party scene is part of every exhibition Arens hosts, dating back to his previous gallery, LA-LA Land, which he opened two decades ago on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and ran until its lease came up last year.

FAB LA officially launched in October with “XO, LA: A Love Letter to Los Angeles,” an exhibition that reflected the eclectic voices and existential challenges that define L.A. culture with paintings, illustrations and mixed media works by Shepard Fairey, Corita Kent, Anthony Ausgang, Ashley Dreyfus, Paul Frank and others.

Pop artist Kii Arens lays on his desk in his new gallery, FAB LA, inside the historic Fine Arts Building on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Posters from his new show, “And the Winner Is,” feature images of Grammy winners just in time for the big awards show.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The flamboyant “Mick Rock’s Rocky Horror Art Show” followed in December. The exhibition was among the last events marking the famous cult film’s 50th anniversary, and featured Rock’s famous photographs alongside pieces by pop star designer Michael Schmidt and digital portraitist Plasticgod. As with previous events at LA-LA Land, the opening attracted rockers, drag queens and club world cognoscenti.

DJs Sean Patrick (Simon Says) and Chris Holmes (Paul McCartney’s touring DJ, and creative collaborator with Cosm) manned the decks, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” winner and podcaster, Alaska Thunderf—, performed as Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, dancing and prancing around the grand environs.

There are galleries all over Los Angeles, but few can be described as works of art unto themselves. FAB LA is that and more.

Its majestic headquarters are housed inside downtown’s historic Fine Arts Building — a breathtaking palace-like structure with a 100-year history of craftsmanship and creativity.

Located near the intersection of 7th and Flower streets, the landmark building was featured in the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer,” a hidden gem overshadowed in recent years by hectic street life, chain food spots and bustling business energy. Used primarily as an office building, its ornate design, carvings and sculptures — including a ground floor fountain with frolicking bronze youths — hadn’t invited much public attention or appreciation.

Pop artist Kii Arens catches some air in front of the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974 and restored in 1983.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

That changed late last year when Arens took over the first two floors.

“Historically, artists lived and worked inside this building,” he said during a recent opening. “This idea really resonated with me.”

Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Arens moved to L.A. in 2004 and promptly opened LA-LA Land. The Hollywood showroom debuted on election night 2004 with a group exhibition called “Happy War,” featuring anti-war works and Fairey as DJ. Wild and kitschy shows followed with opening fetes dedicated to colorful subjects including Andy Warhol, circus clowns, and Canadian television creators and puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft.

In addition to creating art and DJing, Arens is also a musician, and his eclectic music projects reflect his nostalgic proclivities. They include a rock outfit called FLIPP, which he describes as, “the Sex Pistols meets the Spice Girls,” as well as a pop-duo called Jinx, and solo work that counts 4 Non Blondes’ Linda Perry as a collaborator.

Arens is a largely self-taught visual artist. His work has always leaned toward entertainment figures and musical subject matter, which led to major commissions for album covers and tour poster art — some of which will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at FAB LA.

Poster prints of Elton John, left, and Jim Morrison, by Pop artist Kii Arens are part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is,” which features poster art of Grammy winners and is on display in Aren’s new gallery, FAB LA, which opened late last year.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

When LA-LA Land’s lease expired, Arens sought a new place that would embrace his experimental energy. He also wanted a unique backdrop for showcasing imagery that “treats pop culture as a shared memory for all to take in,” he said. “Something worthy of being preserved, not just consumed.”

The Fine Arts Building’s longtime real estate representative, Gibran Begum, was looking for the same thing. Preservation was part of the conversation when the two connected, but both were also focused on revitalization and augmenting the structure’s old-world charms with something fresh and modern. The goal was to once again bring art lovers to the neighborhood.

A cohesive arts event had been lacking in the area since the monthly Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk scaled down in the face of traffic and permit issues, and more recently COVID closures. The event recently resumed, and though it’s much smaller Arens said he has high hopes for its growth, and for FAB LA’s place in its future.

As does Begum, who calls the Fine Arts Building “a rare and special space.”

“The second you enter, you’re somewhere else, it’s almost like walking into something in Florence, Italy,” Begum said. “We were looking for someone to help rejuvenate and reenergize it and who understood the culture of it.”

Pop artist Kii Arens strikes a pose inside the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designed in the Romanesque revival style by architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Designed in the Romanesque revival style by revered architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the nearby Oviatt Building as well as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, the building’s exterior is embellished with dramatic columns and arches. Its interior features gargoyles, griffins and other mystical figures by sculptor Burt W. Johnson, as well as hand-crafted tiles by Ernest Batchelder and murals by Anthony B. Heinsbergen. A vintage elevator ferries guests between floors.

The opulent building opened on Dec. 8, 1926, attracting an estimated crowd of 27,000, and was named a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974.

Though various artists have shown in the building over its 100-year history, FAB’s vibrant vision, focused on the intersection of design and fine art media, feels like the right fit for the current moment.

“I almost feel like the ghosts of some of the artists are looking down at me and smiling, knowing that what they loved is happening here again,” Arens said.

This includes immersive gatherings, which are a big part of Arens’ plans for FAB. “We’ll have movie premieres, live music events, poetry and I definitely want to have fashion,” Arens said. “The room would make a great runway!”

Charity is also part of the picture.

“And the Winner Is,” serves as a fundraiser for Oxfam, which works to relieve global poverty. Arens said he’s been hosting charity events for the group for the last five years — always right around the Grammys.

“We’ll have a bunch of amazing vinyl records donated by Rhino, and we’ll have clothing donated from famous musicians. Matt Pinfield is DJing and so is Jeffrey Ross,” Arens said.

A poster of Liza Minnelli by Pop artist Kii Arens is part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is” which features poster art of Grammy winners and opens over Grammy weekend.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The exhibition, which closes March 8, will feature some of what Arens calls his “greatest hits,” including an ebullient Liza Minnelli portrait, and other significant prints such as a black-light poster design of Dolly Parton, and a Van Halen print representing Eddie Van Halen’s famed red-, black- and white-splattered “Frankenstein” guitar design on a notebook.

“I’m into simplifying images until they become familiar, immediate and emotional,” Arens said of his work. “I like to strip images down to what people recognize instantly. The feeling comes first, then I’m focused on evoking optimism, color and joy.”

Up next: A show in April in association with the animation studio Titmouse and dedicated to the art of animation.

“In this moment where everything feels disposable, I want to make something that is solid, something you stand in front of, not scroll past,” Arens said.

In 2007, Gustavo Petro was visiting Washington, DC, when he made an unusual request: to accompany his host’s friend on a school pickup run.

At the time, Petro was a rising star in the Colombian Senate who was in the United States to receive the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award for exposing politicians’ ties to paramilitary groups. His host was Sanho Tree, director of drug policy at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

“That’s something I can’t do in Colombia,” Tree remembered Petro telling him. “If your assassins know you’re going to pick up your kid at a certain time, that’s extremely dangerous.”

Such dangers were not new to Petro.

He began his career being hunted by soldiers as an armed rebel with the M-19, an underground student movement that sought a fairer, more democratic Colombia. After laying down his rifle, he became a whistleblowing senator, holding hearings on the shadowy alliance between politicians and paramilitary groups that reached the highest echelons of power – and earned him a price on his head from a paramilitary leader.

Throughout, he has pursued the same issues in a country torn apart by decades of armed conflict and where land has long been concentrated in the hands of the wealthy few.

“One thing we can say about Petro is that he’s been consistent,” said Alejandro Gaviria, Petro’s former education minister, who has been both a critic and ally of the president.

“If you watch an interview of his 20 years ago, he has exactly the same ideas. Then he was talking about peace, land reform; he was even ahead of his time talking about environmental issues.”

In 2022, Petro was elected the first left-wing president of the South American country and entered the presidential palace with promises to lead Colombia in a more equitable, eco-friendly direction.

On the international stage, he has been a rare figure among Latin American leaders as an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump. After the US attacked Venezuela in early January and abducted the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, Trump threatened military action against Colombia. The former rebel responded by saying he would “take up arms” again to defend Colombia. A detente soon followed after a phone call between the leaders.

As Petro has struggled to put his ideas into practice throughout his term and faced tensions with Trump, what drives Colombia’s president?

Bookish rebel

Petro was born in 1960 to a middle-class family in the Caribbean coastal town of Cienaga de Oro, but spent much of his childhood in the rainy capital, Bogota, and his teenage years in the city of Zipaquira.​

From a young age, he questioned authority.

“He likes discussion, but not dogma,” his father, Gustavo Petro Sierra, once said in an interview where he recalled an incident when his son was three. He had tried to punish his son by slapping his hand, but missed and accidentally struck his face. Petro had looked his father in the eye and yelled, “Don’t hit me in the face, Dad!”

Petro’s father, a teacher, inspired his son’s love of reading, and Petro was particularly influenced by the celebrated novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, by the Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His father gave him a copy as a birthday gift when he was a child, according to former Culture Minister Juan David Correa, who met Petro in 2021 as the editor of his memoir.

The magical realism epic immortalises Colombia’s civil wars and class struggles through the saga of the Buendia family through the 19th and early 20th centuries. After independence from Spain in 1810, Colombia experienced intermittent warfare between its two main political factions: the secular, reformist Liberals and the Conservatives, who wanted to maintain the Catholic, colonial status quo.

“That was a book that was definitive in our lives as Colombians,” explained Correa, noting Petro’s belief that Colombians must know their history.

“We have to know who these oligarchies or aristocracies are that ruled the country over the past 200 years of solitude [since independence], as [Petro] called it.”

In the colonial era, the Spanish oversaw a feudal-like system in which landless campesinos (rural workers) toiled for a pittance on behalf of wealthy landowners. In the Colombia that Petro grew up in, this system persisted. Even at the dawn of the new millennium, only 1 percent of landowners possessed half the arable land.

As a boy, Petro’s mother, Clara Nubia Urrego, would tell him stories about the turmoil in the country, including the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. Gaitan, a presidential candidate for the Liberals, called for reforms, including land distribution, which landowners fiercely opposed. His murder in 1948 kicked off a decade of bloodshed, known as La Violencia, between Liberal armed rebels and the Conservative government.

A truce in 1958 led to a power-sharing arrangement between the Liberal and Conservative parties, known as the National Front. Things had seemingly calmed by the early 1960s, but in 1964, inspired by the Cuban Revolution, the remaining Liberal rebels roaming the countryside came together as the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN).

Meanwhile, the National Front blocked any legitimate alternatives, going so far as to rig the election on April 19, 1970 against the populist ANAPO (National Popular Alliance), which attracted people fed up with the two-party system, including Petro’s mother, who had joined the party. Seeing his mother’s sadness at the election results became Petro’s political awakening. He was 10.

At his Catholic school in Zipaquira, Petro and three other friends formed a study group and pledged to dedicate their lives to a better Colombia. They read Alternativa, a left-wing magazine founded by Garcia Marquez, which ran interviews with Chilean and Argentinian rebels and criticised the US sway over Latin America. They became involved with local unions, bringing together workers, salt miners and teachers.

In his memoir, Petro recalls his “communist” beliefs did not make him popular with priests or his classmates whose parents hung portraits of Spain’s fascist dictator General Francisco Franco on their walls. But he credits his high school as the place where he learned about liberation theology, a strand of Catholicism that advocates uplifting the oppressed.

“Since then, love for the poor has remained by my side,” he wrote.

“I didn’t learn that from Marxism, but from liberation theology.”

Occupying a hillside

In 1978, after enrolling at university in Bogota to study economics, Petro was handed a document by Pio Quinto Jaimes, a teacher involved in activist circles. It outlined the goals of an underground student movement known as the 19th of April Movement or M-19, named after the 1970 election. Jaimes was impressed by Petro’s work with the unions and considered him a worthwhile prospect for the group.

Although often described as “urban guerrillas”, M-19 was distinct from the uniformed rebels of the FARC or the ELN. Whereas the FARC recruited from rural workers and wanted a Cuban-style Marxist revolution, M-19 mainly consisted of politicised students who sought social democracy, denied by the two-party system.

Unlike the FARC’s camouflaged commandos, who would raid army outposts before disappearing into the jungle, M-19 operated in the cities and preferred symbolic stunts such as stealing the sword of Simon Bolivar, Colombia’s 19th-century liberation hero, from a Bogota museum.

“Bolivar has not died,” read a note they left behind. “His sword continues his fight. It now falls into our hands, where it is pointed at the hearts of those who exploit Colombia.”

The M-19 hijacked milk trucks to redivert the goods to poorer neighbourhoods, and orchestrated kidnappings targeting Colombia’s wealthy elite.

Petro read the document from cover to cover.

“The movement connected me with the reality of the country, with my mother’s stories about Gaitan, Bolivar, and the ANAPO,” he wrote in his memoirs. “It was as if it had struck a chord that intensely stirred some fibres within me.”

Petro, along with two of his high school study group friends, joined the M-19.

Although he learned to use a gun, he did not take part in armed operations. He was instead tasked with disseminating propaganda. He took on the nom de guerre Aureliano, after a rebel leader in Marquez’s novel.

After graduation, Petro returned to Zipaquira and was elected an ombudsman, a public advocate, in 1981, to hear residents’ complaints about the local government.

In the early 1980s, Petro edited a newsletter – Letter to the People – where he called on readers to occupy a hillside on the outskirts and turn it into a housing project for poor people. Some 400 impoverished families answered the call and found 22-year-old Petro and a group of young activists measuring out 6-by-12 metre (19.7×39.4 feet) plots. There were no wells or sewage, and residents had to collect rainwater.

The squatters were eventually granted permission to stay by the mayor, and the community evolved into a neighbourhood named Bolivar 83.

‘My youth was over’

By 1984, as peace negotiations between the government and M-19 gained momentum, Petro publicly acknowledged his involvement in the group.

“I did so at a demonstration that was one of the largest in the municipality’s history,” he said in an interview. “From then on, my life changed. My youth was over.”

After telling the crowd he belonged to M-19, Petro stepped back to applause.

But not everyone was pleased.

Petro’s father, who had no idea about his son’s secret life, was shocked by the risks he had been taking.

The talks with the government soon fell apart, meaning M-19 members were once again targets for arrest. Petro was forced to go underground.

He lay low in Bolivar 83, sleeping in different beds each night, and wore a disguise, a yellow dress and a wig, pretending to be a woman.

Around this time, Petro had a psychedelic revelation under the guidance of a shaman on a sacred mountain. Drinking ayahuasca, a powerful Amazonian brew, he experienced intense visions. The first showed an Indigenous princess descending from above as he was enveloped by roots.

“What does this mean?” he asked the shaman.

“Well, you are like a spirit taking care of nature,” the spiritual healer replied.

Petro, who recounted this experience in the book Children of the Amazon (2023), said this was the moment he realised his responsibility towards the environment. His second vision was more troubling: he saw his own death during an ambush.

In October 1985, soldiers poured into Bolivar 83, scouring the neighbourhood for M-19 rebels and intimidating residents. A terrified boy revealed the secret tunnels where Petro was hiding.

Petro was arrested, tortured for four days in a military barracks, and imprisoned. He served 16 months for possession of weapons, which he claimed were planted.

While imprisoned, he missed the birth of his first son, Nicolas. Katia Burgos, his wife, who he had known since childhood, was also with M-19.

Meanwhile, Colombia’s internal armed conflict escalated beyond the rebels and the government.

The rise of narcos

The emergence of drug cartels or narcotics traffickers, aka narcos, added another dimension to the conflict.

Cocaine, a white powder refined from coca leaves, gained popularity in the 1970s, fuelled partly by US disco culture. Initially, Colombia was mainly a transit point for cocaine smuggled from Peru or Bolivia, but it was not long before coca cultivation expanded within Colombia, soon becoming the most viable livelihood in rural areas.

Cocaine barons and other wealthy businessmen began bankrolling private armies and paramilitaries to protect their families and property from armed rebels.

Although both were engaged in criminal activities, the rebels sought to overthrow the ruling elite, but the narcos wanted to become part of it, pitting them on opposite sides of the conflict.

After his release from Bogota’s La Modelo prison in 1987 at age 26, the unease of Petro’s rebellion days stuck with him, and he even took to sleeping with an assault rifle under his bed.

The following year, he met Mary Luz Herran, an ardent M-19 member since she was 14. They would go on to marry and have two children, a daughter named Andrea and a son named Andres, before splitting.

Soon after they met, in 1990, the M-19 became the first significant rebel group to demobilise, transforming into the M-19 Democratic Alliance party.

But it was a dangerous time to be in Colombian politics.

In the 1980s and 90s, some 6,000 members of the left-wing Patriotic Union party were killed by narcos, paramilitaries and the security services.

M-19 were not spared, either. In 1990, their presidential candidate, Carlos Pizarro, was shot on board a passenger plane mid-flight.

While serving a term in Congress, Petro began receiving death threats from a paramilitary group called Colsingue, or Colombia Without Guerrillas, and for his and his family’s safety, he agreed to a diplomatic posting in Belgium in 1994. While there, he studied environmentalism and economics at the University of Louvain, and he became deeply interested in the work of Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, who warned that while the global economy relies on constant growth, the Earth cannot be exploited forever.

But Petro grew restless in Brussels. “I felt bored, nostalgic, and eager to return to the political arena,” he writes in his memoirs.

He returned to Colombia, where he was re-elected to Congress in 1998. Two years later, he met his third wife, then a 24-year-old law student named Veronica Alcocer. They soon married, and despite initial tension with Veronica’s father — whom Petro described as an “almost fascist” in an interview with a Colombian magazine — Petro and his father-in-law grew close through their shared love of reading and intellectualism. His funeral in 2012 was one of the few times Petro cried in public. They have two daughters, ​​Sofia and Antonella.

Meanwhile, in a bid to start peace talks in 1998, then-President Andres Pastrana conceded territory roughly the size of Switzerland to Colombia’s largest armed group, the FARC. It was meant to be neutral ground, but the rebels used it to recruit and train child soldiers, grow coca, hold captives and enforce their own brand of justice.

Enter Alvaro Uribe. A right-wing hardliner, Uribe won the 2002 presidential election by promising to quash the rebels with an iron fist.

With US support, Uribe’s beefed-up military inflicted devastating defeats on the FARC. Washington had an interest in stopping the flow of cocaine from the source to the US, and in the 2000s and 2010s, Colombia was the third-largest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt.

Defying death squads

Overall, security improved, but the Uribe era revealed that the authorities had been colluding with paramilitaries for years. While presenting themselves as anti-communist vigilantes, the paramilitaries were responsible for the lion’s share of civilian deaths, terrorising vast swaths of the country.

In one particularly brutal episode in 1997, a band of armed men descended on the village of El Aro in Antioquia. Villagers were brutally tortured and raped, and up to 17 people were killed. The paramilitaries burned the village down as they left, and witnesses reported seeing a helicopter circling above — a yellow aircraft belonging to the Antioquia governor’s office, which at the time was occupied by Uribe.

The ghosts of El Aro were reawakened in the parapolitica (para-politics) scandal of 2006 after journalists and prosecutors revealed that several lawmakers were in league with far-right paramilitary groups, allowing them to murder and intimidate opponents while enriching themselves through bribes and illegal land grabs.

What happened next became one of the defining periods of Petro’s career. He held public hearings and accused the perpetrators of the El Aro massacre of operating with Uribe’s blessing while he was governor, such as by helping establish civilian “self-defence” groups as a front for the militias.

“Why the silence, Mr President?” Petro pressed him at a hearing. “Or does the government accept that violent narcoterrorists have a presence in its ranks?”

The then-president fired back, calling the senator a “terrorist in civilian clothes”. Uribe’s alleged paramilitary ties later landed him in a years-long court case from 2012, ending in his conviction for witness tampering last year, which was soon overturned on appeal.

Having lost comrades like Pizarro to the bloody purges of the 1980s and 90s, Petro knew all too well what he was up against. The scandal established him as a fearless crusader, but won him few friends.

“He was the one to [expose the paramilitaries] at a time when it was incredibly dangerous,” said Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, a human rights advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

“The impunity was so rampant … he was speaking to a Congress where 30 percent of it was linked to these groups.”

Tree, who nominated Petro for the human rights award in DC, remembered how the senator was on edge during this period.

“When I would meet with him in the mid-2000s in Bogota, he couldn’t stand near a window, and every night he had to go home by a different route,” Tree recalled.

Petro’s paranoia about standing near windows was not unwarranted; Salvatore Mancuso, the strongman behind the El Aro massacre, later confirmed that Petro’s name had indeed been on his hit list.

Mayor of Bogota

In 2010, Petro launched his first presidential bid but found himself at odds with his own party, the Democratic Pole, which sidelined him in favour of another candidate. Petro ran anyway and came in third overall.

He founded a new party, Humane Colombia, and successfully ran for mayor of Bogota in 2011.

While the previous mayor and his brother profited from corruption, Petro implemented many progressive reforms. A ban on brandishing firearms in public saw murder rates plunge to a three-decade low. Petro’s administration addressed animal cruelty, stopping the practices of using horse-drawn carts for rubbish collection and bullfighting, and pioneered mobile clinics for homeless drug users, treating addiction as a matter of public health.

“We were the first organisation to propose these [drug] reform ideas,” said Julian Quintero, director of Social Technical Action (ATS), a Bogota-based NGO focused on harm reduction and drug policy reform.

“Petro participated with us, and he sort of embraced the proposals we made to him.”

But Quintero noted that Petro’s governing style was also uneven, characterised by a rapid turnover of staff – a preview of his presidential years.

“Petro did very well as a senator because he’s a very good analyst who trembles with accusations when he’s in the opposition,” Quintero said.

“But when he takes office, he doesn’t stand out for his bureaucratic and technical skills. He’s not a good administrator. He changes teams very quickly, not allowing for continuity in his projects.”

Moreover, he added, in Colombia, “the left isn’t used to governing”.

Quintero noted that deeply entrenched right-wing interests also made Petro’s job more difficult. A failed attempt to overhaul the capital’s waste management system in 2013 ignited a political battle that saw Petro ousted from office by the arch-conservative Attorney General Alejandro Ordonez. That decision drew mass protests, and Petro was reinstated a month later – a sign that his brand of politics was gaining momentum.

Path to victory

In 2010, Petro had lost his presidential bid to Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe’s defence minister, who oversaw his campaign against the FARC in the 2000s. But it was Santos who – to Uribe’s dismay – brokered peace with the rebels in 2016.

When Uribe’s protege Ivan Duque took office in 2018, however, the government largely abandoned that agreement, and violence surged.

“[The Uribe faction] wanted a candidate, basically a puppet, who was to rip up the peace agreement and not let it advance,” WOLA’s Sanchez-Garzoli explained.

Armed groups, including rogue FARC commanders, drug cartels and paramilitaries, rushed to fill the power vacuum, where they once held sway.

Then, in 2021, Duque’s attempt to raise taxes prompted mass protests that were met with police brutality and dozens of deaths. The unrest and growing public disillusionment with the status quo, now fully exposed by the collapsing peace process and the pandemic-ravaged economy, meant Colombia finally had an opening for its first progressive president; a break from the conservative elite such as Uribe and Duque, who came from, and represented the interests of, the wealthy landowning class.

A leftist coalition called the Historic Pact rallied behind Petro for the 2022 elections.

Eager to include Liberals as well, Petro reached out to economist and former government official Gaviria.

“It’s kind of funny because when you see him at a rally, he’s really energised, but in a one-on-one interaction, he is timid, he is quiet, he is difficult to engage in conversation,” Gaviria said, recalling Petro’s visit to his home as he tried to build a coalition.

“When he visited my apartment, I was trying to ask him questions, and he never said anything to me. He stayed silent for five minutes.”

The presidential hopeful eventually proposed that Gaviria, then the Liberals’ presidential candidate, ally with his progressive forces.

Ultimately, in the second round of the election, Gaviria threw his support behind Petro, who offered him a place in his new cabinet as education minister when he took office that August.

International stage

As president, Petro took his message to the world. At his first United Nations speech, he warned, “the jungle is burning” while global powers were fighting over drugs and resources. He highlighted what he saw as the hypocrisy of vilifying cocaine while protecting coal and oil.

“What is more poisonous for humanity, cocaine, coal or oil?” he asked. With Colombia’s cocaine industry having fuelled decades of civil war, Petro has called for cocaine legalisation, calling the so-called war on drugs a failure.

“Cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whisky,” he told a broadcast government meeting in February 2025.

In confronting the climate crisis, he has halted fracking and new gas projects to shift Colombia towards clean energy. In an economy reliant on fuel exports, however, this decision has been met with fierce scrutiny.

Petro has also sought to address the country’s armed conflict.

Influenced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who believed true forgiveness meant forgiving the unforgivable, Petro presented Congress with a plan to bring all remaining cartels, armed rebels and paramilitaries to the table, including by suspending arrest warrants and empowering local leaders as mediators.

The plan was called “Total Peace”.

‘A dream’

Petro’s peace initiative was put to the test in Buenaventura, a key Colombian port on the Pacific Coast. The port had long been a strategic hub for cocaine smugglers loading cargo onto ships bound worldwide.

Then, in 2019, a deadly turf war exploded. Residents were terrified to leave their homes. In desperation, local archbishop Ruben Dario Jaramillo performed a mass exorcism of the city by spraying the streets with holy water from a convoy of vehicles.

But in October 2022, the leaders of two rival gangs met and shook hands at a church service, thanks to a truce brokered by Jaramillo, building on the Total Peace initiative. The following six weeks saw only one killing, compared with the previous monthly death toll of 25.

The broader peace plan, however, has had flaws. Anticipating a deal, armed groups consolidated their positions to get the upper hand in negotiations while taking advantage of ceasefires to recruit and resupply.

As Quintero observed, the groups calling themselves “guerrillas” today are mostly criminal gangs using the label to legitimise their actions. “There are no guerrillas with the ideology to overthrow the state,” he said.

“[Instead], today there are gangs of very well-armed drug traffickers posing as guerrillas.”

The two most problematic ones are the Gulf Clan and the ELN. The Gulf Clan is a powerful narco-paramilitary crime syndicate demanding talks to negotiate their surrender while aggressively expanding its empire. The ELN continues to carry out attacks and kidnappings and is battling a renegade FARC faction in the dense jungles of Catatumbo, a fertile coca-growing region near Venezuela, displacing tens of thousands of people and prompting Petro to declare a temporary state of emergency last January.

Gaviria said that while reining in heavily armed drug dealers hiding in mountains and jungles would be challenging for any government, Petro has not really had a plan.

“He thought political will was enough to achieve Total Peace, which is completely wrong,” Gaviria said.

He compared Petro’s approach with Santos’s.

“Santos had a strategy, a group negotiating with the FARC. He met with that group every week, having conversations with his experts around the world … he was very disciplined in the way he was conducting this difficult topic.

“Petro was just completely different. No strategy at all,” Gaviria added. “Big announcements and political will. [Petro] thought that was enough, and now we know that no, it was not enough, especially if you’re dealing with such a complex problem.

“Total Peace was not a strategy. Total Peace was an idea, a dream.”

The chaotic nature of Petro’s cabinet has also complicated matters. The turnover rate is high, averaging a new minister every 19 days. Gaviria resigned in early 2023, along with three other ministers, during a fallout over health reforms. And 13 ministers lost or left their jobs in just three months between late 2024 and early 2025.

“I think this is a direct result of his style of policymaking,” said Gaviria, describing it as “undisciplined”.

Petro tends to replace ministers with loyalists and former members of the M-19, while publicly squabbling with former staff and accusing them of disloyalty. Some connect Petro’s perilous past to this governing style.

“Petro has a paranoid style of government that almost defines him,” said Gaviria.

“He is always thinking that there is a conspiracy against him. And probably this idea is related to being a former guerrilla member and living [in hiding].”

Correa agreed, noting that Petro does not trust many people.

The replacements he selects, too, are not necessarily the best-qualified.

For example, Sanchez-Garzoli believes the ELN peace process collapsed because Petro appointed “an ideologue and less of a real negotiator”.

“They basically blew apart a process that could have demobilised thousands,” she explained.

For Gaviria, Petro is these days more interested in ideological battles on social media than in leading the country. “I think he knows that he has not been an effective president,” he said. “Governing a country can be difficult, boring … [and to be successful] you have to engage in difficult conversations. You have to change your mind.”

Petro, he believes, has struggled to accept that “tragic destiny”.

Legacy

Petro’s advocacy on Palestine – and the severing of diplomatic ties with Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza – the climate crisis, drug reform and willingness to confront Trump have won him international praise. Trump, without any evidence, has accused Petro of running cocaine mills and called him a “sick man” on several occasions.

Back home, Petro points to having reduced poverty and infant mortality rates, increased agricultural production, and provided greater access to education, but his criticised peace strategy has failed to deliver broad demobilisation, and stark inequality persists. His approval rating has dropped from 56 percent when he took office to almost 36 percent.

Petro’s presidency has been overshadowed by scandals, including his eldest son Nicolas’s arrest for alleged money laundering linked to narco campaign funding. He calls such attacks targeting his inner circle “lawfare”, aimed at weakening him, something he experienced when he was briefly ousted as mayor of Bogota.

“The first thing they tried to destroy was my family,” he told Spanish daily El Pais last February. “They wanted to destroy the emotional ties because a man without emotional ties becomes hard, bad, and errs.”

He conceded that the presidency is a role that brings him “absolute unhappiness”.

As Petro faces the end of his presidency this year, his legacy may be that of a polarising figure, a revolutionary who tried to overthrow the system from within — yet was unable to solve Colombia’s toughest challenges.

Still, Petro’s supporters see his presidency as the start of a social transformation.

“Our country is a very conservative society; our values, our classism are very, very evident,” said Correa.

“I think that it will take two generations to reconstruct the society … And I think that this government represents only a beginning, a seed for the new generation.”