There are preconceived ideas that are more difficult to deconstruct than others. That of a violent Colombia, with fire and blood, is one of them. I see it every time in the eyes of people who ask me where to go on vacation when I tell them, without hesitation, to go and explore the country of the famous Colombian writer Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez.
Far from me the idea of wanting to have selective amnesia in relation to the dark years of conflicts between guerrillas, drug traffickers, paramilitaries and the State. But Colombia, like many countries that we often only see through the prism of international news, has much more to offer than the image presented in the series Narcos. From the beaches of Cartagena to the green corridors of Medellín via the lush valleys and mountains of the Colombian countryside, there is a contagious joie de vivre that, yes, is built on the experience of the past. But which also exists because the population is trying by all means to look towards the future.
As in A hundred years of solitudeby Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, Colombia is however not immune to repetitive cycles, which bring each generation its share of violence and disillusionment. The current presidential campaign and the upcoming face-off in the second round on June 21 between the left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda, central actor in the 2016 peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and theoutsider far-right Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer close to paramilitary groups, is a good example.
Although the cost of living, inequalities and challenges in the health system, for example, remain issues that greatly worry the population, presidential candidates have spent the current campaign talking mainly about insecurity. The collapse of the traditional right in the first round last Sunday therefore places Colombia before a major dilemma: the continuation of the “total peace” of left-wing President Gustavo Petro by his successor Iván Cepeda, or the “total war” of Abelardo de la Espriella against the numerous armed groups still active in the country, both guerrillas ideological than drug traffickers.
During this first round, nearly 41% of voters chose to vote for Cepeda so that he could continue negotiations with the various armed groups, and at the same time supported a more inclusive and socio-economically equitable program. But just as many Colombians, around 44%, want a hard line against armed groups and minimal financial intervention from the state, and they have made this known by supporting Abelardo de la Espriella. In both cases, they essentially want politicians to walk the talk.
According to Yann Basset, professor of political science at the Rosary University in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, insecurity remains the main battlehorse of the rights in Colombia. “It is also the clearest failure of the Petro government. His policy of total peace, which consisted of trying to negotiate with all armed groups at once – with the idea that demobilizing a single group was pointless because the others would take its place – was still a very risky bet. It’s very complicated to negotiate with all these groups at once, and it didn’t work.”
Worse, groups took the opportunity to strengthen their control over the territory, and certain regions of the country were grappling with new waves of violence. A right-wing presidential candidate, Miguel Uribe, was even assassinated in 2025, and violence in 2026 reached unequaled heights since the 2016 peace accords, even if it remains below what Colombia experienced in its darkest years. According to data from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, the rate of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is today 26, whereas it was already more than 80 at the beginning of the 1990s. Moreover, most of this violence is linked to wars between armed groups for control of territories for illicit production (coca, mines, forestry).
All of this still fueled Espriella’s campaign, especially since he is riding the wave of right-wing and far-right governments emerging in Latin America, comparing himself, on the security level, to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and, on the economic level, to Javier Milei in Argentina. Espriella therefore proposes to carry out, if he is elected, a “90-day” shock operation against the armed groups.
“This comes in particular from this idea [tenace] that the peace agreements with the FARC 10 years ago were only obtained from the moment when the FARC were sufficiently weakened so that they could be forced to negotiate seriously,” explains Yann Besset. As if confrontation was a necessary evil to achieve eventual peace and it was not inertia, after decades of conflict, that had forced everyone to sit at the negotiating table.
The fear linked to a large-scale return to insecurity, which fuels the idea among some that democracy and security are incompatible, is, on the other hand, a false dilemma in the eyes of Marie-Christine Doran, professor specializing in Latin America at the University of Ottawa and director of the Violence, Criminalization and Democracy Observatory. “Even in El Salvador, there were negotiations with the cartels,” she says. In Ecuador and Honduras, the Bukele model (with the permanent state of exception, impunity for police officers and the army in the fight against cartels) was ultimately a winning recipe for increasing violence.
The problem, as Marie-Christine Doran recalls, is, in part, that the peace agreements were never really implemented, particularly with regard to the protection of ex-combatants and the establishment of an agrarian reform to help farmers stop their production of coca (the only product with a relatively fixed selling price). dissidence within the FARC and other armed groups and encouraged them to take up arms again, and blocked peasants from their illicit production, for lack of an alternative solution.
“Petro made mistakes. He did not have the necessary resources to implement his plan and he had too much ambition, probably too quickly, for total peace, which was quite dangerous. But all these blockages have paved the way for what is happening with the rise of the extreme right at the moment,” analyzes Marie-Christine Doran.
Furthermore, peace agreements, such as the total peace project, have often been sabotaged. Few politicians before Petro wanted to ensure their full implementation, particularly in places where investment should have been made, where the state is absent.
All of this ultimately proves Gabriel García Márquez right. Although this is not unique to Colombia, memory is a faculty that forgets. It remains to be seen whether the country will choose to break with the total cycle of violence. Because, in the real world, the magic animating the author’s novels cannot come to your rescue to resolve the problems.
