Colombian election reflects on ‘total peace’ promise as violence surges again

T he landmark 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the largest insurgent army in Latin America succeeded in some ways: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) agreed to lay down their weapons, and the violence that had racked the country was substantially reduced. But the deal alone could not end the decades-long armed conflict for good. Subsequent administrations slow-walked the implementation of the settlement, which was rejected by Farc dissidents and other rebel factions. When Gustavo Petro, a former member of another rebel faction, became president in 2022, he pledged to achieve “total peace” , signing deals with all of the country’s armed groups, including leftwing rebels and organised crime factions. Four years on and weeks before the country elects Petro’s successor, guerrilla attacks are surging and Colombians are experiencing a bitter sense of deja vu. Amid a rise in homicides , kidnappings and massacres , the decades-long internal armed conflict that claimed nearly half a million lives is once again central to the vote. People look around vehicles destroyed by an attack on the Pan-American Highway in Cajibio on Sunday. Photograph: Ernesto Guzman/EPA Twenty-one people were killed in a bombing on a major road at the weekend, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country’s history. The attack was carried out by one of the most powerful Farc dissident groups, the Central Command, known by its Spanish initials ECM. …