Our Inside Latin America newsletter is this week’s headline with in-depth coverage into Colombia’s ongoing rebel landscape, the rise of President Abelardo de la Espriella, and how his new government in Bogotá could transform the fight against the nation’s armed groups.
The End of “Total Peace”: Inside Colombia’s Fracturing Guerrilla Landscape as De La Espriella Takes Power
BOGOTÁ — As Abelardo de la Espriella took office August 7 vowing “no peace processes,” his government transferred 117 high-profile inmates — including cartel leaders and figures tied to Petro’s failed “Total Peace” negotiations — to maximum-security prisons on inauguration day, while Washington simultaneously announced a $1 billion security package matching the highest U.S. aid Colombia has received since Plan Colombia in 2000.
The moves land on a guerrilla landscape that grew stronger, not weaker, through four years of dialogue: armed groups now number over 27,000 combatants and support personnel, up 23.5% in a single year, with 25 military bombing raids failing to capture a single top commander and at least 52 social leaders killed in 2026 alone — leaving the open question of whether de la Espriella’s pivot to confrontation succeeds where negotiations didn’t.
