Colombia, which signed a historic peace agreement with the Farc in 2016, is, however, going through an unprecedented wave of violence in certain regions. Former guerrillas but also ex-soldiers and members of organized crime have formed groups that clash violently over questions of territory and control of drug trafficking. The “New York Times” followed some of them.
In a city in the hands of the rebels, in the jungle, Joel trains alongside his comrades in the fight, all in onions, in rangers and fatigues, the rifle at the side.
“Right, right!” yells the instructor.
Joel, 36, is experienced in exercise. He spent six years in the army, on the front line, putting down the violent insurgency that terrorized Colombia for several decades.
But today, he has a new employer: an underground armed group made up in part of the same insurgents he fought during his career in the army.
“I know it’s not normal”, he confesses, rifle on his knees. But after leaving the army, he justifies himself, he struggled to make ends meet. He came across a job offer with a salary equivalent to 475 euros per month, almost twice the minimum monthly salary in Colombia.
Today, his children are living better, he says: “I manage to feed them.”
The Colombian peace accord, signed in 2016 by the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Farc, was meant to usher in a new era of peace in a country that had endured war for more than half a century.
The agreement in question provided for the rebels to lay down their arms, while the state would flood the regions concerned with jobs in order to reduce the poverty and inequalities that were at the root of the conflict.
Executions and forced displacements
Thousands of Farc fighters have laid down their arms. Only here, in a good part of the territory, the State has never made itself known, and entire regions of deep Colombia have seen the return of executions, forced displacements and violence, to the point that the situation is sometimes as serious, if not worse, than before the signing of the agreement.
According to the United Nations, the killings and executions of human rights defenders have multiplied since 2016. And population displacement remains common: last year alone, 147,000 people were forced to flee their homes, according to official figures.
This should not be seen as a return of the Farc who would have taken up arms again. But the vacuum left on the ground by the rebellion, combined with the government’s inability to deliver on its promises of reform, has created a melting pot of crime, with new groups forming and existing groups mutating into an underground economy. booming.
If many Colombians call these new groups “Dissidents”, in reference to FARC fighters who reject the peace accord, their composition is more complex than that. In some of these groups, former enemies – rebels, soldiers or paramilitaries [d’extrême droite] – as well as new recruits and members of organized crime now making common cause against the promise of a salary.
“We fight comrade against comrade, brother against brother”
These fighters are now battling their former allies to take control of a reinvigorated drug market, and this renewed clash is more reminiscent of inter-gang violence than the insurgency movement that has raged for so many years.
“We fight comrade against comrade, brother against brother”, recognizes Benjamín Perdomo, one of the founders of the Comandos de la Frontera, the militia that Joel joined six months ago. According to the authorities, about thirty armed groups of this type have flourished in Colombia since 2016.
We spent a week in the company of the Comandos, traveling by boat on the fluvial maze of the Amazon rainforest. We visited towns that had fallen into their hands, saw them move weapons and buy drugs, and bivouacked in a camp where the guerrillas trained, among other things, in the handling of grenades, a few hundred meters from Putumayo, an artery major river, without ever seeing a policeman or soldier.
The Comandos are today battling the Frente Carolina Ramírez, another group led by former guerrilla leaders, for control of Putumayo and Caquetá, two departments in the Colombian Amazon – not far from the border with Colombia. Ecuador and Peru – which play a leading role in drug trafficking.
Together, these disputed territories represent approximately 10% of Colombian territory.
Civilians increasingly find themselves trapped between these groups