Ship’s Log: Peace Proves Elusive in Petro’s Colombia

Latest setbacks with two rebel groups illustrate a president who can’t seem to get out of his own way

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Bogotá, Colombia—On Monday, the Colombian government ordered offensive operations against FARC dissident group “Estado Mayor” (EM-FARC), finally putting the idea that there may have been a ceasefire to rest once and for all. The immediate cause cited by the government was an investigation that determined the group was responsible for the murder of four indigenous minors near a reservation in Amazonia on March 26.

The resumption of military actions is merely the latest setback for leftist president Gustavo Petro’s roadmap to peace— which so far has been more of a roadmap to confusion.

The murders by the EM-FARC are merely the latest in a series of violent criminal actions against civil society since January when the group expressed interest in a bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government—such as a rise in the forced recruitment of minors across the country, and the wave of violence this month in Cartagena del Chairá in Caquetá when a failed extortion attempt against telecommunications company Claro resulted in the armed group destroying cell phone towers and threatening to attack the mayor’s office, whose staff fled the town.