Colombia’s new hardliner president vows to cut prior admin’s peace efforts

The presidency of Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer and businessman with little experience in politics, comes after four years of a progressive government that sat down to negotiate with armed groups.(CN) — Abelardo de la Espriella, a pro-Trump political outsider who rallied on TikTok and ran a strident presidential campaign, was sworn in Friday as president of Colombia, one of South America’s largest nations.His mandate comes after four years of Gustavo Petro’s government, the first leftist administration in over 200 years of Colombian history.Petro, a former guerrilla member, arrived in office four years ago promising to negotiate with the armed groups across the nation, deepening the 2016 peace accords that led to the disarmament of FARC, by then one of Latin America’s biggest armed organizations.However, his plans were weakened by transformations in the groups and their dynamics, making the dialogues futile in many of the territories that were — and still are — mostly affected by the country’s seemingly chronic violence.De la Espriella, 48, seized the discontent around the failure of the peace promises by pledging to restore security-focused policies and to overturn the dialogues, along with dismantling the policies surrounding them.Instead, De la Espriella vowed during the campaign to wage an aggressive, full-scale offensive against armed groups across the country — an effort that secured him a runoff election win with a little over 250,000 votes against leftist Iván Cepeda.“Any criminal who does not submit to my government will be dissolved, as permitted by law," he said during a June rally in Antioquia, underscoring his pledge.He proposed ending negotiations with organizations that continue criminal activities, reactivating arrest warrants for members of illegal armed groups, strengthening the operational and intelligence capabilities of the security forces and intensifying efforts against drug trafficking and illegal mining, which he argues finance insurgent and criminal organizations.Shortly after he was sworn in, as the country awaited his inauguration speech on Friday night, local media reported that high-profile criminals related to armed groups had been transferred from Medellín prisons, not providing more details but signaling his commitment to shifting security policies from the start.The Petro government, which initiated dialogues with over a dozen armed and criminal groups, showed poor results. A recent report from the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a Colombian organization, estimates the Petro administration ended with nearly 30,000 illegal armed forces members.But Laura Bonilla, head of Pares, a conflict and peace think-tank, said that, despite the failures, “ending the negotiation tables could lead to the reactivation of conflicts that are not currently active.”Colombia is already facing a difficult security situation, Bonilla said, but it could become “much worse.”De la Espriella’s hardline promises have raised concern among other human rights and conflict watchdog organizations that have tracked how security approaches to the issue have, in the past, triggered more violence and human rights violations against unarmed citizens.Crisis Group, an international organization that has worked in Colombia for over two decades, said in a new report that “Colombia urgently needs a more effective military strategy, but the new administration should take care not to repeat the serious mistakes and human rights violations made under past military offensives."“Early abuses or missteps could erode public confidence in the armed forces, sapping the Colombian state’s support when it will be dependent on popular backing to loosen the grip of armed outfits," the group addedThe warning reflects the legacy of former President Álvaro Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, which significantly weakened guerrilla groups through an expanded military campaign but was also marred by widespread human rights abuses. The most notorious scandal involved the so-called “false positives,” in which members of the armed forces killed thousands of civilians to inflate battlefield success.De la Espriella’s arrival in office comes at a time when U.S. foreign policy has shifted unexpectedly towards Latin America, with the Trump administration making it a key region of interest for his politics.In fact, De la Espriella, who has close personal ties to the United States — and is a U.S. citizen himself — has designated Medellín as the headquarters of President Donald Trump’s new regional anti-trafficking alliance, the Shield of the Americas, while some of his defense officials have held meetings with members of the U.S. Department of War to agree on cooperation in security areas.De la Espriella is expected to become a close ally of Trump following the strained relationship between Trump and Petro. Tensions between the two leaders culminated in U.S. sanctions against Petro and the decertification of Colombia as a U.S. counternarcotics partner.“The bilateral relationship is expected to regain momentum,” said Victor Aguilar Pereira from Crisis Group. “The two leaders share a clear alignment on security issues. All indications suggest that two major shifts will emerge early on: militarization will once again take center stage, while peace negotiations and more territorially focused approaches to security will lose priority.”International allies took part in his inauguration, from Javier Milei in Argentina to Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.Lucía Cholakian Herrera is a Courthouse News correspondent covering Latin America. She is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads