Colombia’s Fragile Peace Ruptures in Catatumbo

In the last week, at least 80 people have been killed and over 32,000 people displaced in one of the deadliest bouts of violence in Colombia in recent years. The fighting in Catatumbo, a northeastern region of Colombia, broke out between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and an ex-FARC dissident group – Front 33. The violence in Catatumbo, one of the most historically battered regions, poses a serious threat to President Gustavo Petro’s promise of total peace in the country.

In a heavily criticized move, Petro suspended the ongoing peace talks with the ELN on January 17, in light of the current fighting. The situation in Catatumbo also has regional implications as it lies on the border with Venezuela and, as it has happened throughout the over six decades of Colombia’s armed conflict, thousands of Colombians have sought refuge in the neighboring country.

The sensitive situation in Colombia represents a threat to the wellbeing and safety of the communities of Catatumbo, which for decades have suffered the impacts of the internal armed conflict, and threatens to completely upend a peace process that is decades in the making.

Given that the situation is actively unfolding and the guns are still hot, there are many elements that are difficult to verify or know with certainty. This is some of what we know so far.

Violence erupts after family’s murder

On January 15, a young man and owner of a funeral home, Miguel Ángel López, along with his wife Zulay Durán Pacheco and their six-month-old baby, were assassinated while they were driving from the border city of Cúcuta towards Tibú, a municipality further north.

The crime was widely denounced by the local organizations and the national government, with government authorities saying that they would conduct investigations to determine those responsible. However, narratives were already taking form in public discourse. Mainstream Colombian media, as well as some Colombian authorities were quick to place the blame on the ELN. On January 17, the group’s Northeast Front released a statement rejecting the accusations and clarifying “the ELN has no responsibility”, adding “We denounce to the people of the region that the action was perpetrated by the members of the so-called Front 33 of the extinct FARC, and at the same time we promise to find those responsible for the crime.”

While the perpetrator continues to be a disputed fact, what is certain is that this crime was the detonator of the violence amid rising tensions between the armed groups in the region.

The day after the killing of the family, armed confrontations commenced between the ELN and Front 33. The details of these armed confrontations and days of intensified violence remain disputed, but reports have emerged of the assassinations of civilians and demobilized fighters, along with threats and displacement orders to communities and members of social organizations. The abrupt explosion of violence and the dozens of deaths, have created a generalized climate of terror in the region, provoking tens of thousands to flee their homes in the more rural regions.

Most displaced people have headed towards the centers of the municipalities of Cúcuta, Ocaña, and Tibú, where local authorities and human rights organizations have organized temporary shelters, food, and necessary goods for the families. At least a thousand displaced people have crossed into Venezuela to the border municipality Jesús María Semprún. The government of Nicolás Maduro has instructed local authorities in border regions to receive displaced people and provide a safe refuge for them.

How has the Colombian government responded?

One of the first measures taken by the Colombian government in response to the outburst of fighting in Catatumbo, was the suspension of peace talks with the ELN. This move was announced by Gustavo Petro on his X account on January 17, with him accusing the group of war crimes, saying that “The ELN does not have any will for peace.”

The National Government has since provided material and logistical support to humanitarian efforts in the municipalities receiving displaced persons.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Defense Iván Velásquez announced that the state would be carrying out a series of military operations in response to the armed clashes, including the evacuation of people who have allegedly been threatened by the ELN, as well as the deployment of 400 military personnel to help “strengthen territorial control and guarantee the security of the affected communities.”

In recent days, Petro has intensified his attacks against the ELN, leaving some to accuse him and other government officials of adopting rhetoric that Petro himself, a former guerrilla fighter, would have found abhorrent. Furthermore, many have accused him of selectively targeting ELN, which has maintained that its operations are against paramilitary groups which Petro has failed to disarm and dismantle.

On January 23, Petro wrote on X, “They seek control in order to become an international bargaining chip and to enrich themselves with cocaine. For national sovereignty, the ELN must be defeated and all forces that have the same objectives. The Colombian military takeover in Catatumbo and Arauca and the Venezuelan military on the border, must be accompanied by the fundamental: the triumph is not only in the rifle, it is in true social justice, in opening the opportunities of progress in the excluded regions of the country.”

The people of Catatumbo demand peace

“We insist on the need to guarantee life, International Humanitarian Law, and peace in Catatumbo,” wrote a group of 100 social movements, peasant organizations, human rights associations, and other civil society groups from Catatumbo, including the Peasant Association of Catatumbo (ASCAMCAT) and the ​​Committee for Social Integration in Catatumbo (CISCA), in a public statement released on January 19 addressed to the ELN and Front 33.

“The civilian population should not be in the midst of hostilities and we ask for protection and respect for those of us who are not part of the armed conflict,” the statement reads.

Pronunciamiento de Las organizaciones sociales del Catatumbo Ascamcat , Cisca , MCP y Asuncat respaldada por más del 120 organizaciones con acompañamiento de Defensoría del Pueblo de Colombia del país dirigimos carta pública al @delegado y EMB 33 frente Farc del catatumbo al… pic.twitter.com/ISDqWMZO8k

— AscamcatOficial (@AscamcatOficia) January 19, 2025

“We, the civil society organizations of Catatumbo, openly ask you to make a clear statement on the following: Do the necessary guarantees and conditions exist or not for the exercise of social and humanitarian work of the leaders and grassroots organizations in the Catatumbo sub-region?”

Many of those groups took to the streets on January 20 in the town of La Gabarra of the Tibú municipality in a march for peace.

#SOSCatatumbo Cientos de personas salen a manifestarse a las calles en el corregimiento La Gabarra, municipio de Tibú, Norte de Santander. Las exigencias de las personas es que cesen las balas, la violencia y hacen un llamado a la Paz. pic.twitter.com/jG9BiiMYZB

— Colombia Informa (@Col_Informa) January 20, 2025

Understanding Catatumbo: a region in conflict

Catatumbo is a region situated in the northeastern part of the North Santander department of Colombia and encompasses the municipalities of Ocaña, El Carmen, Convención, Teorama, San Calixto, Hacarí, La Playa, El Tarra, Tibú, and Sardinata which all neighbor the great Catatumbo River. The Catatumbo region is home to the Indigenous Barí people and two of their reservations. The river, and thus the Catatumbo region itself, overflows into neighboring Venezuela.

Young peasants on horseback in Catatumbo. Photo: CISCA

The region is characterized by its rich biodiversity, deposits of coal and oil, lush green forests, mountains, and fertile soil.

For the past several decades, due to the lucrative nature of coca, the crisis of small-scale agricultural production provoked by free trade policies, and the pressure of drug trafficking groups, the fertile soil has been utilized by its large population of small farmers to plant coca. Catatumbo has for years been home to the highest concentration of coca crops in Colombia which today leads production globally. According to a 2023 report by the United Nations, the Tibú municipality has the highest concentration of coca crops in the world at 22,000 hectares.

A land in dispute

Like many regions in Colombia “blessed” with resources, Catatumbo has been plagued with violence. As the Center of Historic Memory of Colombia put it, “Catatumbo is a territory in dispute. Its inhabitants narrate how different actors have sought economic, armed, and political control, in conflicts that began in the beginning of the 20th century.”

The region has also been historically abandoned by the state, in spite of its natural wealth, disconnected from the main transport routes and outside the economic and geographical center of the country. In light of the state abandonment, diverse community movements and social organizations have been forged over decades to demand rights and resources.

The state neglect of the people and the land also made it a prime location for leftist guerrilla groups to gain territorial control. The early presence of such groups created a stigmatized image of the region as one “dominated by guerrillas” in the national consciousness, which was manifested in a brutal “dirty war” and paramilitary siege.

Since the 1990s, the region has been subjected to different waves of paramilitary violence and state militarization, in the name of fighting a counter-insurgent war. For example, in 1999, a caravan of hundreds of paramilitaries arrived in the region, with the go-ahead from the National Army, and proceeded to occupy the area and carry out a series of terror-inducing massacres. One such massacre took place in the La Gabarra township in August 1999, where paramilitaries cut the electricity and then assassinated 21 people in recreation centers. In this period, 100,000 people were displaced.

Colombia Informa reflected that, “This strategy was carried out in order to impose economic projects: the installation of monocrops and the coal exploitation were the principal objectives. They sought to eliminate the social and people’s organizations, thus destroying the community life plans.”

Members of CISCA blockaded one of the major highways in Colombia during the 2021 uprising against neoliberalism and the government of Iván Duque. Their shields say “food”. Photo: CISCA

Catatumbo was also where several “false positive” massacres staged by the National Army took place. Such is the case of the boys from Soacha, Bogotá who were kidnapped by army officials on the pretense of a job opportunity. They were then transported to Ocaña, where they were murdered and dressed in guerrilla clothing to be falsely counted as slain combatants.

Reemergence of armed groups and escalating violence in Catatumbo

Although the paramilitary groups active in the 1990s and 2000s formally demobilized, new groups, with a greater focus on the drug trade, quickly reappeared, often recruiting people from other demobilized groups. Among these is the Gaitanistas (Gulf Clan), which has presence nationally, and has been engaged in combat with the ELN in various regions of the country, including Catatumbo, in an attempt to control the region and impose a new reign of terror. The Gaitanistas is one of the key groups accused of perpetrating the wave of assassinations of social leaders and human rights defenders, over 1,700 to date, which took place following the signing of the peace agreements in 2016.

Similarly, following the FARC’s demobilization through the Havana peace process, several “dissident groups” emerged, formed by members that were disillusioned with the peace agreements. Several of them organized themselves in the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), and its Front 33 has now also been vying for control over Catatumbo.

The growing conflict between the groups has once again put the people of Catatumbo in the crosshairs of armed confrontation.

“The most affected have been the peasant communities, who face difficulties in carrying out their agricultural activities and their organizational and community work,” Juan Carlos Quintero, of ASCAMCAT said in 2021 to Colombia Informa, amid the incursion of the Gaitanistas in communities of Catatumbo. “The paramilitary structures have not been dismantled, and actually there has been an expansion at this moment. But also, the institutions capable of taking measures to mitigate a human rights situation have had a position of negationism regarding the crisis suffered in Catatumbo and in the rural and metropolitan area of Cúcuta,” he added.

The unresolved threat of paramilitarism

Dismantling paramilitarism has remained one of the key demands of communities across Colombia and has been one of the key challenges of Petro’s administration, which took office in August 2022. With a promise of achieving total peace, Petro restarted the peace talks with the ELN and approached the Gaitanistas and FARC dissidents to begin processes of peace and demobilization.

Yet, talks with the Gaitanistas have not progressed and, according to Insight Crime, the Gaitanistas have used the peace efforts to their own strategic advantage, having “expanded its territorial control into areas where other groups such as the ELN and EMC are present. These groups’ active dialogues with the government have limited their ability to carry out armed offensives, occasionally giving the AGC [Gaitanistas] an edge.”

On November 21, 2024, ASCAMCAT released a statement denouncing that the Gaitanistas had issued death threats and forced displacement orders to human rights defenders and social organizations. In it, they condemned the persistent paramilitary presence which the Colombian state has yet to curb. “This massive threat is not an isolated incident, but part of a strategy of intimidation in the midst of an escalation of paramilitarism in the north of the country and reflects the systematic way with which these armed groups seek to annul any effort for peace, human rights and social justice.”

The statement added, “We publicly denounce the inaction of the Colombian State, the lack of political will, negligence and complicity of the authorities. For years we have raised our voice demanding guarantees and protection, but the State has failed.”

The territorial pact: a hope for change?

Civil society organizations such as ASCAMCAT and CISCA, have also reiterated their longstanding demand for the National Government to implement the “Territorial Pact,” a development plan crafted with the marginalized communities of the region. The pact aims to address the impact of decades of armed conflict in the region, natural resource exploitation, and underdevelopment.

“Today, more than ever, it is crucial to advance in the concretion and signing of the Territorial Pact for the Transformation of Catatumbo. We call on the president of the Republic and the national government so that they urgently sign this instrument which is fundamental to promote investments that promote peace, development, wellbeing in the region, responding to the historic demands of the peasantry and the Bari people,” affirmed Catatumbo-based peasant organizations, human rights associations, and others.

Mobilization in Ocaña during the national uprising against neoliberalism and the policies of far-right Iván Duque. Photo: CISCA

On January 20, the regional platform of social movements, Alba Movimientos, wrote a statement calling for peace in Catatumbo, “We urge the national government to comply with the agreements made with the communities, such as the Territorial Pact for the Transformation of Catatumbo, as well as the fulfillment and full implementation of the 2016 Peace Accords. Likewise, we call on the government to urgently consolidate actions that guarantee the dismantling of paramilitarism, and to continue on the path of a political solution to the conflict that continues to be ongoing in various territories nationwide, avoiding warlike solutions that increase the scale of violence and militarization of the region.”

The critical situation continues in Catatumbo, but as communities have insisted, peace and dialogue are the only way forward.

An older peasant participates in a protest in Catatumbo. Photo: CISCA