When Gustavo Petro swept into office in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing president, he carried with him a bold promise: to end the country’s long-running armed conflict through dialogue. He called it ‘Total Peace’, a plan that aimed to negotiate with every armed group at once — from Marxist rebels to drug cartels. But as Colombia heads toward a presidential election on May 31, that vision lies in tatters. Violence has surged, armed groups have grown stronger, and only one major candidate still supports the policy. So was Total Peace Colombia a naive failure, or simply unfinished business?
A crisis years in the making: Total Peace Colombia’s uphill battle
To understand why ‘Total Peace’ stumbled, you have to look beyond Petro himself. The 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was supposed to end the conflict. Instead, it splintered the insurgency into a dozen smaller, more ruthless factions. When Petro took office, he wasn’t facing a single enemy — he was facing a patchwork of groups competing over cocaine routes, illegal mines, and territory. These new groups are less ideological and more criminal, making them harder to bargain with. As one former FARC member turned government negotiator put it, “From one day to the next, there wasn’t one FARC any more, but three or four FARCs.”
Good intentions, flawed execution
Petro’s strategy was ambitious: open simultaneous talks with all major groups, secure quick ceasefires, and then build peace from the ground up. But critics say the government tried to run before it could walk. Ceasefires were signed hastily, without detailed frameworks or enforcement mechanisms. Military commanders were left confused about whether to fight or talk. Meanwhile, armed groups used the breathing room to reorganize, recruit, and expand their control over rural regions like Caquetá, where residents now live under de facto lockdown by rebel groups. The failure of Total Peace Colombia highlights the difficulty of negotiating with fragmented criminal networks.
Human toll: communities caught in the crossfire
For ordinary Colombians, the failure of ‘Total Peace’ is not a political abstraction — it’s a daily reality. In Cartagena del Chairá, a town on the edge of the Amazon, armed groups have imposed road and river blockades that trap entire communities. “People are scared. We are in a very difficult situation. We can’t move for food, supplies or anything. Many children can’t even go to school,” one resident told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. That is the human face of a peace plan that never materialized.
What the numbers reveal
Statistics paint a grim picture. According to the Fundación Ideas Para la Paz (FIP), a Colombian think tank, the number of active fighters in the conflict more than doubled under Petro — from roughly 13,000 in 2022 to about 27,000 by the end of 2025. Violent disputes between armed groups also hit their highest level in a decade last year, a 34 percent increase over 2024. “Total Peace is in the red,” said Javier Florez, director of conflict and security at FIP. “It leaves the country with armed groups that are stronger, with greater territorial expansion and technological sophistication.” These numbers underscore why Total Peace Colombia remains controversial.
A divided political future
The election has turned ‘Total Peace’ into a political lightning rod. With only one front-runner still backing the policy, the next president is likely to abandon it entirely. That could mean a return to a purely military approach — something that has also failed repeatedly in Colombia’s history. Yet even the harshest critics acknowledge that Petro was dealt a difficult hand. Fragmentation, criminalization of rebel groups, and a legacy of mistrust made any peace deal a long shot. The real question isn’t whether ‘Total Peace’ failed, but whether Colombia can afford to stop trying. For more on how peace processes can unravel, see Gaza Ceasefire Crumbles as Israel Expands Territorial Control.
Original insight: What is often missing from the debate is the role of international dynamics. The global cocaine market remains insatiable, and armed groups in Colombia are increasingly tied to transnational criminal networks that operate beyond the reach of any single government. ‘Total Peace’ may have been doomed from the start not because of poor negotiation tactics, but because the underlying economic drivers of the conflict — drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion — are global problems that no Colombian president can solve alone. Until the international community treats Colombia’s violence as a shared crisis, ‘Total Peace’ — or its successor — will remain a dream. For a broader perspective on conflict resolution, read International Crisis Group’s analysis of Colombia.
