An Unholy Alliance Prepares for War against Colombia’s Guerrillas
Colombian President Gustavo Petro seems to be nervous. As his February 3 meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office approaches—with a president who has accused him of being a narco and recently orchestrated the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro on similar charges—Petro’s rhetoric has intensified around two themes: national sovereignty and his interpretation of the war on drugs. Maduro’s capture represents an unprecedented act of US intervention in the region, creating immediate pressure on Petro’s administration to balance regional solidarity with its relationship with Washington ahead of the official meeting.
In recent speeches, Petro emphasizes Colombia’s sovereignty while simultaneously highlighting a shared battle against “mafias”—a category that, for both him and his northern counterpart, includes the ELN (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional – National Liberation Army), one of Colombia’s last remaining Marxist guerrilla groups, as a common target.
Maduro’s capture’s impact rippled through Colombia’s armed groups almost immediately. Just nine days later, on January 12, the ELN issued a statement calling for “national unity,” while Iván Mordisco, commander of a dissident FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) faction, proposed an alliance among guerrilla groups. The timing is striking, as groups that have spent years in violent confrontation are suddenly proposing coordination precisely when US intervention has shifted from a rhetorical threat to concrete action.
To understand this moment, we must examine three interconnected developments: First, how Petro’s negotiations with armed groups, called “Total Peace” policy, transformed into fragmentation and warfare; second, what the armed groups actually mean by “unity” in their recent statements; and third, what scenarios may unfold as these dynamics collide amid US military maneuvers in the region.
From Total Peace to Total War
The shift in Petro’s peace politics began with the replacement of the High Commissioner for Peace Danilo Rueda by Otty Patiño in November 2023. Petro, who before taking office in August 2022 had boasted he would make peace with the ELN in three months, changed course with this personnel decision, swapping a recognized human rights defender for an old comrade from his time in the nationalist guerrilla group M-19. The change marked a fundamental transformation in strategy from comprehensive dialogue to selective negotiation backed by military pressure. Since then, nearly every guerrilla group sitting down at the table with the government has experienced internal divisions.
The first to divide were the ELN, the largest expression of Marxist guerrillas in Colombia today, with about 6,500 members in arms and a group that has negotiated with nearly every government over the last 40 years. Even though they always had a more federal structure compared to the hierarchical FARC, they managed to maintain organizational coherence throughout the years. But this time, things went differently. In early 2023, the ELN Central Command opened an internal probe into the “Comuneros del Sur” unit on the Ecuadorian border. Its commander, Gabriel Yepes “HH,” then broke with the ELN leadership and began separate talks with Colombia’s Peace Commissioner. The ELN leadership claimed “HH” and other commanders were undercover agents who staged a regional peace process and demobilization. This process is one of the few that could yield results during the Petro administration, but it comes at a high cost: According to regional sources, a new paramilitary group called “Autodefensas Unidas del Nariño” is emerging in the region.
The next split occurred within the EMC (Estado Mayor Central – Central General Staff), the largest faction of former FARC combatants who rejected the 2016 Havana Peace Agreement with the Colombian government. Currently led by Iván Mordisco, the group commands approximately 2,300 armed fighters. When the old FARC-EP demobilized, several mid-level commanders refused to abandon armed struggle. They continued expanding their ranks amid the peace process’s increasingly evident failures. The EMC’s major internal fracture emerged in late 2023 with the now emerging EMBF (Estado Mayor de Bloques y Frente – General Staff of Blocks and Front), led by alias Calarcá Córdoba. The rupture solidified by 2024 mainly because Calarcá reportedly rejected Mordisco’s attempts at centralized control. While Mordisco’s faction hardened its position against the government, including military operations during a ceasefire, which led to the end of his negotiations with the state, Calarcá’s group maintained discreet contacts to pursue independent negotiations. As of today, they remain at the negotiating table. According to latest estimates, Calarcá commands approximately 1,400 fighters. Meanwhile, Mordisco has recently faced accusations from Indigenous organizations of committing a genocide against the Nasa people in the Cauca region, further complicating the EMC’s already fractured landscape.
The last major split involved a new guerrilla group, the “Segunda Marquetalia,” a rearmed faction founded by former high-level FARC commanders. It is led by Iván Márquez, the chief negotiator at the Havana peace talks, who returned to arms following the arrest of his comrade Jesús Santrich. Due to the high profile of these rearmed guerrilla leaders, they soon faced military operations that significantly weakened their operational capacity. Segunda Marquetalia accused the rival EMC faction of collaborating with Colombian military and intelligence, as well as the employment of “foreign mercenaries” by the military in operations to kill commanders like Santrich. Notably, all these attacks occurred on Venezuelan territory, where the leadership had relocated to reorganize. Due to the new situation of their struggle, Segunda Marquetalia formed an alliance with other structures of former FARC militants who had established groups controlling illegal economies and wielding significant military power. These included the Comandos de la Frontera (Border Commands) and the Coordinadora Guerrillera del Pacífico (Pacific Guerrilla Coordination), operating in different parts of southeastern Colombia. Together, they commanded approximately 1,500 fighters. Segunda Marquetalia established formal dialogue with the government in June 2024, representing a significant advance for the Total Peace policy by bringing the most politically prominent dissident faction into negotiations alongside the ELN and EMC. However, by year’s end, the group experienced its own internal crisis when Iván Márquez publicly disavowed the negotiations in a letter. This rupture led the Border Commands and the Pacific Guerrilla Coordination to break away and form a separate group called CNEB (Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano – National Coordinator Bolivarian Army).
These fractures reflect a broader transformation in Colombia’s armed conflict, which has partly shifted from ideological insurgency toward economic interests and regional control. The Petro government has emphasized this strongly, warning, for example, the ELN not to follow “the way of Pablo Escobar” while simultaneously adopting a divide-and-conquer approach—negotiating with some factions and offering benefits while attacking others. Ironically, the Petro administration is implementing its own version of Escobar’s “plata o plomo” (silver or lead) approach. Evidence of this strategy includes the November 2025 bombing of Mordisco’s camps, which resulted in the deaths of underage combatants and marked a clear escalation against non-negotiating factions. In contrast, the Calarcá faction reportedly utilized Colombian state security agencies for safe movement in July 2024 and maintains direct contact with intelligence operatives. Most disturbing are reports of cooperation between different armed groups and the Colombian military in combat operations, with shifting alliances that include Border Commands fighting against Calarcá, Mordisco’s forces confronting Calarcá, and Calarcá engaging the ELN in different regions. These fluid combinations suggest a deliberate strategy of manipulating inter-group rivalries to weaken armed organizations while advancing selective negotiations. The result is a fragmented landscape where former comrades-in-arms now fight each other, sometimes with tacit or explicit state support, blurring the traditional distinctions between counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare in Colombia’s protracted conflict.
Unity Proposals
In early January 2026, all three major armed factions released political statements in direct response to the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the expected effects on the Colombian conflict. Despite their internal divisions and mutual antagonisms, these proposals reveal a common thread: Each group frames its struggle within broader regional and geopolitical contexts, articulating visions that extend beyond Colombia’s borders.
The ELN’s National Agreement
The ELN’s January 12 statement contextualizes Colombia’s situation within global geopolitical tensions, particularly emphasizing increased US interventionism in Latin America and threats against Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Colombia. With Colombia facing parliamentary and presidential elections in the first half of 2026, the ELN proposes using the electoral campaign to debate a National Agreement with these objectives: establishing genuine national and popular sovereignty, eradicating poverty and political persecution, combating corruption and paramilitarism, redesigning economic policy to meet community needs, protecting ecosystems and transitioning to clean energy, and addressing drug trafficking through community participation. The proposal represents an attempt to reframe armed struggle within broader political mobilization and connects with Petro’s proposals. This can be understood as recognition that military confrontation alone cannot achieve their objectives.
Mordisco’s Great Insurgent Bloc
In a video statement released on January 8, Mordisco calls for forming a “great insurgent bloc” to resist military interventions, economic pressure, and imperialist aggression throughout the region. Notably, he addresses all armed groups—including the nearly disappeared Maoist EPL (Ejército Popular de Liberación – Popular Liberation Army)—while conspicuously omitting any mention of Calarcá. Despite historical divisions among these organizations, the statement emphasizes shared revolutionary ideals rooted in Bolívar’s vision of a unified “Patria Grande.” This represents a dramatic shift from recent violent confrontations between these same groups, suggesting that external threats have created a new common ground.
Segunda Marquetalia’s Bolivarian Federation
Through two statements released during these days, Segunda Marquetalia advocates for a “Bolivarian Federation of Sister Republics” based on Simón Bolívar’s 1826 Panama Congress vision, including a supranational government with permanent institutions, joint military capacity to defend regional sovereignty, trade agreements among member states, Hispanic-American citizenship to strengthen regional solidarity, and diplomatic coordination across Latin America. While ambitious to the point of utopian, this vision articulates what this group sees as the stakes—not merely the struggle of individual organizations but the defense of an entire regional political project against US intervention, framing the conflict as Monroeism versus Bolivarianism.
Emerging Scenarios and Strategic Implications
The simultaneous release of these political statements in the context of Trump’s threat against national sovereignty signals a potential inflection point in Colombia’s fragmented armed conflict. Whether these proposals represent genuine ideological repositioning or tactical maneuvering in response to external pressure, they illuminate possible trajectories for the coming period. Understanding these scenarios requires examining both the immediate tactical adjustments armed groups may undertake and the deeper structural dynamics shaping Colombia’s territorial conflicts.
Temporary Reduction of Inter-Insurgent Conflict
Armed groups may temporarily reduce confrontations among themselves to strengthen a collective capacity against state forces and imperialist aggression. The rhetoric of regional unity and anti-imperialism could provide ideological aspects for tactical ceasefires and/or alliances between factions that were recently engaged in lethal combat. However, the economic interests and territorial disputes that drove recent violence, like the control over coca cultivation zones, illegal mining operations, or smuggling routes, will not disappear simply because of external threats. These material foundations of conflict may prove more durable than any ideological rapprochement, making inter-insurgent truces fragile and contingent.
Venezuelan Territory and Border Dynamics
The expected security cooperation between the US, Colombia, and Venezuela following Maduro’s kidnapping will likely force armed groups to reduce their presence in Venezuelan territory, at least temporarily. This shift carries direct consequences for conflict dynamics in Colombia, particularly in strategic border regions like Arauca and Catatumbo, where groups have historically used Venezuelan territory as rear-guard zones for rest, reorganization, and refuge from Colombian military operations. The loss of this territorial depth could intensify competition for Colombian territory as groups compress their operations into more confined areas, potentially escalating violence in border departments as factions compete for diminished safe havens. Particularly, the ELN is cooperating with Venezuelan authorities on a local level. The US think tank Crisis Group describes the ELN as a “binational guerrilla” that has become a fundamental pillar of the Venezuelan government’s stability, at least at a local level, exercising state-like territorial control over large parts of the 2,200 km border corridor. Crisis Group highlights a symbiotic relationship where the ELN acts as a “disorder regulator” alongside Venezuelan security forces, moving away from traditional drug trafficking toward more lucrative and easily laundered mineral extraction, specifically gold, coltan, and diamonds in the Orinoco Mining Arc.
US Military Intervention Prospects
The possibility of US military intervention looms as perhaps the most significant variable. The US may conduct airstrikes or special operations against ELN and Mordisco positions as part of the apparent Trump-Petro agreement, framed as counter-narcotics operations but functioning as direct counterinsurgency. This would mark a dramatic escalation in Colombia’s conflict and could paradoxically strengthen ideological unity among armed groups in their anti-imperialist approach while devastating their operational capacity. The precedent of US military action in Colombia dates back to Plan Colombia, but direct strikes against guerrilla leadership would represent a qualitative shift, transforming the conflict’s political character and regional dimensions.
Extraction Economics and Territorial Reorganization
The above-mentioned case of Nariño and the reemergence of paramilitary groups illustrates ongoing dynamics that extend beyond immediate military considerations. The demobilization of “Comuneros del Sur” has led to territorial reorganization involving emerging paramilitary structures. This pattern, repeated across Colombia’s recent history, suggests that wherever armed groups weaken or withdraw, the resulting power vacuum is filled not by state institutions providing public services but by security arrangements oriented toward economic exploitation, also facilitating the operations of multi-national corporations.
Similar patterns may emerge in other regions where armed groups face military pressure or engage in demobilization processes. Security policy becomes central to struggles over territorial wealth and natural resource exploitation, with “pacification” creating conditions for investment, extraction, and productive reorganization benefiting national and transnational capital. The question is not whether territories will be controlled, but by whom and for what purposes.
Counterinsurgency and the Future of Armed Struggle
Latin American history demonstrates that anti-drug policies have repeatedly functioned as expansive counterinsurgency mechanisms, enabling coordination of military, judicial, economic, and media forces oriented not merely toward neutralizing illegal networks but toward territorial reorganization and population control. Under security rhetoric, control practices extend across social movements, local economies, and community organizations, reframing political dissidence as internal security threats.
Territorial stabilization, presented as a prerequisite for combating drug trafficking, simultaneously creates conditions for investment, resource extraction, and productive reorganization. Security policy becomes inseparable from struggles over territorial and social wealth, oriented toward natural resource exploitation benefiting national and transnational capital. The ongoing electoral process with parliamentary elections in March and presidential elections in May will clarify whether this dynamic continues to unfold or whether Petro’s “Total Peace” policy survives a potential change in administration.
The kidnapping of Maduro and the apparent Trump-Petro alliance create a critical juncture for Colombia’s armed groups. The threat of unprecedented collaboration between US, Colombian, and Venezuelan authorities may temporarily unify insurgent interests around shared survival imperatives. The simultaneous release of political statements emphasizing unity suggests capacity for strategic alignment, even among bitter rivals. However, the regional character of contemporary insurgent structures, territorially dispersed and economically embedded in local illegal economies, means these groups may have lost the tactical and strategic capacity to overwhelm state power that earlier generations of guerrillas possessed. At its height, the FARC commanded perhaps 20,000 combatants with centralized command structures; today’s fragmented groups combined barely reach half of that number, divided among partially antagonistic organizations.
This moment could represent a genuine “window of opportunity” for these groups to overcome internal differences and build shared strategic visions capable of resisting state and US pressure. The ideological coherence of their statements, all invoking Bolivarian anti-imperialism, all framing struggle in international rather than purely national terms, suggests some foundation for cooperation. The coming months will reveal whether external threats can forge lasting insurgent coordination or whether a Petro-Trump deal pushes fragmentation beyond the point of reversal.
source: Comrawire
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