Ninety-nine people handed over their rifles, grenades, and web gear in the jungles of southern Colombia, hoping to trade jungle warfare for civilian life. It was a symbolic climax to Gustavo Petro’s much-touted "total peace" initiative. Just three days later, the presidential runoff swung to Abelardo de la Espriella, a hardline conservative who promised to tear up peace deals and bring back heavy military crackdowns. Now, those 99 ex-combatants sit in a fenced transition zone watching their futures dissolve.
If you think political transitions only affect politicians, look at Colombia right now. Disarmed fighters who trusted government decrees find themselves trapped in legal limbo, facing an incoming administration that views them as targets rather than partners in peace.
The High Cost of Bad Timing
Timing is everything in politics, and this handover was a disaster. The Petro administration spent years trying to negotiate with fragmented armed factions born from the ashes of the historic 2016 FARC deal. Most armed groups used those talks to expand drug trafficking networks and tighten territorial control. Violence actually spiked to worst-case levels over the decade.
Yet, right before an election everyone knew the government-backed candidate would lose, this tiny faction of 99 fighters—part of the Commandos of the Frontier—actually laid down their arms. They believed they were setting a historic example. Instead, they walked straight into a trap.
Think about the vulnerability here. They are holed up in a designated transition zone (ZUT) in Valle del Guamuez. Soldiers guard the perimeter less than a mile away. They have no weapons. They have no secure legal framework protecting them long-term. Under current Colombian law, people who committed drug trafficking or kidnapping are ineligible for blanket amnesties. Petro's executive decrees protected them temporarily, but those protections carry expiration dates, and the new hardline president can wipe them out with a single signature.
Why Ideology Died and "The Company" Took Over
Most outsiders still view Colombia's conflict through a mid-century ideological lens of Marxist guerrillas fighting right-wing paramilitaries. That framing is completely outdated.
Talk to the people inside these camps, and you quickly realize ideology is dead. Most combatants joined because of economics, survival, or simple lack of other options in rural drug-producing regions. As former government peace negotiator Armando Novoa noted, many fighters didn't even talk about politics; they referred to the armed group simply as "the company."
Colombia remains the world's largest producer of cocaine, and illicit economies fuel every faction. When economic survival drives recruitment, asking fighters to disarm without a bulletproof economic and legal alternative is basically asking them to commit slow suicide. The promised monthly financial stipend of roughly £425 hasn't materialized for many, forcing them to brainstorm small chicken-rearing projects just to stay afloat while cut off from their families.
The Danger of Returning to Zero
What happens next isn't complicated, and that is what makes it terrifying.
De la Espriella has already begun ordering extraditions, such as sending chief peace negotiator Geovany Andrés Rojas ("Araña") to face US drug trafficking charges, and his government has initiated direct airstrikes against remaining criminal groups. The National Security Commission has absorbed the old peace office, throwing peace bureaucracy into chaos.
If the government decides to revoke the ZUT decree, shut down the camp, and send in troops to capture or kill these unarmed people, it will trigger a humanitarian catastrophe.
Some fighters are already drawing a hard line. When teenagers like 19-year-old Adrián—who joined out of desperation—are asked what they will do if the state breaks its promise, the answer is blunt. They won't wait to be hunted down. They will pick the rifles back up.
When you make a deal with the state, you expect the state to honor it. If governments prove that laying down arms leads straight to prison or a grave, nobody will ever disarm again.
Stop trusting paper promises made on the eve of political power shifts. In high-stakes conflicts, structural reality always wins over political theater. The 99 fighters in southern Colombia trusted a dying administration, and now they are paying the price.
