After Peace: Why violence still trips Colombia after the historic 2016 peace deal

Felipe Oyuela, MSc Sociology 

On October 30th, 2025, one of the LSE's most esteemed alumni, Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia, spoke at an event entitled “Sustainability, Peace, and Development”. Therein, the chair, Larry Kramer, proclaimed to a room full of applause, that Juan Manuel Santos had effectively ended a decades-long civil war that had killed an estimated 220,000 people and displaced more than 6 million from their homes ①. The unfortunate truth, however, is that the former president’s talk has come during a surge of violence in Colombia where violent incidents have increased 45% compared to the same period last year ② ③. President Santos may have found ‘peace’, but his deal has certainly not ended violence’s vice-grip on Colombian society.

This backdrop raises two important questions: What factors have limited the success of the Colombian peace deal? And, are there prospects for ending the violence? 

It is important to consider the context in which the peace deal was born. Colombia has for decades been a nation afflicted by rampant inequality. There is a strong correlation between areas that suffer from a multidimensional underinvestment of the state and incidences of conflict ④. In other words, the rural areas which suffer from the severe underinvestment are the regions most susceptible to the proliferation of armed conflict and violent groups. The most prominent of those groups were the FARC, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, founded in May 1966 by left-wing revolutionaries, mostly composed of farmers and land workers. Their stated mission was to fight the rampant inequality that plagued Colombia, where large swaths of land were owned by a minority elite group ⑤. Negotiations for the landmark peace deal began in 2012, concluding in 2016. The talks were held in Havana Cuba, with Rodrigo Londoño, otherwise known as ‘Timochenko’ representing the FARC. The peace deal was submitted for a referendum on the 2nd of October 2016; however, it narrowly failed to pass. A revised version was later ratified by Congress on the 30th of November of the same year, having not been placed under the scrutiny of a popular vote ⑥. 

There is much to appreciate within the normative framework of the peace deal itself. First and foremost, the deal called for the gradual disarmament of the FARC over a period of 180 days alongside an agreement to cease their participation in the drug trade. In exchange, FARC was guaranteed a minimum of five seats in both the Senate and Chamber of Representatives for two legislative terms. Afterwards, they would have to win seats electorally. Furthermore, a transitional justice tribunal was set up that would adjudicate on the atrocities committed during the conflict. Militants who offered a truthful rendering of events would be eligible for lenient sentencing. Lastly, the deal called for a vast increase in government investment in FARC controlled rural areas ⑦. 

The deal clearly represented a distinct approach to ending the war and violence in Colombia. By awarding the rebel group guaranteed representation in Congress, alongside leniency and reintegration efforts, President Santos demonstrated that he viewed the FARC not as an enemy to be destroyed, but rather, a political adversary that must be respected. These provisions demonstrated the ambitions of the Santos government in addressing the systemic violence; however, it is these exact ambitions that have made it politically vulnerable. 

Violence in Colombia has surged in recent years, and the prevalence of organised criminal groups and guerrillas has only grown ⑧. The reasons for this are manifold. A particular issue is the rise of non-ideological violence. However, perhaps the most salient, and what the former president alluded to in the talk, was the failure of the succeeding administration to properly implement the provisions of the deal. 

Juan Manuel Santos’ successor, Ivan Duque, won the following election on a campaign that promised to modify the peace deal. Evidently, a significant number of the Colombian population were dissatisfied with the deal, with perhaps its most controversial provision being that which allocated congressional seats to the FARC without having tried its members for crimes first ⑧. Furthermore, Duque attempted to revise the transitional justice tribunal to become more strict in its adjudication of war crimes. It is important to note that Duque is considered the protege of Fernando Uribe, a former president and the peace deal’s most outspoken critic.

Ultimately, Duque was unable to revise the accord due to insufficient support in Congress. However, his stance against the peace deal brought uncertainty, exacerbating an already precarious post-conflict environment. Duque’s government has been criticised for its lack of investment in initiatives such as land redistribution, FARC-member reintegration, and crop substitution programs ⑨.

On the other hand, Gustavo Petro, the current president of Colombia, has introduced the law of ‘Total Peace’. As the name suggests, this law allows negotiations for peace with Colombia’s most significant armed groups participating simultaneously.  Despite some successes in the first year of its implementation, such as beginning negotiations with 22 groups and a short-lived cease-fire with the ELN guerrilla group, the country’s second-largest and oldest guerrilla group after the FARC, President Petro’s ambitions may perhaps prove to be too lofty. Increasing violence in the nation’s Catatumbo region, a hotbed for coca production, have led to the suspension of negotiations with the ELN, as they vie to remove the region of rival groups ⑩. What’s more, Petro’s call for simultaneous and multi-lateral negotiations has led arm groups to scramble for control in order to gain leverage at the negotiating table ⑪. Evidently, the negotiating framework provided by the 2016 deal, designed to address a centralised and easily identifiable adversary, seems ill-suited to the fragmented nature of violence that today afflicts Colombia. 

This brings us to the present day. In the first four months of 2025 there were 20 assassinations to signatories of the peace agreement, 22 massacres with 67 victims in total, and 69 assassinations of human rights activists ⑫. Furthermore, cocaine production has increased steadily since Petro has assumed office ⑬. What complicates negotiations with these armed groups is that they are not driven to arms by ideology, as was the case with the FARC, but by the allure of profits associated with illicit activities. As long as rural regions in the nation suffer from underinvestment and a lack of concrete presence from the state, they will be at the whim of a struggle fueled by a thirst for power and profit. 

On the 20th of July, the Colombian government submitted a law entitled the Ley de Sometimiento (Law of submission). This proposal is an extension of Petro’s initial ‘Total Peace’ law as it provides a legal framework for the disarmament and adjudication of members of these criminal organizations. In exchange for cooperation, members could receive leniency in their sentencing, as well as keep a portion of their illicit gains ⑭. As opposed to the transitional justice tribunal created under the 2016 peace deal that focused on political armed actors, the Ley de Sometimiento would focus on purely criminal organizations, apt for the rise of non-ideological, profit-driven violence in Colombia. It remains to be seen whether this proposal will have any quantifiable effect in reducing violence. 

The reason the Santos peace deal has failed is twofold. First, the improper implementation of the provisions of the deal has allowed for factionalised violence to germinate. Secondly, and as a direct consequence of the failure to properly implement the provisions of the deal, the factionalisation it has caused has changed the nature of violence in Colombia. What was once a struggle against a centralised enemy has become a free-for-all wherein multiple groups are vying for control over Colombia's illicit industries. The unfortunate truth of this panorama is that while the government continues to attempt to forge solutions, regular Colombians will continue to suffer the gruesome effects of extreme violence. 

Sources 

① Alan Yuhas, « Colombia’s half-century of conflict that led to historic peace deal », The Guardian, 23 June 2016.

② «Preocupante panorama de violencia en Colombia en los primeros cuatro meses de 2025», Defensoría del Pueblo, 2025. 

③ Juliana Gil, « Colombia’s surge in armed violence: How did we get here? », The New Humanitarian, 31 July 2025. 

④ Ellin Ivarsson, Leonardo Canon Rubiano & Carlos Murgui Maties, « When the nearest school or hospital is hours away… Making the case for better transport in rural Colombia », World Bank (Transport for Development blog), 5 June 2023.

⑤ “Who are the Farc?”, BBC News, 24 November 2016.

⑥ Redacción BBC Mundo, « Colombia: ganó el "No" en el plebiscito por los acuerdos de paz con las FARC », BBC Mundo, 2 October 2016.

⑦ Nigel Walker & John Curtis, « Human rights in Colombia and implementation of the 2016 peace agreement », House of Commons Library, 12 April 2022.

⑧  “Why Colombians distrust the FARC peace deal”, The Economist, 24 May 2018.

⑨ Ellin Ivarsson, Leonardo Canon Rubiano & Carlos Murgui Maties, « When the nearest school or hospital is hours away… Making the case for better transport in rural Colombia », World Bank (Transport for Development blog), 5 June 2023. 

⑩ Luke Taylor, « ‘All hell broke loose’: Colombia rethinks ‘Total Peace’ plan as violence grips north », The Guardian, 12 February 2025.

⑪ Megan Janetsky, « Colombian leader’s promise of ‘total peace’ may prove too ambitious », The Guardian, 22 September 2022.

⑫ «Preocupante panorama de violencia en Colombia en los primeros cuatro meses de 2025», Defensoría del Pueblo, 2025.

⑬ “Colombia: Potential cocaine production increased by 53 per cent in 2023, according to new United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) survey”, UNODC (press release), October 2024.

⑭ Kenneth Burbano Villamarín, « La ley de sometimiento y los enfrentamientos políticos », Universidad Libre (Bogotá), 25 August 2025.