Petro comes to power with two purposes in the matter: “total peace” and “human security,” as he calls them.
The first is to agree peace treaties with the almost 30 armed groups in force in the country. The second will try to provide security no longer through surveillance or the prosecution of criminals, but through opportunities, access to basic services and infrastructure.
The adjective ambitious is, without a doubt, the one that generates the most consensus.
Petro became president after a virtuous political career denouncing corruption and the violation of human rights. His plan for colombia’s peace goes along these lines: to leave behind the warlike and persecutory strategies inherited from the Cold War, to promote an international debate on the legalization of drugs and to fundamentally transform the unequal economic model that, according to him, promotes war in the country.
The worsening of violence in Colombia has continued in the month that Petro has been in office: 12 massacres have been reported of the 73 that go in the year and 13 social leaders have been killed.
Andl Friday, an ambush on the police left sevenagentis dead and added pressure to a government that, according to experts, does not finish clarifying how it is going to achieve peace in the midst of the war that the State is still waging against guerrilla and drug groups despite the peace agreement signed with the FARC in 2016.
For his project, Petro needs the Armed Forces on his side, but his first initiatives within the military and police sphere seem to have generated more concern than trust.
“Everything that has been presented in this first month has been a roller coaster that has us all with our hair on end, not really knowing where we are going“says John Marulanda, an influential colonel in the Army’s active reserve.
From a different place, Security expert Jorge Mantilla points to a similar concern: “There is a high degree of improvisation and disarticulation of the ads, and that complicates the relationship with the Public Force, whose role in the security strategy is not clear (…) Human security, which in theory offers to expand the supply of goods and services of the State, goes beyond the powers of that institution.”
Daniel García-Peña, former peace negotiator and director of the NGO Planeta Paz, shares the concern about lack of clarity and the reaction of the Armed Forces, but is more optimistic: “The conflict in Colombia changed and it was necessary to rethink the strategy of the State to face it. Petro’s first decisions were necessary, they send clear messages about the priorities on the issue and they had to be taken quickly, at a time of popular, political, legitimacy support.”
“Human Security is a positive initiative,” adds Alejo Vargas, an expert on security and violence.
“But the first part of the government must be focused on comprehensive security that includes public security in the regions, because if there is no forceful response from the state and society rejecting violence against the police, we will continue in the common logic of these groups to measure the government to see how it reacts.”
The murder of the seven policemen may generate more conditions to talk about peace, but also increase skepticism towards Petro within the Armed Forces.
Since announcing defense minister Ivan Velasquez, a human rights lawyer who has denounced military crimes for years— Petro has made his peace agenda the number one priority. Last week he presented a broad legislative project to support it. Even the rapprochement with the government of Venezuela, where some guerrillas are taking refuge, can be seen as part of that strategy.
These are, then, four Petro measures in Security and Defense unprecedented in the recent history of this country at war that have shaken the military sector.
1. Purge at the top of the Public Force
All Colombian presidents usually rearrange the hierarchical structures in the Armed Forces as soon as they come to power. None, however, was as large and symbolic as Petro’s.
In less than a month, at least 70 army and police generals and colonels — more than half — have been removed from office. Some because they are accused of crimes; others, without explanation. The announcements have been dropped, without formal mechanisms. There was a group that was informed of his dismissal at midnight. Another guinea pigor appointment was then suspended.
The concern of the experts is improvisation and that formal, traditional and academic mechanisms that used to give the guideline for removals and appointments were skipped.
In his replacement, Petro has put colonels and brigadiers who supported the peace process with the FARC guerrillas signed in 2016, who are not accused of crimes and who at least apparently do not respond to any of the questioned power structures that the Armed Forces have managed for decades. Local media have also reported that Petro’s interest is to promote more women to the top.
The result is that, right now, the National Police, an entity petro wants to remove from the Defense Ministry, has only eight generals to lead nearly 200,000 members.
“Removing up to 70 generals and colonels, even if many of them are not guilty (of crimes) or are investigated, and also having placed two members of their old guerrillas in key institutions (intelligence and victim protection), carries a very strong message to the military and complicates what is coming,” says Marulanda, referring to the appointments of two former members of the M19, the guerrillas to which Petro belonged in the 70s.
Following Friday’s attack on police, Petro announced that some 2,000 troops, nearly a quarter of the total, will be relocated to less violent locations in the country.
Since Petro came to power, there have been 11 of the 72 massacres this year.
2. Limit bombing
Minister Velásquez announced last week that a crucial operation of the strategy the military has used to confront illegal armed groups will be reformulated: bombings.
The minister’s goal is to prevent civilians from being killed in attacks on suspected guerrilla members. Specifically children, who are usually forcibly recruited and used as a shield.
A report by the Institute of Legal Medicine estimates that in one in three bombings have killed minors during the last years.
“The minors recruited are victims,” Velasquez told a news conference. “Therefore, any military action that is developed against illegal organizations cannot endanger the lives of these victims of violence,” he said.
The measure highlights concerns about human rights. The army explained that the bombing will not cease, but they will have new protocols. However, experts say that in the military mentality it does not look like this: for them it is normal that there is collateral damage and they consider bombing as the most effective weapon to corner the guerrillas. Historic FARC leaders— Alfonso Cano, Raul Reyes, and Mono Jojoy — were killed in airstrikes.
Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva has already begun talks with the ELN in Cuba to resume negotiations for peace with the larger current guerrillas.
3. Reform of the riot police force
The new government has also said it intends to reform — but not eliminate, as some are calling for — the Mobile Police Riot Squad (ESMAD), the body prepared to contain social protests.
During the social outbursts of 2019 and 2021, the ESMAD was questioned for the improper use of force and for having caused the death of dozens of protesters. The UN blamed police for 28 deaths in the 2021 protests.
Some experts at the time explained that the body responded to the logics of the armed conflict, where every dissident of the system was seen as an insurgent, and that is why it was necessary to reform the entity with more civilian than military guidelines in the face of the post-conflict.
The new director of the Police, the general Henry Sanabria, gave some clues of what reform may be: less intimidating colors than black on the uniforms of the agents, tankettes turned into ambulances and a new name for the body, Dialogue and Accompaniment Unit for public demonstrations.
“There has to be a change, of course clarifying that every police force requires a force that contains a demonstration that becomes violent,” Sanabria said.
An internal statement from the Armed Forces leaked this week to the media “La Silla Vacía” assured that the Doctrine of Damascus, a civilist code of conduct for the institution devised by President Juan Manuel Santos after the signing of peace with the FARC, will be implemented.
Although it is for riots, the Esmad is considered an entity designed under the logics of conflict. And that’s why Petro wants to reform it.
4. End forced coca eradication
Another policy that may be a substantial difference between Petro and governmentsThis problem has to do with drug trafficking, a problem that has historically been addressed from the fields of Security and Defense in alliance with the United States.
“Peace is possible if you change the anti-drug policy seen as a war for a policy of strong prevention of consumption in developed societies,” Petro said in his inauguration speech on Aug. 7.
What looks like a health policy is, however, a shift in the military field., because the suspension of forced eradication programs for coca crops and studies to resume aerial spraying of glyphosate plantations was announced.
Both are policies that contrast with the government of Ivan Duque, which was generally more in tune with most military guidelines.
Petro, however, said that “suspending aerial spraying for illicit crops is not permission to plant more coca plants.”
“We must immediately implement the PNIS (system of substitution of illicit crops), added with land substitution, and projects of agro-industrialization of licit crops owned by the peasantry,” said the president.
Beyond the convenience or otherwise of these new measures, experts show skepticism about how they have been announced, the absence of prior dialogue with the military sector and, above all, the lack of a plan to understand how all these innovative initiatives are articulated. Violence in the country, meanwhile, continues to escalate.
Mantilla, from the Ideas for Peace Foundation, concludes: “If Petro does not manage to quickly adopt a clear security policy accompanied by differentiated territorial intervention plans where the Public Force has a specific role, its good intentions would not go beyond good intentions.”
