Colombia — FARC Dissidents, ELN and the Peace Process Under Pressure: Strategic Assessment

Bottom Line Up Front

Assessment (high confidence). Colombia in May 2026 is a state in which the architecture of the 2016 Final Agreement has been functionally inverted. President Gustavo Petro’s Paz Total (Total Peace) policy — an attempt to negotiate simultaneously with every armed structure on the territory — has produced no consolidated demobilisation, has granted recognition and operational space to multiple non-state armed groups, and has coincided with a record expansion of coca cultivation, of National Liberation Army (ELN) geography, and of the FARC-EP dissidence. The territorial map under Petro is the most fragmented since 2002. With the Trump administration’s January 2026 decertification under the Foreign Assistance Act on counter-narcotics cooperation, the bilateral security relationship has entered its most adversarial phase since the Andrés Pastrana–Bill Clinton transition; the Petro government is now structurally squeezed between domestic insurgent expansion, US pressure on aid and tariffs, and a Venezuelan sanctuary it cannot foreclose.

Assessment (moderate confidence). Three vectors define Colombia’s trajectory through Q4 2026 into the May 2026 presidential election cycle and the August 2026 transition: (1) the structural failure of Paz Total and the question of whether a successor administration will retain bilateral pieces (e.g., with Segunda Marquetalia or specific EMC fronts) or scrap the framework; (2) the consolidation of ELN and EMC sanctuaries inside Venezuela’s Apure, Zulia, and Amazonas states under tacit Maduro tolerance; (3) the binary US choice between a punitive posture (sanctions, tariffs, operations against cartel-designated armed groups) and a reset under a post-Petro government. The probability that 2027 inherits a worse security baseline than 2022 is now the modal scenario.

Strategic Background

Fact. The 2016 Final Agreement between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) disarmed approximately 13,000 combatants, demobilised the central command, and established a transitional justice architecture (the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP) and a rural reform component (PDET, comprehensive rural reform). Implementation has been chronically underfunded, behind schedule, and politically contested across the Santos, Duque, and Petro governments.

Fact. Approximately 13–18% of the original FARC structure rejected the agreement or rearmed after demobilisation, forming what is generically called the FARC-EP dissidence. By May 2026, this dissidence is bifurcated along two principal command lines: (1) the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) under alias “Iván Mordisco” (Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández), with its principal western bloc (the Bloque Occidental / Bloque Sur) operating across Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Caquetá, Meta, and Guaviare; (2) the Segunda Marquetalia under alias “Iván Márquez” (Luciano Marín Arango — reported gravely wounded in a 2022 strike, with command continuity disputed) and “Jesús Santrich” (deceased 2021), operating with a Venezuelan rear and presence in Norte de Santander and Arauca.

Fact. The ELN, founded 1964, is the oldest active insurgent organisation in the Western Hemisphere. Its federal command structure — the Central Command (COCE) and a Strategic Front for the National Direction — distinguishes it operationally from the more centralised FARC. By 2026, the ELN has between 6,000 and 7,500 combatants; by reach, it is the dominant non-state armed actor across Norte de Santander, Arauca, Chocó, and large portions of Bolívar and the southern Bolívar mountain corridor, with growing presence in Venezuelan Apure, Táchira, Zulia, and Amazonas.

Assessment (high confidence). Colombia’s post-2016 conflict is no longer a binary state-versus-insurgent contest. It is a multi-actor competitive landscape in which the ELN, EMC, Segunda Marquetalia, the Clan del Golfo (also known as Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, AGC) — the country’s largest narco-paramilitary structure with ~9,000 combatants — and a constellation of urban Oficinas and Mexican-cartel-linked structures compete for coca corridors, illegal mining territory, urban criminal economies, and strategic mobility nodes (border crossings, river systems, Pacific ports).

Paz Total: Architecture and Failure

Fact. Petro inaugurated Paz Total via Law 2272 of 2022, which extended the legal framework for negotiation beyond political-armed groups (FARC, ELN) to include “high-impact criminal organisations” (the AGC, the Segunda Marquetalia, urban Oficinas, the EMC). The architecture was simultaneous — multiple parallel tables, multiple interlocutors, multiple legal regimes — and dependent on bilateral ceasefires of varying scope and verification.

Fact. By May 2026, the operational status of the principal tables is as follows: (1) the ELN table is suspended since January 2025 after the ELN’s Frente de Guerra Nororiental offensive in Catatumbo killed over 80 civilians and displaced more than 50,000; (2) the EMC table fractured in mid-2024 after Iván Mordisco rejected ceasefire terms, with a splinter under alias “Calarcá Córdoba” (the EMC Coordinadora faction) maintaining a partial dialogue; (3) the Segunda Marquetalia table, opened in mid-2024, has produced no demobilisation but has provided the structure with implicit recognition; (4) the AGC table has not advanced beyond preliminary frameworks; (5) the urban-pact pilots (Buenaventura, Quibdó, Medellín Oficinas) have produced localised reductions in homicides without structural disarmament.

Assessment (high confidence). Paz Total failed structurally for four reasons: (1) absence of a coercive backstop — the simultaneous-table approach diluted military pressure and signalled to every counterparty that pure dialogue was the policy floor; (2) asymmetry of incentives — ceasefires lifted operational pressure on armed groups without producing reciprocal disarmament, allowing consolidation and recruitment during the negotiation phase; (3) verification deficit — verification mechanisms (the UN Verification Mission, the Episcopal Conference’s MAPP/OEA) did not have the geographic reach or the legal authority to discipline ceasefire violations; (4) intra-state coordination failure — the Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz under Otty Patiño and the Ministry of Defence under Iván Velásquez (later Pedro Sánchez) operated on conflicting tracks, with the military leadership periodically suspending unilateral ceasefires after operational losses.

Assessment (moderate confidence). The Catatumbo offensive of January–February 2025 — in which the ELN attacked rival EMC and Segunda Marquetalia structures across Norte de Santander, killing civilians coded as “FARC sympathisers” and displacing tens of thousands — is the inflection point at which the policy ceased to be defensible domestically. The Petro government’s response (suspension of the ELN table, Estado de Conmoción Interior, militarisation of the Catatumbo region) was reactive and did not produce an enduring re-imposition of state authority. The ELN regained the initiative in Arauca by Q3 2025.

Coca Economy and the Narcotics Floor

Fact. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) data published in 2025 reports that coca cultivation in Colombia reached an estimated 253,000 hectares in 2023 — a record — with cocaine production capacity estimated at over 2,600 metric tons. Subsequent UNODC reporting through 2025 shows continued upward pressure on cultivation, particularly in Putumayo, Nariño, Norte de Santander (Catatumbo), and the Pacific corridor (Buenaventura, Tumaco). The Petro government’s voluntary substitution programme (PNIS) has had limited uptake; forced eradication has been deprioritised under the Paz Total framing.

Fact. The principal coca-corridor economies are now controlled by the EMC (Putumayo, Caquetá, Cauca, Nariño piedmont), the AGC (Bajo Cauca, Urabá, Chocó, Pacific corridor), the ELN (Norte de Santander/Catatumbo, Pacific Chocó, Bolívar), and the Segunda Marquetalia (Norte de Santander, Arauca). Mexican cartels — primarily the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) — purchase finished cocaine and increasingly extend supervisory presence to Colombian production zones, financing chemical inputs and providing transport into Central American maritime corridors.

Assessment (high confidence). Coca expansion under Petro is structural rather than cyclical. The drivers are: (1) collapse of voluntary substitution credibility after the Santos administration’s underfunding; (2) loss of state coercive deterrence in producing zones during the cese al fuego periods; (3) resilient global cocaine demand (Europe, Australia) that maintains farm-gate prices despite Colombian oversupply; (4) consolidation of Mexican cartel financing that backstops expansion. A change of administration in 2026 with a punitive eradication posture would compress cultivation but cannot quickly reverse the embedded production capacity.

Assessment (moderate confidence). The single most consequential security variable for the Colombia–US relationship is whether a forthcoming aerial-spraying decision (glyphosate or alternative herbicides) is taken; the Constitutional Court conditions, established in T-236/2017 and reaffirmed in 2019, set high environmental and consultation thresholds. A successor government willing to absorb the political cost could resume aerial eradication; the Petro government will not.

ELN: Federal Insurgency and Venezuelan Rear

Fact. The ELN’s territorial expansion under Petro is documented across the Norte de Santander/Arauca corridor (now the operational centre of gravity), the Pacific Chocó, the southern Bolívar, the Cauca-Nariño boundary, and a growing transboundary presence inside Venezuelan Apure, Táchira, Zulia, and Amazonas. Insight Crime, Fundación Pares, and the Defensoría del Pueblo have documented ELN governance functions (taxation, dispute adjudication, recruitment) across more than 200 Colombian municipalities.

Fact. The ELN’s principal command — the COCE — is itself geographically distributed; key members operate from Venezuelan territory under Caracas’s tolerance. The Petro government has repeatedly raised the question of safe haven with the Maduro government without producing extraditions or operational restrictions. Venezuelan FANB units have been documented colluding with ELN structures in Apure, particularly around mining, fuel-smuggling (pimpineo), and cattle-rustling economies.

Assessment (high confidence). The ELN has become a transnational organisation with an irreversible Venezuelan rear-area dependency. This dependency forecloses a purely Colombian solution: the ELN can absorb tactical losses on the Colombian side and reconstitute from Venezuelan sanctuary so long as the Maduro regime tolerates the presence. This pattern mirrors and exceeds the FARC-EP’s pre-2008 use of Ecuadorian territory.

Assessment (high confidence). The ELN’s federal structure (independent Frentes de Guerra: Nororiental, Norte, Occidental, Suroccidental, Central, Darío Ramírez Castro) means that even a central-command negotiation cannot guarantee front-level compliance. The Catatumbo offensive of 2025 was prosecuted by the Frente de Guerra Nororiental in apparent friction with COCE moderation. This federalism is a structural obstacle to any future negotiation framework.

Gap. The internal balance between hardliners (Antonio García, Pablo Beltrán) and pragmatists in the COCE post-Catatumbo is opaque. Open-source visibility into the post-suspension command dynamics is limited; the ELN’s communiqués through 2025–2026 have been disciplined but partial.

EMC and Segunda Marquetalia: Two Dissidences

Fact. The EMC under Iván Mordisco fractured in mid-2024 after Petro suspended the bilateral ceasefire in Cauca, Nariño, and Valle del Cauca following indigenous leader assassinations and child recruitment. The faction that remained at the table — the Coordinadora under alias Calarcá Córdoba — controls fronts in the eastern bloc (Meta, Guaviare, Caquetá northern reaches). The Mordisco-led majority controls the Pacific piedmont, southern Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, and the Caquetá southern reaches.

Fact. The Segunda Marquetalia is operationally smaller than the EMC (estimated 800–1,500 combatants), structurally different (originating from the FARC Secretariat post-2016 rather than from front-level non-demobilisers), and substantially Venezuelan-based. Its principal theatres are Norte de Santander/Catatumbo (in active competition with the ELN and the EMC) and Arauca (in alliance and competition with the ELN). The death of “Jesús Santrich” in 2021 in Venezuelan Zulia and the reported wounding of Iván Márquez in 2022 produced a command-continuity question; alias “Walter Mendoza” (José Vicente Lesmes) has emerged as a principal interlocutor at the Paz Total table.

Assessment (high confidence). The EMC and Segunda Marquetalia are not a unified successor to the FARC. They are competing post-FARC structures with distinct geographies, command lineages, and external relationships. Their territorial overlap — particularly in Catatumbo and Arauca — has produced sustained inter-dissident violence with civilian casualties.

Assessment (moderate confidence). The EMC’s Bloque Sur is the most economically resourced FARC-dissident structure, embedded in the Putumayo–Caquetá coca corridor with direct ties to Mexican purchasers. Its incentive structure is closer to a narco-armed enterprise than to a politically programmatic insurgency, which limits the realism of a political settlement and increases the probability of a long-duration competitive equilibrium with the state.

Clan del Golfo (AGC) and the Paramilitary Successor Question

Fact. The Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC), successor to the Bloque Élmer Cárdenas and the post-AUC paramilitary structures, is by force generation the largest non-state armed actor in Colombia at ~9,000 combatants. It controls Urabá, Bajo Cauca, large portions of Chocó, the lower Cauca, and Pacific corridors; it has expanded into Norte de Santander and into the Putumayo–Nariño coca corridor.

Fact. AGC’s leader Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, alias “Otoniel”, was extradited to the US in 2022. His successors — alias “Chiquito Malo” (Jobanis de Jesús Ávila Villadiego) and alias “Siopas” (eliminated 2023) — have not produced a comparable command consolidation. The structure is more federated than under Otoniel, which complicates any Paz Total table architecture.

Assessment (high confidence). The AGC’s strategic posture is qualitatively different from the FARC dissidence and the ELN: it does not pursue a territorial-political project, does not seek to displace the state from its zones, and operates as a tax-and-control narco-paramilitary structure. This makes it tactically simpler to suppress (no political cover) and structurally durable (its economic logic is self-renewing).

External Actors

Fact. Venezuela is the principal external sanctuary for the ELN, the Segunda Marquetalia, and elements of the EMC. The Maduro regime’s tolerance is not passive: documented operational coordination with FANB units in Apure, including in the 2021 Apure clashes (in which FANB engaged FARC-dissident structures aligned against Caracas while tolerating ELN), demonstrates an active management of which armed groups have sanctuary status.

Fact. Ecuador’s deteriorated security environment since 2022, the Daniel Noboa government’s internal armed conflict declaration (January 2024) against domestic gangs (Los Choneros, Los Lobos), and the porous Putumayo/Esmeraldas border have produced substantial cross-border activity by EMC structures and Mexican cartel logistics. Ecuador is now a primary cocaine export route and a secondary sanctuary.

Fact. Panama’s Darién Gap is both a migration corridor and a logistics corridor for AGC and Mexican cartel narcotics flows. Panamanian SENAFRONT operates against AGC infrastructure in Darién with US support.

Fact. The Trump administration’s January 2026 decertification of Colombia under the Foreign Assistance Act (Section 489) for counter-narcotics non-compliance is the first such determination since the Pastrana-era decertification of 1996–1998. The decertification triggers a discretionary national-interest waiver determination; the Trump administration has signalled conditional waiver with explicit eradication and military-cooperation benchmarks. Tariff threats — referencing precedents in Mexico and Canada — have been raised but not implemented as of May 2026.

Fact. China is Colombia’s second-largest trading partner. Petro has pursued formal engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative (Colombia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2025) and the BRICS+ track, against US objection. Chinese state firms have advanced port and infrastructure positions in Buenaventura and the Magdalena corridor.

Assessment (high confidence). The US–Colombia relationship is structurally strained on three axes: (1) counter-narcotics performance, (2) BRI/China alignment, (3) ideological friction between Petro’s left-progressive posture and the second Trump administration’s hemispheric posture. The relationship is not yet in rupture — Plan Colombia legacy infrastructure, intelligence cooperation, and Colombian dependence on bilateral aid create floor — but the asymmetry of leverage now favours Washington.

Assessment (moderate confidence). A Trump-administration designation of one or more Colombian armed groups (most plausibly the AGC) under the Foreign Terrorist Organization statute, paralleling the February 2025 cartel designations, would create extraterritorial criminal exposure for Colombian state actors who tolerate or negotiate with such groups. This would functionally constrain the Paz Total architecture and any successor framework that retains negotiation tracks with FTO-designated structures.

Domestic Politics and the 2026 Transition

Fact. Petro’s term ends 7 August 2026 (Colombian constitution prohibits immediate re-election). The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for 31 May 2026, with a probable second round on 21 June 2026. The principal competitive blocs are: (1) a fragmented centre-right around Vicky Dávila, Sergio Fajardo (centrist), and Centro Democrático candidates (María Fernanda Cabal, Paloma Valencia, or a consensus designate); (2) the Pacto Histórico continuity candidate (Daniel Quintero, Susana Muhamad, Carolina Corcho, with Gustavo Bolívar as the early frontrunner before mid-2025 setbacks); (3) independent candidates (Juan Manuel Galán, Roy Barreras, others).

Fact. Petro’s approval rating has remained between 28% and 36% through 2025–2026 in the principal national polls (Invamer, Datexco, Yanhaas). The Pacto Histórico’s congressional bloc lost cohesion through 2024–2025; major reforms (health, pension, labour) are partially passed but pension reform is suspended pending Constitutional Court review.

Assessment (high confidence). The 2026 election will be substantially a referendum on Paz Total, on coca expansion, and on the security trajectory under Petro. The base rate for the Colombian electorate after a left-led security deterioration favours a centre-right correction; the Petro coalition’s unity will not survive a second-round forced choice.

Assessment (moderate confidence). A centre-right successor administration will likely retain selected Paz Total tables (Segunda Marquetalia is plausible because of its Venezuelan basing and the leverage Caracas applies; specific EMC fronts where ceasefire produced verifiable territorial benefits) while terminating others (the AGC table, urban Oficina pacts) and resuming aerial eradication and full military cooperation with the US. A continuation of the Pacto Histórico would be unlikely to scale up Paz Total beyond its current architecture.

Escalation Scenarios

Scenario A: Managed Transition (probability 50–55%). A centre-right or centrist successor takes office in August 2026. Paz Total is selectively scrapped: the AGC and urban tables are terminated; the EMC table is suspended; the Segunda Marquetalia and ELN tables are reformatted with conditional ceasefires and verification deadlines. US cooperation is rebuilt under conditional waiver, with explicit eradication and operational benchmarks. Coca cultivation peaks in 2026–2027 and begins a slow decline by 2028. Security indicators stabilise but do not return to pre-2022 baselines until 2029–2030.

Scenario B: Bilateral Rupture and Securitisation (probability 25–30%). The Trump administration designates the AGC and one or more FARC-dissident structures as FTOs in mid–late 2026. A successor Colombian administration accepts the designation framework and pursues active military cooperation including discrete US support to operations against designated structures. The Maduro regime’s continued sanctuary of ELN and Segunda Marquetalia leadership produces a cross-border crisis that risks Colombian–Venezuelan kinetic exchange in Catatumbo or Arauca. Refugee flows from Venezuela increase; coca eradication accelerates aggressively but produces displacement rather than collapse.

Scenario C: Continued Fragmentation and Drift (probability 20–25%). A Pacto Histórico continuation candidate, a centrist non-aligned, or a constrained centre-right with weak congressional majorities produces only marginal corrections to Paz Total. The ELN consolidates its Venezuelan rear and expands in Chocó and Bolívar. The EMC retains its Pacific corridor; the AGC retains its Caribbean and Bajo Cauca dominance. Coca remains above 250,000 hectares through 2027. The US pursues an arm’s-length policy of selective sanctions and intelligence cooperation without strategic recommitment.

Strategic Implications

For Colombia. The structural lesson of Paz Total is that simultaneous negotiation without a coercive floor produces consolidation, not demobilisation. Any successor framework will need (1) sequencing — coercive pressure preceding negotiation — and (2) selective architecture — a small number of tables with verifiable benchmarks — to avoid the Petro trap. The 2016 Final Agreement remains the durable strategic accomplishment of the Colombian state and must be defended (JEP, PDET, reincorporation) even as new dissident structures are confronted.

For the United States. The 2026 decertification is the leverage point of the cycle. A constructive use of the leverage — conditional waiver tied to a successor administration’s eradication and cooperation benchmarks — preserves the bilateral relationship and accelerates cocaine-supply compression. A maximalist use (sanctions, tariffs, FTO designations against Colombian state interlocutors) risks pushing a Pacto Histórico continuation deeper into BRI/China alignment.

For the region. Colombia’s deterioration is the single largest variable for the regional cocaine economy, for Venezuelan diaspora pressure, for Ecuadorian state stability, and for Panamanian Darién flows. A 2027 Colombia stabilisation creates the precondition for Ecuadorian recovery and reduces the attractive force of Mexican cartel expansion. A 2027 Colombia deterioration cascades regionally.

For the Brazilian strategic posture. Lula’s government has positioned Brazil as a mediator on Venezuelan and Colombian files (the August 2024 post-election Venezuelan envoy effort, sustained engagement on the Amazonian conflict perimeter). A successor centre-right Colombian administration will likely shift Brasília’s interlocutor preference from Petro to a normalised bilateral counterpart and will create friction on Venezuela coordination.

Sources

Primary OSINT.

Colombian Government, Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz: bilateral table communiqués 2022–2026.
Defensoría del Pueblo, Early Warning System (SAT) reports on Catatumbo, Cauca, Nariño, Chocó, 2024–2026.
Fiscalía General de la Nación, JEP filings on FARC-EP and dissident structures.
Observatorio Pares (Fundación Paz y Reconciliación), territorial dynamics reports 2024–2026.
Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD), Catatumbo and Bajo Cauca reporting 2025.

International OSINT.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Monitoreo de Territorios Afectados por Cultivos Ilícitos, 2024 and 2025 editions.
UN Verification Mission in Colombia, Quarterly Reports to the Security Council, 2024–2026.
US Department of State, 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR); January 2026 Presidential Determination.
Crisis Group, Latin America Reports: Colombia 2024–2026 series.
InsightCrime, Colombia and ELN dossier reporting 2023–2026.

Specialist analytical.

Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP), monitoring of Paz Total tables.
International Crisis Group, Colombia tracker.
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Colombia programme.
MAPP/OEA, periodic reports.
Verdad Abierta and Cuestión Pública, investigative reporting on dissident command structures.

Note on confidence. Open-source visibility into ELN and EMC internal command dynamics is constrained; assessments of intra-organisation balance are derived from communiqué pattern analysis and second-order reporting. Cultivation figures lag actual production; UNODC 2025 data (publication date 2025 covering reference year 2024) is the most reliable baseline.

Intelligence notes

Explorer