Colombia runoff vote shaped by security fears and conflict warnings

Rebels from the Comandos de la Frontera, or Border Commandos stand waiting to disarm and hand over their weapons during a rare demobilization ceremony in southern Colombia. John Otis for NPR

John Otis for NPR

His hardline message is connecting. In the May 31 first-round election, De La Espriella finished first among 13 candidates, though he lacked enough votes for outright victory. That has set up today's runoff against Cepeda, who has promised TO reduce violence through peace negotiations.

"Even in the worst of times, Colombia has chosen life, democracy, hope and peace as the path forward," Cepeda said at a recent campaign rally.

But for the past four years, President Petro's envoys have held simultaneous talks with nearly a dozen rebel factions as part of his "Total Peace" plan – with most ending in frustration.

The 100 members of a group called the Border Commandos, who disarmed at the jungle ceremony on Thursday, were the first and only batch of rebels to do so under the Petro government.

The Border Commandos, who control villages and smuggle cocaine along parts of Colombia's frontier with Ecuador, number about 1,000 fighters, thus only 10% of the group actually turned in weapons.

"If some turn in their guns and others don't, it doesn't make much sense," said Antonio Paguey, a social worker from La Ruidoso, a village under the control of the Border Commandos, who attended the ceremony.

Many rebel groups are offshoots of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which had been fighting to overthrow the government since the 1960s and had been the country's largest guerrilla organization. The FARC signed a peace treaty in 2016 and nearly all of its 15,000 combatants were demobilized.

However, some remained in the jungle and recruited more fighters to form a new generation of rebel groups. Instead of fighting government troops, these guerrillas are mainly involved in cocaine smuggling, extortion, and illegal goldmining and logging.

The Border Commandos have used government ceasefires during peace talks to expand their territorial control. Security analysts say that under President Petro, rebel groups have nearly doubled in size to about 27,000 fighters.

"It's undeniable that we have a worse security situation now than we had four years ago," said Kyle Johnson of the Bogotá based Conflict Responses Foundation.

He also questions the impact of Thursday's disarmament ceremony because it took just a tiny fraction of Colombian rebels off the battlefield.

"It's better than nothing. But at the end of the day, it's not much more than nothing," he said.

Weapons turned in by the Comandos de la Frontera, or Border Commandos guerillas at a demobilization ceremony in southern Colombia. John Otis for NPR

John Otis for NPR

Still, the government made quite a fuss over the event, prompting critics to accuse Petro of using this demobilization to win points for his favored candidate – Cepeda – just days ahead of the election.

Workers erected a stage in the middle of the rainforest. Nearly a dozen speakers took the microphone to hail the agreement with the Border Commandos. The ceremony included Colombia's national anthem but also the rebel hymn of the Border Commandos -- the lyrics of which make no mention of the group's crimes.

But their illegal activities were hard to ignore. The ceremony took place near the town of La Hormiga which is surrounded by vast fields of coca bushes, the raw material for cocaine that the Border Commandos export. The group's leader is Geovanni Andrés Ríos who was arrested last year for drug smuggling.

In a bizarre scene at the ceremony, his troops stood at attention as Ríos addressed them in a live video feed from a Bogotá prison. He then gave the order to hand over their weapons to government inspectors.

They also shed their camouflage uniforms and donned blue jeans and t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase: "I comply with the peace process." Then, they began moving their meager belongings into a housing complex where they are to receive job training and other assistance.

Though their numbers were small, now ex-fighters, like Carlos Andrés Torres, described disarming as a big step forward. After high school, Torres says he was desperate to find work to help his family. Six years ago, he joined the Border Commanders who pay fighters about $600 a month. But he never felt good as a gunman.

Now, he says: "I'm really happy to go back to normal life.

Armando Novoa, the government envoy in charge of peace talks with the Border Commandos, claims that this partial demobilization could help convince the rest of the organization to turn in its weapons. But he fears Colombia's next government will focus on military strikes and forget about these rebels-turned-civilians.

"What do they want these young people to do?" he says. "To go back to war? To go back to drug trafficking?"