Massacres in Colombia

Family and friends hold white balloons at the funeral Yoimar Muñoz, one of the victims of a massacre in the province of Cauca, in Popayán (Colombia) .ERNESTO GUZMAN JR / EFE

The massacres perpetrated during the last two weeks in Colombia, which have left more than thirty deaths in different parts of its geography, take the South American country back to the most sinister memories of a past that it believed it had left behind, but which, according to of what happened, he was simply hidden for other matters. The late reaction of the government of Iván Duque, immersed in the management of the pandemic, but also in going out to defend former President Álvaro Uribe, mentor of the current president and currently in house arrest, has highlighted the lack of a solid security strategy .

International organizations, the Ombudsman's Office, as well as multiple analysts have been warning for a long time of the upward trend of killings in recent years, which have been fading from the media agenda in front of other issues, such as the marches that shook the country at the end of last year or, evidently, the coronavirus pandemic. However, the signs that the security crisis was deepening were quite evident.

After the signing of the peace accords between the FARC and the Government there have been dozens of murders of social leaders due to the inaction of the Colombian Executive, which has not managed to stop this terrible drift. The disappearance of the FARC guerrillas, once the peace process was completed, caused many of the territories that were under their control to be subject to disputes between different criminal groups, such as factions of the extinct armed formation, the ELN or organized armed groups. One of the errors attributed to the Government is to have approached this matter as if it were a problem related exclusively to drug trafficking, when it is well established that other illegal economies have emerged, and in many cases have already consolidated, such as those linked to mining or human trafficking.

President Duque does not stop blaming the security problems on his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, who ended his term two years ago, or on the peace process with the FARC, a narrative that brought him to power. The president has given more importance to defending his mentor, Álvaro Uribe, from the judicial process he faces than the latest killings, to which he has responded more than a week late. Duque would do well to abandon these hasty and baseless analyzes, set his priorities as president of all Colombians, and clarify the security strategy with which he intends to put a stop to the massacres.