Switzerland continues to support peace in Colombia, despite recent violence

People displaced by violence in the Catatumbo region line up to register for shelter at a soccer stadium in Cúcuta, Colombia, January 19, 2025. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

With National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels once again resorting to violence, peace in Colombia is under threat. Switzerland, meanwhile, continues to support implementation of the 2016 peace agreement.

The ELN is a rebel group that until recently sat at the negotiating table with the Colombian government in the capital, Bogotá, with Switzerland as an accompanying state. However, it has now brought about a major humanitarian crisis in northeastern Colombia and since January 16, 2025, violence has re-escalated in the Catatumbo region on the border with Venezuela.

Bogotá holds the left-wing ELN responsible for this latest conflict and Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has accused the rebels of war crimes.

“They have taken people from their homes and murdered them in the most brutal way,” said Luis Emilio Cardozo, commander of the Colombian national army.

More than 50,000 people have been displaced and 100 deaths recorded. At stake is the control of a key region in the drug trade – including one of the largest production areas for coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine – and access to natural resources such as coal, gold and oil.

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A coca plantation in Colombia’s southern Guaviare region. Luca Zanetti

This coca farmer, who came to the region as a picker working for a relative, today owns his own coca fields with a seedling production in place. Luca Zanetti

Inside “La Cocina”, the kitchen where coca leaves are processed into coca base. Luca Zanetti

Acids and gasoline, used in the refining process, have damaged the hands of this “quimico”, or chemist. Luca Zanetti

The farmer’s end product is the coca paste or freebase. It is sold to the cocaine producer who will further purify it in more sophisticated laboratories to make 99% pure cocaine. Luca Zanetti

Anti-drugs police raid a coca kitchen. Luca Zanetti

A member of the anti-drugs police douses kerosene over coca leaves, which were ready to be cooked to make the base paste. Luca Zanetti

A mother and child flee a burning coca kitchen that might explode. Luca Zanetti

Colombian soldiers take a break in a forest clearing that has been planted with coca in the Putumayo region in southern Colombia. Luca Zanetti

Coca eradicators earn about $250 per month. Luca Zanetti

Colombian coca farmers stopped by the Ecuadorean army inside Ecuador are forced to return to Colombia. Luca Zanetti

Police confiscated a bag belonging to traffickers at Bogota’s domestic airport which contained 35 kilos of cocaine. They had used a false airline sticker on a flight bound for San Andrés, a Colombian island in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Nicaragua Luca Zanetti

An x-ray scan taken at Bogota International Airport of a smuggler’s stomach packed with cocaine capsules. Luca Zanetti

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Is this new outbreak of violence the end of the “total peace” plan that Colombia’s government has been striving for? Observers are convinced that the latest events have revived a conflict that has been going on for six decades.

Massacre instead of dialogue

For Iris Marín Ortiz, leader of the Colombian Ombudsperson’s Office, this new wave of violence seals “the political death of the ELN”, she told El PaísExternal link newspaper. Although she had warned of the impending escalation in Catatumbo at the end of last year, she never expected the cruelty that now prevails.

This is also a setback for current president and former guerrilla fighter Petro, who took the Colombian peace process into his own hands.

Commitment to ‘total peace’

But the ELN is just one of several armed groups. President Petro wanted to negotiate with as many groups as possible to end the violence once and for all. The basis for this is a law from 2022, which authorises the government to negotiate with all armed groups and criminal structures.

In this context and as part of its long-standing peace policy in Colombia, Switzerland has been supporting the latest negotiations between the Colombian government and the ELN since November 2022, with an official role as an accompanying state, together with Germany, Sweden and Spain.

President Petro has now suspended peace negotiations with the ELN. “For the time being, it is hard to see these negotiations continuing,” Philipp Lustenberger, special envoy for the peace process at the Swiss foreign ministry in Bogotá told SWI swissinfo.ch.

“In the meantime, Switzerland is maintaining channels of communication with both sides. The conditions must be established so that they can sit down at the negotiating table again when the time comes,” he added. Switzerland has simultaneously condemned the escalating violence and humanitarian law violations.

Switzerland, a pioneer in peace policy and reconciliation, has been working since 2003 to bring the various conflicting parties in Colombia to a solution.

In 2023, at the request of both parties, Switzerland assumed an official mandate as a guarantor state in the peace negotiations between Petro’s government and the General Staff of Blocs and Fronts (EMBF), which has its origins in the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP).

These negotiations are continuing, including a bilateral ceasefire and the search for development opportunities for the affected population.

Lustenberger is concerned about the humanitarian situation, but at the same time, stresses that important progress has been made in the peace negotiations with other armed groups.

In the Colombian peace process, there are various negotiations ongoing with armed groups, as well as peace-building projects driven by civil society and the government. For example, the Colombian government is trying to work with armed organisations to find ways to reduce violence in cities such as Medellín and Buenaventura, explains Lustenberger.

Switzerland supported the negotiation of the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC-EP and has since helped to support its implementation.

“It’s clear that peacebuilding and negotiation efforts with armed groups are never easy,” Lustenberger says about his mediation role in Colombia. “There are challenges, but we also see opportunities.”

Former Swiss government minister Alain Berset (left) with former FARC-EP leader Rodrigo Londoño (right), now a politician, and Swiss special envoy for the peace process in Colombia, Philippe Lustenberger (centre), Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle

Limited state presence

“Switzerland is one of Colombia’s most important allies in the peace process,” said Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the UN secretary-general’s special representative in Colombia, on the visit of then Swiss president Alain Berset in August 2023, during which Berset visited several peacebuilding project sites.

Referring to the ELN atrocitiesExternal link, Ruiz Massieu recently told the UN Security Council in New York: “Catatumbo is like many regions of Colombia that are still awaiting the dividends of the 2016 peace agreement in terms of a comprehensive presence of the state that would bring public services, legal economies, development opportunities and security.”

Lustenberger added: “We need to think about transition processes that enable the state to gain the upper hand in the conflict zones and counter violence with sustainable development processes.” At the same time, he said it was clear that there were no simple solutions to Colombia’s complex structural problems. Despite the current situation, “we see the potential of the peace efforts”, he commented.

Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Translated from German by Katherine Price/sb.