President Abelardo de la Espriella launched a military task force on Monday to fight rebel groups and drug gangs in Colombia's northeast. The move closes the door on negotiations with armed groups and puts force at the center of the government's security strategy.
The new unit, called Urano, will bring together army, navy and air force troops with police officers. De la Espriella said one of its main missions is to stop the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN and Colombia's largest remaining rebel group, from stealing gasoline and diesel from a pipeline that runs from the Caribbean coast to a refinery in Barrancabermeja. He accused the group of taking fuel to “feed” criminal economies. “They use it to make cocaine, to power illegal mines and to generate income for terrorist activities,” he said at a ceremony in Valledupar.
Then came the sentence that defines the shift. “There will be no negotiations or empathy with terrorism,” he said.
A Sharp Break From Negotiation
The launch marks a reversal. De la Espriella, a conservative sworn into office in August, has canceled peace talks with the nation's remaining rebel groups. The government has shifted from dialogue to offensives against criminal organizations, bringing a joint command structure back to the countryside.
Colombia has traveled this road before. For almost two decades, the military deployed joint task forces made up of army, navy and air force troops to fight rebel groups in rural areas, while commanders in Bogota oversaw them. Those units helped the military win key victories against the FARC rebels before the group signed a peace deal in 2016, a decade ago.
The FARC agreement remains the country's most significant effort to end armed conflict through negotiation. By canceling talks with the groups that remain, the government walks away from the only approach that has ever formally ended a rebel insurgency in Colombia.
What Changed Under Petro
The previous administration chose a different path. Two years ago, former President Gustavo Petro's government dropped the joint task force strategy as officials sought to give army commanders in rural areas greater control over operations. Some critics said the decision weakened Colombia's military.
De la Espriella said restoring the joint task forces would let the government confront rebel groups and drug gangs with greater force. The source offers no figures on how many troops Urano will field, what it will cost or how success will be measured.
The Open Questions
Those gaps matter. The president framed pipeline theft as a financing engine for cocaine production and illegal mining, but the announcement said nothing about rural communities living in areas where these groups operate. Nor did it explain what protections, services or economic alternatives the government might offer people caught between armed groups and an expanded military presence.
The announcement also leaves unexplained how the government plans to balance the military buildup with the diplomatic channels it has now shut. Talks are canceled. The state has one tool in the northeast, and it's the one with the longest and most painful record in Colombian history.
Why This Matters: Colombia has spent decades learning that armed conflict is rarely settled by force alone. The 2016 peace deal with the FARC showed that negotiation could end a rebel insurgency, and canceling talks with the remaining groups gives up that proven route. Military offensives in rural areas tend to hit hardest the communities who live there, yet the announcement offered no word on civilian protection, oversight of the new force or investment in regions where armed groups find recruits and revenue. The pipeline theft the president described sends real money to criminal economies, and stopping it is a legitimate public goal. Whether a force-first approach can do that without deepening insecurity for ordinary Colombians in the northeast is the question the government hasn't yet answered.