On Monday, 12 October, Colombia asked the United Nations Security Council to remove rural reform from the mandate of the mission monitoring its peace deal with the FARC. The change would reduce international oversight of land policy affecting poor farming regions. The land chapter promises land, roads and services, and the Council added implementation of that chapter to the mission’s duties in 2023.
Foreign Minister Omar Bula said the mission should continue, focused on reintegrating former FARC fighters and verifying promised security guarantees. He described rural reform as a structural public policy that should become a permanent part of Colombia’s own institutions. “Our commitment remains intact,” he told the 15-member Council. Colombia wasn't seeking to change any resolution unilaterally, he said; the final decision belongs to the Council.
The mission’s mandate expires on 31 October 2026, but the Council hasn’t set a vote date. If members approve Colombia’s request, the mission would provide less international oversight of the country’s land policy and focus more on security.
Land Policy and Oversight
In August, Agriculture Minister Indalecio Dangond announced a 90-day pause on land handovers and titling for review. Bula said the Agriculture Ministry had legal tools to continue land policy, but he named no outside body to monitor it. Colombia’s request would remove a monitoring role the Security Council added three years ago, while responsibility for the policy would remain with Colombia’s institutions.
The land chapter formed the first part of the 2016 peace deal. The UN Verification Mission in Colombia began work in 2017 to check implementation of that agreement, and it operates 29 offices across the country, according to Miroslav Jenča, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative who leads the mission. Jenča said the rural reform chapter aims to improve services, jobs and local institutions. He added that development plans monitored by the mission help extend the state into conflict zones.
More than 11,000 former FARC members remain in reintegration. They’ve started about 6,000 productive projects and 300 cooperatives, with activities ranging from coffee to tourism. Jenča said 501 former FARC fighters had been killed since 2016; the latest cited killing took place on 22 September in the northern province of Cesar. He also condemned the 1 September killing of two community leaders in Cauca, in the southwest.
Security and the State
Bula told the Council that 132,930 people were murdered in Colombia between July 2016 and August 2026. He cited nearly 100,000 extortion cases and more than 2,750 kidnappings. Armed groups, he said, had grown from about 6,000 to almost 30,000 members since the peace deal. Coca, the plant used to make cocaine, covered about 253,000 hectares in 2023, roughly 980 square miles.
Jenča cited government data presented to Colombia’s Congress showing illegal armed groups grew from about 15,000 members in 2022 to roughly 28,000. Bula also cited 119 extraditions signed by the president, presenting them as cooperation against transnational drug trafficking. The mission monitors the peace deal; it isn't a security force.
U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bartos welcomed “Colombia’s determination to take ownership of rural reform” and said the mission should retain its core verification work and field presence. The United States is one of five permanent Security Council members with veto power. During the 2025 renewal, it insisted on removing two tasks: the peace deal’s chapter on ethnic communities and sentences from its special peace court.
Bartos said the United States had sent more than US$26.5 million in aid after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Colombia on 10 August. He also said Washington looked forward to a deeper security partnership against groups that had preyed on “Colombians and Americans alike.” He praised President Abelardo De la Espriella for ending peace talks with armed groups inherited from his left-wing predecessor, Gustavo Petro.
Britain, which drafts the Council’s texts on Colombia, was preparing a resolution and already talking to Colombia, El Tiempo reported. A new resolution requires nine of the Council’s 15 votes and no veto. The Council's decision on Colombia’s request remains uncertain.