On Monday, 12 October, Colombia asked the United Nations Security Council to remove rural reform from the mandate of the UN mission monitoring its peace deal with the FARC. If the Council approves, the mission will provide less international oversight of Colombia’s land policy and focus more closely on security. The mandate expires on 31 October 2026, and no vote date had been set.
Who Sets the Mandate
Foreign Minister Omar Bula said the mission should continue, concentrating on reintegrating former FARC fighters and the security guarantees promised in the agreement. Rural reform, he argued, is a structural public policy that should become a permanent part of Colombia’s own institutions. “Our commitment remains intact,” Bula told the 15-member Council. He said the final decision belonged to the Council and Colombia wasn’t seeking to change any resolution unilaterally.
Colombia holds one of the Council’s 10 elected seats for 2026 and 2027. The Council added the peace deal’s land chapter to the mission’s duties in 2023. That chapter promises land, roads and services for poor farming regions. A new resolution requires nine votes among the Council’s 15 members and no veto.
The United States is one of five permanent Council members with veto power. U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bartos, the U.S. representative for UN management and reform, welcomed “Colombia’s determination to take ownership of rural reform.” He said the mission should keep its core verification work and field presence, and the Council should “focus on core mandates, and deliver results rather than perpetuate missions indefinitely.”
Land Policy and Security
Bula cited 132,930 people murdered in Colombia between July 2016 and August 2026, nearly 100,000 extortion cases and more than 2,750 kidnappings. He said armed groups 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.
Miroslav Jenča, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative who leads the mission, cited government data given to Colombia’s Congress showing illegal armed groups grew from about 15,000 members in 2022 to roughly 28,000. Jenča said 501 former FARC fighters had been killed since 2016; the latest cited killing was 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.
The mission monitors the peace deal but isn’t a security force. Established in 2017, it operates 29 offices across the country, according to Jenča. More than 11,000 former FARC members remain in reintegration. They have started about 6,000 productive projects and 300 cooperatives, with activities ranging from coffee to tourism.
Jenča said the rural reform chapter aims to improve services, jobs and local institutions. Development plans monitored by the mission, he said, help extend the state into conflict zones. 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 named no outside body to monitor it.
Council Debate and Oversight
Bartos praised President Abelardo De la Espriella for ending peace talks with armed groups inherited from his left-wing predecessor, Gustavo Petro. He also 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, and Washington looked forward to a deeper security partnership against groups that had preyed on “Colombians and Americans alike.”
During the 2025 renewal, the United States insisted on removing two tasks: monitoring the peace deal’s chapter on ethnic communities and sentences from its special peace court. Most other Council members wanted to retain those tasks, according to Security Council Report, a New York research group. Britain, which drafts the Council’s texts on Colombia, was preparing a resolution and already talking to Colombia, El Tiempo reported. The Council’s decision on rural reform remained uncertain.