The reversal is hanging. Gustavo Petro, the primary leftist president of up to date Colombia, has closed ranks in protection of the kind of navy operations he used to sentence up to now, when he was a member of the opposition. “To say that the bombings ought to cease throughout offensive motion by drug traffickers is to ask them to recruit extra kids,” he wrote on his social media accounts this Tuesday, dismissing the message from the Ombudswoman, Iris Marín, who had publicly requested him to droop the strikes and reassess the state of affairs. “I reiterate that we have now not violated IHL [International Humanitarian Law] within the bombings I ordered. To say that the bombings ought to cease after we are working inside IHL is extremely naive,” the president insisted on X, his most well-liked media outlet. He had beforehand conceded that bombings “all the time carry a danger,” however that he had determined to just accept it.
A complete of 15 minors have died in navy operations carried out by the Armed Forces between August and November within the departments of Guaviare, Amazonas, and Arauca, the National Institute of Legal Medicine confirmed on Monday. Specifically, the deaths of seven minors in Guaviare on November 10, in what’s now thought-about the worst bombing of the Petro period, sparked a heated public debate on human rights amidst a fancy safety disaster.
Petro’s predecessor, the conservative Iván Duque, permitted a strike in 2019 in a rural space of the Caquetá division, which he initially described as “an impeccable operation,” an indication of “heroism” and “coordination.” Supported by forensic studies, Senator Roy Barreras — then within the opposition, now a presidential candidate — accused the minister of protection on the time, Guillermo Botero, of concealing the deaths of seven minors in that navy motion. The barrage of accusations finally price him his place, as he resigned within the face of the approaching approval of a no-confidence vote in Congress.
“If the federal government knew there have been minors there earlier than the bombing in Caquetá, we’re coping with a conflict crime, that’s, against the law towards humanity,” said Petro, then a senator, on the time. In the ultimate stretch of the Duque administration, scandals involving the deaths of minors in bombings resurfaced. His final protection minister, Diego Molano, even referred to these victims of pressured recruitment as “conflict machines.”
In his three years in energy, Petro has adopted a number of safety insurance policies he as soon as criticized. Air strikes are certainly one of them. Among the early bulletins by Iván Velásquez, his first minister of protection, was the suspension of strikes on camps belonging to unlawful teams the place minors is likely to be current. This measure severely restricted such assaults, on condition that the recruitment of minors is a continuing follow among the many varied armed teams, together with the so-called dissidents of the now-defunct FARC guerrillas; the Gulf Clan, the nation’s largest drug trafficking group; and the ELN, the final remaining armed insurgency.
Military bombings solely resurfaced after a Gulf Clan ambush killed 4 troopers in Segovia, in northeastern Antioquia, in February 2024. Shortly later, in March, Petro adopted by on his risk to relentlessly bomb the most important drug trafficking group in that very same area of Colombia. In 2025, beneath the brand new Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez, a retired Air Force common, the federal government has carried out greater than a dozen air strikes, principally towards the dissident faction of Iván Mordisco, the self-styled Central General Staff or EMC.
Sánchez, who turned well-known because the particular forces common who commanded the seek for 4 Indigenous kids misplaced within the Amazon rainforest, turned the primary navy protection minister for the reason that 1991 Constitution. Faced with the inefficacy of his complete peace coverage — which sought to barter concurrently with all armed teams — and the deterioration of safety, President Petro opted for a realistic response that a couple of observer considers a step backward.
Laura Bonilla, deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), believes that Petro’s flip was cemented when he appointed Pedro Sánchez as his protection minister. “He did so totally conscious that he would give a extra militaristic twist to his complete safety coverage,” the knowledgeable factors out. The Armed Forces favor air strikes as a result of they don’t danger any navy casualties, regardless of the potential penalties for civilians, together with kids and youngsters, she explains. “The president is at present very a lot dedicated to that notion,” she opines. In this matter, she provides, there may be a substantial amount of electoral calculation concerned and an effort by the Armed Forces to indicate fast and decisive outcomes to the United States at a very delicate second in relations between two conventional allies.
The reactions maintain coming in. A no-confidence vote towards Defense Minister Sánchez was filed this Tuesday, with the signatures of a number of congressmen allied with the federal government, not simply these from the opposition. “As I’ve executed up to now, I reiterate my place that actions of this nature are clearly prohibited by humanitarian legislation,” said Senator Iván Cepeda, the presidential candidate for the ruling Historical Pact. “The dying of any youngster is a tragedy; these of us who’re mother and father know this. And we should fight the recruitment of minors,” declared Roy Barreras, who’s in search of to problem him throughout the so-called Broad Front, the coalition that helps Petro. “But a head of state — and I shall be — should defend the lives of all, together with these of kids, troopers, and all Colombians.”
Another candidate from the Broad Front, former inside minister Juan Fernando Cristo, opined that “renouncing using the state’s offensive air capability by bombing makes no sense right now.” The underlying drawback, he added, is the surge within the recruitment of minors, “with Mordisco’s group being the one that almost all incessantly resorts to this abhorrent violation of all human rights norms and International Humanitarian Law.”
Humberto de la Calle, a former peace negotiator with the now-defunct FARC who is commonly important of Petro, echoed the president’s sentiments: “The massive drawback is that if the alleged presence of minors results in the suspension of navy motion, recruitment will skyrocket. The remedy is worse than the illness.”
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