Colombia’s Guaviare Bombing Killed Three Minors — the Offensive That Replaced ‘Total Peace’

COLOMBIA · SECURITY

Three minors are confirmed among the dead from the Guaviare bombing of a FARC dissident camp, days after the new government formally turned the page on “total peace”. The offensive is expanding, and Washington is back in the frame.

River boats on the Guaviare. The department’s jungle municipalities, like El Retorno, are reached mostly by water and air. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Guaviare bombing’s youngest victims

The numbers from El Retorno keep getting worse. Three minors died in the Guaviare bombing of the dissident camp, the Bogotá radio network La FM reported on Monday, as forensic identification of the bodies advances.

President Abelardo de la Espriella had announced a preliminary toll of eight “terrorists neutralised” in what he called a precision bombing followed by a commando raid. Later counts, including ours, put the figure at eleven.

The operation, named AMON, targeted the faction of Alexander Díaz, better known as “Calarcá”. His group is one of the FARC dissident structures that rejected the 2016 peace accord and now fight over coca territory in Colombia’s south-east.

The presence of minors is the recurring wound in this strategy. A bombing in Calamar, Guaviare, last November killed seven children, and forensic examiners later counted 15 minors across four operations in late 2025.

Colombia’s ombudsman has repeated the same warning each time. Children forced into armed groups keep their reinforced legal protection, and the state must take every feasible precaution before striking.

From total peace to total offensive

The Guaviare bombing is the first major strike of a new era. De la Espriella took office this month after campaigning against his predecessor Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” policy of negotiating with armed groups.

He had promised to treat guerrillas who refused to demobilise as military targets. Within weeks he replaced the military high command and ordered a territorial push, and the remaining talks with the dissidents were formally closed.

“Colombia must know that we are going on the offensive,” he wrote on X as Operation AMON unfolded. The major ringleaders, he said, would have no sanctuary anywhere in the country.

A second blow in Valle del Cauca

The Guaviare bombing was not the only blow. Days later, the president announced that soldiers had killed a dissident commander known as “Felipe” or “Arcadio” in Valle del Cauca, on the Pacific side of the country.

He called the death a “crushing blow” to the dissident network, the Associated Press reported. Valle del Cauca has become a battleground as the factions push toward the port corridors used to move cocaine out by sea.

Washington back in the frame

The timing was not subtle. As the bombing unfolded, the head of the US Southern Command, Francis Donovan, arrived in Colombia to meet Defence Minister Jorge Mora.

The stated agenda was intelligence sharing and capabilities against “narco-terrorist organisations” under the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. It follows the expansion of joint operations with Ecuador along the shared border, which we reported yesterday.

The hardware is already moving. Colombia signed a 16.5-trillion-peso order (US$5.2 billion) for 17 Swedish-made Saab fighter jets last year, aircraft suited to precisely the kind of strike flown in Guaviare.

What to watch from here

The first test is legal. Prosecutors and the ombudsman will examine whether the El Retorno strike met the duty to protect forcibly recruited children, the same question that haunted Petro last November.

The second is retaliation. After last year’s Calamar bombing, dissident leader Iván Mordisco promised “revolutionary trials” against those responsible, and his faction is now fighting Calarcá’s men and the army at once.

The third is the border. Joint operations with the United States and Ecuador put pressure on the same groups from three sides, which historically pushes violence somewhere else rather than ending it.

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