Colombia’s president had a bold peace plan. It is not working
Negotiations that are not backed up by military muscle merely let armed groups expand
Anthony Colmenares would pick up some nappies for his newborn and be home soon, he told his mother in San Cristóbal, a city in Venezuela. That was on July 17th 2019. He did not return. “We started calling, calling, calling,” his mother, Zenaida Basto, recalls tearfully. No reply. Police tracked his phone; the last ping was from near the Colombian border. She says they concluded that he had been snatched by the National Liberation Army (ELN), a 6,000-strong Marxist-Leninist rebel group with a history of kidnappings. Ms Basto believes her son may be alive, held as a forced worker.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Total peace”
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