Petro Rejects Claims of ‘Security Crisis’ in Colombia

Written on 04/28/2026
Josep Freixes
Petro denied there was a “security crisis” in Colombia following the attacks and said the ICC had accepted the complaint against Mordisco. Credit: Ovidio Gonzalez / Presidency of Colombia.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, rejected on Monday night claims that the country is experiencing “security crisis,” in a televised address marked by the contrast between his message and the violence reported over the weekend.

His remarks came just hours after a series of attacks in the south of the country, the most serious of which was an explosive attack on the Pan-American Highway that left 20 dead and dozens injured.

The president’s address — in which he spoke to the nation on various current issues — sought to counter the perception of a deterioration in public order at a critical moment, but left a clear gap: Petro did not at any point directly refer to the region where the deadliest attacks took place.

The president also spoke again about what he calls a “drug trafficking junta” as the real leaders of these armed groups seeking to spread terror in the south of the country with the sole aim of strengthening their control over cocaine routes and interfering in next month’s presidential elections.

Related: Colombia Captures Key Leader Behind Last Weekend’s Attacks.

Petro rejects claims of ‘security crisis’ in Colombia

During his address, Petro insisted that the idea of a widespread collapse in security is exaggerated. According to the president, the country is not facing a scenario of chaos, but rather episodes of violence linked to specific dynamics that do not represent a total loss of institutional control.

“There is no security chaos; it is at its lowest level since 1993,” the president said in his address, while also asserting that the incidents correspond to a “settling of scores” between criminal gangs and “mafias.”

The president also argued that behind the recent violent incidents — 31 between April 24 and 27 — there is an intention to affect the democratic process. According to this narrative, illegal armed groups are attempting to instill fear to influence the electoral climate, creating a perception of crisis that, in his view, does not reflect the country’s structural reality.

His remarks, however, came in an especially sensitive context. The attack on the Pan-American Highway not only left a high number of victims, but also demonstrated the capacity of armed groups to carry out high-impact actions in strategic corridors in southwestern Colombia.

Authorities point to groups belonging to dissident factions of the now-defunct FARC, led by the alias Ivan Mordisco, as responsible for these attacks.

However, one of the most striking aspects of the address was the absence of explicit references to the territories hit by the weekend’s violence. Although the country remained shaken by what happened in Cauca and other areas in the south, the president chose not to mention these places directly.

The fact is that the country’s southwest has become one of the main centers of violence, although the situation is not new. There, disputes between armed groups over control of drug trafficking routes and illegal economies converge, leading to an escalation of attacks such as those seen in recent days.

Following the attacks over the weekend, the Colombian government stepped up its military presence in the south of the country to curb attacks by illegal armed groups that Petro claims are controlled by the drug trafficking cartel. Credit: Colombian Army.

ICC complaint against alias Ivan Mordisco

In his address to the nation, the president announced that the International Criminal Court (ICC) admitted the complaint that Colombia filed against alias Ivan Mordisco for crimes against humanity.

Petro also called for it to be extended to other armed leaders operating in the Cauca region, making clear that these structures are tied to drug trafficking and not to the former FARC.

“These fronts are not FARC. Correct the language because history should not be distorted. (…) They are simply narcoterrorist groups that put on uniforms with old insignia and appear to be political,” he explained in an attempt to clarify the nature of the groups Colombia currently faces.

Gustavo Petro also clarified his view that “Ivan Mordisco is number two in those fronts, because number one is the drug trafficking junta,” he said, repeating a narrative that the president has used since last year to describe a transnational criminal structure that, according to his claims, controls the export of cocaine from Colombia and other parts of the world, using illegal armed groups such as the Gulf Clan, the so-called Ivan Mordisco dissidents, and the Second Marquetalia for its internal operations.

In this context, the Colombian presidency accused these groups of “wanting to sabotage the elections” scheduled for May 31. “What the drug trafficking junta wants is for the far right to govern Colombia as it does in Ecuador,” Petro said, adding that most of the cocaine leaving the region comes from Peru and exits through “poorly guarded ports in Ecuador,” controlled by the drug trafficking junta.

Finally, the president alleged that this criminal organization “has influence within our public force and our prosecutor’s office; that is why there was no investigation into the murder of prosecutor Pecci—a Paraguayan anti-narcotics prosecutor killed by a hitman in Cartagena in May 2022.”