Explosive attacks shake Colombia, just over a month before the presidential election

The deadliest occurred on Saturday when a bomb detonated on a road in the department of Cauca, in the southwest of the country. At least 21 civilians were killed and more than 50 injured, according to the latest balance sheet of the Ministry of Defense, in the attack allegedly perpetrated by the dissident Central General Staff of the extinct guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that did not adhere to the peace agreement signed in 2016.

Violence in that region of the country is not new, Illegal groups have tried to control the area for decades considering it strategic for illicit activities such as illegal mining and drug trafficking, which includes coca leaf fields, the raw material for cocaine.

The government of Gustavo Petro, the first center-left president in the country, has tried to control the region with military operations and reduce violence with its policy of “total peace”including a dialogue with the Central General Staff that was abandoned by the majority of its members in 2024.

“It is a wave of attacks that been coming for about two yearsin an increase in pressure by the Central General Staff through terrorist-type attacks against public forces… a systematic strategy,” Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press.

Colombian security authorities They put the number of attacks in that area at 26 in recent days.

The attacks are usually against security forces in urban and rural areas, but sometimes they end up affecting civilians like the one on Saturday, generating a special rejection by society and international organizations.

In that attack, an explosive device detonated in front of a bus that was traveling on the Pan-American highway in the El Túnel sector, in Cajibío, department of Cauca. Among the injured are several children.

“I want the maximum global persecution against this narcoterrorist group”Petro wrote in X on Saturday. He added that “the best soldiers will be available to confront them” and asked the financial analysis unit to act on their finances. Dickinson assured that the military forces have tried to regain territorial control in the southwest “centimeter by centimeter,” but have not been able to consolidate it, especially due to the “high level of social control that the groups manage in this area of ​​Cauca” by using civilians as “human shields.”

The attacks have shaken both the government and the presidential candidateswho have spoken about the security strategy.

“I believe that the attacks contribute to aggravating the general unrest with the security situation in Colombia. However, both the government and the opposition They will use them to convince voters that their political proposals are favorable,” Sergio Guzmán, a political risk analyst based in Bogotá, told AP.

The official candidate Iván Cepeda, one of those leading the voting intention polls, regretted the attacks and questioned whether they took place where “There is broad citizen support” to the government, so they could have sought to “generate a climate of fear that favors the interests of extreme right-wing sectors.”

Meanwhile, conservative candidates such as Paloma Valencia and Abelardo de la Espriella They questioned the policy of “total peace.”” of the government, considering that negotiations with multiple illegal armed groups and criminal gangs failed.

Javier Garay, doctor in Political Science and professor at the Externado University of Colombia, assured AP that in the midst of the electoral campaign, “political use” has been made of the attacks.

For Guzmán, the FARC dissidents can aim to “establish an advantageous position for the future” by showing that they have the capacity to carry out lethal attacks and, if they later declare a ceasefire, “show discipline” so that it allows him to negotiate peace again.