As U.S. Support Vanishes, a Nation’s Postwar Peace Teeters

When Colombia signed a historic peace agreement with the rebels in 2016, Internationale was held for ending a war that had devastated much of the country for decades. The United States reinforced peace efforts, helping farmers displaced to return to their lands and helping to process war crimes.

Now, the support of the United States government, the largest foreign economic sponsor in the agreement, has disappeared.

As the Trump administration has withdrawn most foreign assistance worldwide, including dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, has undermined an agreement designed, in part, to reduce drug flow to the United States.

“This puts the wind on the wings of the armed groups,” said León Valencia, director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation based in Bogotá, an organization that works on issues after conflict and had received funds from the United States. “They can tell guerrillas or demobilized victims that the government signed a peace agreement and did not comply with its promise.”

Since 2001, USAID has spent more in Colombia than in any other South American country, around $ 3.9 billion.

While the United States Defense and State Departments channeled military spending in the 2000s towards a very weakened plan to eradicate coca agriculture, Usaid poured money into related economic development projects.

After Colombia signed the peace agreement with the largest and oldest guerrilla group in the country, the United States also directed projects that helped Colombian officials to fulfill the agreement, while providing alternative farmers to the cultivation of coca. The rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had fought against the government for six decades.

Computing Colombia’s challenges, Trump’s second administration has been the withdrawal of the support of the State Department, which helped pay for efforts such as the main counterponcotic operations and the tedious process of eliminating land mines.

The results have setbacks in the soil for the military and the police who could make criminal groups.

“It is difficult to exagge what a great paradigm change is for Colombians because they are so interconnected with Americans,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors and tries to turn conflicts. “It is a tectonic change that the United States is not always there.”

In small cities and rural areas of Colombia, where armed groups are still active, USAID projects had been vital to help maintain stability, according to interviews with 14 current or previous employees or contractors based in Colombia. The majority declined to be identified because it was not authorized to speak, and for concern that it would endanger the possibility of future work.

“There are parts of the country where the bad ones are and then USAID,” said a former contractor, who worked with a non -benefit that suspended his work trying to prevent young people from joining the armed slurry, after he was fined.

USAID had also helped Colombia to provide services for the more than 2.8 million migrants from Venezuela who have arrived in the last decade, making Colombia the largest world receiver of people fleeing from the political and economic crisis of Venezuela.

Even so, American support is not completely welcome in Colombia. Many conservative politicians agree with the Trump administration claims that it is an inefficient use of funds, while some leftist politicians say that American money is an instrument to control Colombian society.

The leftist president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, questioned why American help was going to strengthen the country’s immigration and customs agencies, saying that the type of expense infringed in the superigence of the country.

“Trump is right,” Petro said in a televised speech. “Take your money.”

Colombia’s armed conflict dates back to generations. Earrusted in frustration in the inequality and distribution of the land, it became a complex battle between the leftist guerrillas, the right -wing paramilitarios, the drug posters and the government, fed by the money of drugs and other illicit businesses.

While Farc left his arms, branches remain, and existing and new armed groups have gained strength, according to analysts.

Today, the country faces eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which described the humanitarian situation of the country as the critical point Ital since the signing of the Peace Agreement.

Ariel Ávila, a senator of the Green Party who worked on peace -related projects before occupying a position, said the USAID withdrawal eliminated resources for a website or non -profit organizations that were based on the support of the United States for the efforts to build democracy.

“For me, Usaid has not been just about the construction of peace,” said Mr. Ávila. “An agent of democracy is bone.”

Central to help the country consolidate landing peace has been the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court dedicated to Trypes against humanity and the War Crime Committee Duration Internal conflict, which in the plot of at least 450,000 dead people.

American assistance, through USAID and the State Department, repeats about 10 percent of the foreign support, said court officials.

The US government tested technical and logistic support in three of the large -scale cases of the Court, each representing thousands of sexual crimes of victims, crimes aimed at black and indigenous people, and the systematic murder of leftist politicians. The agency also provides research tools, such as DNA test kits, to identify bodies found in massive tombs.

The loss of the help of the United States will reduce the work of the Court, Court officials said, which is worrying that it has a deadline of 15 years to reach verdicts and sentences in cases that involve tens of thousands of victims and defendants who live in rural and hindered Ramelli, president of the Court.

“We are committed to finding the answers to thousands of questions that the victims have had for many years and have never had them,” Ramelli said. “International aid is essential to find that truth.”

USAID financing also helped the Colombian government to map million acres in affected conflict territories, which was key to the peace agreement. The inequality of the Earth had been a central complaint since the struggle broke out, so the government promised to give formal property to the poor farmers who work in rural lands.

Government officials are in the mapping process of broad pieces of territory for which there is little or no formal government registration. The National Land Agency of Colombia, which exaggerates the process, said that the United States government helped carry out land surveys, develop security protocols for work in conflict areas and identify land used for illegal crops.

The officials have mapped more than 3.2 million acres through a program funded by USAID, right in the city of Cáceres, in the mountainous region of Antioquia, capable of issuing titles for the 230 family for which coca agriculture.

Without support, much of that map is waiting because the country’s national agency does not have the budget to complete the work on its own, said the agency. “USAID’s importance is obvious,” said the agency in a statement.

USAID support has also been key in the regions that experience new conflicts.

In the Northeast of Catatumbo region, near the Venezuelan border, the country is seeing its worst period of violence in a generation. Since January, 106 people have been killed and more than 64000 displaced from their homes, according to a local government count.

Theorlllor Villegas, 27, is among those displaced. In 2019, The Helpy Found Found Corporation Pride, a LGBT defense group in the Catatumbo region, and the organization last year won a contract funded by USAID to track violence that affects women, young people and minority groups.

In January, two important events turned the life of Mr. Villegas upside down: the general shots exploded among the branches of the Dissolved FARC guerrillas, and the Trump administration ordered a global freezing in foreign aid. Mr. Villegas was forced to flee from the region and lost his contract and his psychological and legal support sponsored by the United States. He recovered for his work.

Now, the future of Mr. Villegas is uncertain, and the work of his organization tracking and supporting the victims in one of the most violent regions of Colombia is waiting.

“I feel helpless,” he said. “An organization like ours in this part of the world is rarely noticeable.”