Bogotá, Colombia – Human rights defenders, analysts and social leaders in Colombia have expressed concern about the humanitarian situation in conflict-affected regions ahead of the country’s presidential elections on Sunday.
Although the National Liberation Army (ELN) and several dissident groups of the now-defunct FARC rebels have announced temporary ceasefires during the election period, rights ...
The narrative of electoral risk is constructed upon the tension between formal peace agreements and the persistent reality of territorial control by armed groups. The shift from accepting ceasefires to questioning their validity—as demonstrated by the sentiment that "people no longer truly believe in ceasefires"—reveals a pattern where formal agreements are decoupled from ground-level security realities. This systemic issue is amplified by the mechanism of fear, where local communities are subje...