Colombia's negotiated demobilisation and democratic transition are working

The position holds that Colombia's negotiated demobilisation and its democratic transition are working and should be sustained. It rests on the view that the settlement path has delivered results and that the country should keep to it.

The position appears in coverage of Colombia itself, carried by 11 publishers from Western and allied countries. In that coverage it sits alongside a different framing of the same moment: an election result read as a mandate for security, with talk of a crackdown, a mega-prison, "mano dura" and the end of the Petro cycle.

The material names no competing position, but the events of recent months show where the argument turned. Abelardo de la Espriella, described in coverage as a right-wing outsider and a close ally of Donald Trump, won the presidential runoff in June by a very narrow margin, was sworn in on 8 August and said the time of restoring order, authority and freedom had begun. He promised to defeat narco-terrorism, and the United States said it plans $1 billion in security assistance to his government.