BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — About a hundred Colombian guerrilla dissidents on Thursday surrendered their weapons in a step toward their gradual reintegration into civilian life as part of a peace process with the government of President Gustavo Petro.
Dressed in military-style camouflage, the members of the National Coordinating Committee of the Bolivarian Army placed their weapons on a table during a formal ceremony in the department of Putumayo, which
borders Ecuador. The group is a dissident faction of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Now disarmed, the dissidents will enter a temporary resettlement zone where the government intends to facilitate their gradual reintegration into civilian life. The government in a statement explained that they “will have their freedom restricted and will be under the control and supervision” of authorities.
“We laid down the iron rifle because we understand that words are a more powerful weapon,” dissident leader Geovany Andrés Rojas said as part of the ceremony. He made the remarks remotely from jail, where he is being held after being captured last year when the group was engaged in peace talks with the government.
His arrest took place in connection with an Interpol Red Notice for drug trafficking charges in the United States. Rojas on Thursday said his capture undermined the confidence of the rank and file but did not derail the dialogue process.
Petro, a former rebel leader and Colombia’s first progressive president, is negotiating with the dissident faction as part of his signature “total peace” policy, which has opened parallel peace negotiations with multiple armed groups. The effort has largely failed.
The dissident groups emerged from factions that did not accept the historic peace agreement signed a decade ago by the state and FARC, formerly Latin America’s oldest guerrilla group. The country is estimated to have 27,000 illegally armed group members, according to a 2025 report by the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a think tank focused on the internal conflict.
Last week, Petro established a monitoring mechanism for the temporary relocation zone and ordered the suspension of offensive military and special police operations to allow the dissidents to enter the designated area.
