Colombia's disappeared: As a coalition, former enemies now search for loved ones and dream of peace From time to time, Gustavo Arbeláez faces relatives whose losses were caused by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the powerful guerrilla group he was part of during Colombia’s five-decade armed conflict.
Since he came into office in 2022, the rebel-turned president who was sworn in as the country’s first leftist leader, Gustavo Petro, has pushed for “total peace.” His goal is to demobilize all rebels and drug trafficking gangs, but even as a ceasefire was carried out, negotiations with Colombia’s remaining guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), are in crisis and violence escalated.
The 2016 pact earned then-President Juan Manuel Santos a Nobel Peace Prize, but neither he nor his successors have fully addressed endemic violence, displacement and inequality — issues that helped spark Colombia’s conflict in the 1960s.
“I have never regretted being a guerrilla member,” said Arbeláez, who signed a divisive peace pact with the government alongside 13,600 FARC fighters in 2016.
Aiming to heal long-time wounds and build new paths toward reconciliation, dozens of former rebels, officials, forensic anthropologists and religious leaders now work side-by-side in finding their country’s disappeared.
