Paz Total Cost Colombia US$40 Million and Ended With More Fighters in the Field
Colombia · Analysis
Key Facts
- —What Paz Total was Colombia’s attempt under President Gustavo Petro to negotiate with every armed group at once.
- —Who ended it Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office on 7 August 2026 and shut the last talks down.
- —What it cost 125,174 million pesos, or about US$40 million, between August 2022 and June 2026.
- —Where the money went Air travel, bodyguards for negotiators, fees, logistics and meetings held in Doha and Havana.
- —What happened to the groups Their combined membership rose from 15,120 fighters to 28,802 over the same four years.
- —The larger audit Colombia’s public spending watchdog found 344 problems in peace-related accounts worth far more.
Colombia’s new government has closed the last of the peace talks its predecessor opened, and published what they cost. The spending is modest by the standards of a national budget. The results are the problem.
Colombia has now closed every peace negotiation it opened over the past four years. Paz Total, the policy that produced them, has a final bill and a set of results that do not sit comfortably together.
What the Policy Was
Gustavo Petro took office in 2022 promising to talk to everyone with a gun. The idea was given legal form by Ley 2272 of that year, which made peace a formal policy of the state.
The law created two separate tracks. One was political negotiation with rebel groups that claim a cause.
The other was a surrender-to-justice route for urban criminal gangs. Those gangs have no political standing under Colombian law.
That second track was the novel part and the contested one. Colombian law had never before offered a structured negotiating table to a drug gang.
Around twelve armed organisations were engaged at various points. Talks were held in Doha, Havana, Mexico City and Caracas as well as inside Colombia.
The Bill
The peace commissioner’s office put the total at 125,174 million pesos, about US$40 million. The period runs from August 2022 to June 2026, and the figure came out under a freedom of information request.
Of that, 107,572 million pesos, roughly US$34.6 million, went on the political negotiations. The gang track took 17,601 million pesos, or about US$5.7 million.
Air transport was the single largest line at 21,979 million pesos, close to US$7.1 million. Protection details for negotiators came next at 21,200 million pesos, around US$6.8 million.
Fees for negotiators on the political track ran to 18,378 million pesos, about US$5.9 million. Per diems and travel allowances were comparatively small at 1,735 million pesos, roughly US$560,000.
The Clan del Golfo process alone consumed about 20,000 million pesos, near US$6.4 million, including the Doha venue. Weapons destruction, by contrast, accounted for 4,080 million pesos, about US$1.3 million.
What the Money Bought
Membership of the armed groups did not fall during the talks. It rose from 15,120 fighters in December 2022 to 28,802 by July 2026, an increase of about 90 percent.
The Clan del Golfo grew from 4,061 members to 10,268. The National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, went from 5,851 to 7,123.
Homicides rose from 13,939 in 2022 to 14,780 in 2025. Recorded kidnappings went from 223 to 651.
No final agreement was signed with any group, and no organisation was dismantled. The policy ends without the outcome it was designed to produce.
A Much Larger Audit Sits Behind It
That figure covers the negotiating tables alone. Colombia’s public spending watchdog, the Contraloría General, examined peace-related accounts more broadly.
In August it reported 344 findings and possible losses of 1.16 trillion pesos, about US$373 million. The report runs to roughly 800 pages.
That covers implementation of the 2016 peace accord as well as Paz Total, so the two figures should not be added together. It does, however, set the scale of the accounting problem the new government inherited.
A separate audit of the state peace fund has flagged possible cost overruns and inconsistencies in contracting. Its findings have not been made public in full.
How It Was Ended
Nine resolutions signed on 28 August terminated the processes, backdated to inauguration day on 7 August. Abelardo de la Espriella announced the closure publicly on 11 September.
The list covers the ELN and three tables linked to former guerrilla structures. It also covers a paramilitary group on the Caribbean coast and the criminal talks in Medellín, Quibdó and Buenaventura.
A temporary settlement zone in Putumayo was closed as well. Five government negotiators lost their appointments on the same day.
In my government criminals will not have political status, the president said. He has described what his officials keep finding as waste and administrative disorder.
A communiqué on 15 September set out the choice now offered. Those willing to disarm must submit to the courts, and those who continue attacking civilians will face the security forces.
The Argument That Follows
Senator Iván Cepeda of the Pacto Histórico has led the defence of the policy. A campaign has begun to turn seeking peace into a crime, he said.
Camilo González Posso, a former chief negotiator, defended the regional tracks. Abandoning those in Nariño and Putumayo threw away reintegration routes already built, he argued.
Neither Petro nor his peace commissioner has answered the spending figures directly. The former president has restated his broader security doctrine instead.
A former justice minister in the same government has conceded the failure. He described the errors that led to it as something he had complained about at the time.
What replaces Paz Total is not yet a policy so much as an ultimatum. Whether Colombia’s security forces can deliver what four years of talking did not is the question the next two years will answer.
More: Colombia coverage, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Paz Total?
It was President Gustavo Petro’s policy of negotiating simultaneously with every armed group in Colombia, given legal form by Ley 2272 of 2022. It covered both political rebel groups such as the ELN and urban criminal organisations, which were offered a surrender-to-justice route rather than a political negotiation.
How much did it cost?
The peace commissioner’s office reports 125,174 million pesos, about US$40 million, on the negotiating tables between August 2022 and June 2026. Separately, the Contraloría General has identified 344 findings and possible losses of around US$373 million across peace-related spending more broadly, a wider category that includes the 2016 accord.
Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?
He is a lawyer who was inaugurated as Colombia’s president on 7 August 2026 for the 2026 to 2030 term, at the head of a movement called Defensores de la Patria that was registered as a party days before he took office.
What happens to the armed groups now?
The government has given them a choice between submitting to the courts and facing the security forces. No negotiating table remains open, and the designations of the government’s peace negotiators have been revoked.
Sources: El Tiempo on the cost of the Paz Total talks, from Consejería Comisionada de Paz records, El Tiempo on the Contraloría’s 344 findings, El País on the formal termination of the dialogue processes, Infobae on the growth of armed groups during the period, Ley 2272 de 2022, the legal basis for Paz Total, Semana on Iván Cepeda’s response, El Colombiano on the spending breakdown
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times