Colombian military patrol the Simón Bolívar International Bridge in Cúcuta on Tuesday. After the U.S. seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, members of powerful armed groups started arriving in Colombia from neighbouring Venezuela.Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
Before Mauricio Alvarez was threatened with death, he lived in the northeast Colombian village of La Gabarra, in an area that has farmed coca since the late 1980s.
The business of cocaine courses through both daily life and the local economy of the region, where Mr. Alvarez was the leader of 61 community associations. His attempts to negotiate better payment for small-time coca farmers earned him the fury of a criminal group that traffics in cocaine.
Mauricio Alvarez has lived in hiding for the past year.Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
His experience has given him a particularly clear perspective on the trade in a narcotic that has long made Colombia a place of interest for the United States – and, now, the subject of new threats from Donald Trump. The U.S. President, emboldened after his raid on neighbouring Venezuela, openly mused this week about taking military action against the country.
But Mr. Alvarez doubts that such action, including any bid to remove Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a loud antagonist whom Mr. Trump accuses of being a narco-trafficker, will cut the country’s production of narcotics.
Cocaine in Colombia would, instead, “grow stronger,” he said, citing Mr. Petro’s efforts to interrupt the work of traffickers in the country. “Planting would shoot up.”
In fact, Mr. Trump’s stunning decision on the weekend to seize Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has already bolstered the influence in Colombia of armed drug traffickers, including those that Mr. Alvarez says want to kill him. And groups that advocate for peace in the violence-torn country say they fear new problems as Mr. Trump weighs action against their country.
What happened this weekend, seen by some as a blatant violation of international law, “sets a very harmful precedent that could cause stability here in Colombia to collapse,” said Gerson Arias, a former Acting High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia who has worked extensively to end conflict in the country.
Mr. Trump has celebrated the South American political upheaval he set in motion, saying Tuesday that the operation to grab Mr. Maduro from his bedroom was “an incredible thing” that had removed a “violent guy” who has “killed millions of people.” Critics, he added, “should say, you know, ‘you did a great job.’ ”
Colombia has already seen reason to expect new violence.
In recent days, after the U.S. action against Mr. Maduro, hundreds of members of powerful armed groups – including those associated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC, and the National Liberation Army, known locally as ELN – have arrived from Venezuela, according to local officials, conflict research groups and the Colombian minister of defence.
The entry of such people into the country “will most likely generate conflict. It will be worse,” said Leandro Ugarte, secretary for victims, peace and post conflict for Cúcuta, a Colombian city on the border with Venezuela.
More militants will inevitably lead to a bid for control of more territory, “and if that is what is happening at this moment, then it’s like what happened on Jan. 17,” he said.
On that date last year, renewed outbreak of conflict in the Catatumbo region between FARC dissidents and the ELN led to the suspension of peace talks with the ELN. Tens of thousands of local residents fled. Dozens were killed.
The FARC dissidents are groups who refused to disarm after a much-celebrated 2016 peace deal, which has badly frayed.
More militants entering Colombia will inevitably lead to more violence, said Leandro Ugarte, secretary for victims, peace and post conflict for Cúcuta.Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
Conflict in Catatumbo contributed to a grim year for Colombia with 1.6 million people affected by violence and armed conflict between January and November of 2025, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a tally three times higher than in 2024.
The number of people who were either trapped or displaced by that violence – nearly a quarter million in total – was the highest on record since 2008, when OCHA began counting those figures.
Fresh hostilities erupted on Dec. 22, and nearly 2,000 have already been displaced, Mr. Ugarte said.
The arrival of militants from Venezuela is of particular concern because of who is believed to be coming, said Mr. Arias, who is now a researcher with Ideas for Peace Foundation, a think tank that works on conflict resolution. An estimated 70 per cent of the central command and national leadership for ELN has been based in Venezuela.
He believes that as much as a third of the group’s armed component in Venezuela may decamp for Colombia, driven by fear that they could be a target for further U.S. operations in the country – or given up by the current Venezuelan leadership as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the White House. The ELN, one of Latin America’s most fearsome militant organizations, had played a role as a paramilitary force in support of Mr. Maduro.
Colombian Defence Minister dismisses Trump’s threats, says U.S. is not an enemy
Mr. Trump’s order to seize Mr. Maduro also stands to further radicalize a group already hostile to the idea of the U.S. as an imperial force. By attacking Caracas, “the empire arrived and the empire is the enemy. That makes any peace process more difficult going forward,” Mr. Arias said.
In a statement released Sunday, the ELN criticized what it called “American imperialism” for once again attacking “the national sovereignty of countries in Our America and the world.”
In Colombia, meanwhile, violence has returned to the country’s Venezuelan border areas as presidential elections loom, scheduled for this May. Conflict creates logistical problems with carrying out the vote. Among them are the many local leaders who have been displaced by the conflict.
Colombian military patrol the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
“We don’t know how that electoral process will be carried out because the gangs and violent actors will try to take over the leadership we have in the communities,” said Martha Maldonado, human rights secretary for the National Confederation of Community Action, which represents about 16,000 local councils throughout the country.
Mr. Alvarez is among those who have been displaced.
He has lived in hiding for the past year after he was publicly denounced by FARC dissidents, who offered a cash reward for information about his whereabouts. He angered the group – the 33rd Front – by threatening to block the movement of its boats unless small-time coca farmers received better payment for their goods. He was then accused of doing the bidding of the ELN.
He has also worked to encourage farmers to switch to legal crops.
But the overt violence of armed groups in the region has sought to end that work. Any growth in numbers from militants who arrive from Venezuela, he believes, will worsen the situation.
“Their modus operandi is to discredit and remove us,” he said.