UN experts on March 27 welcomed Colombian President Gustavo Petro's ratification of the 1989 International Convention against Recruitment, Use, Financing & Training of Mercenaries. The experts praised the signing of what amounts to a new anti-mercenary legislative package, calling it an essential step toward protecting human rights and upholding international legal obligations.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Feb. 15 he would accept a proposal from the country's largest remaining rebel group to allow an independent commission to investigate its alleged links to drug trafficking.

Nicolás Maduro, the former president of Venezuela, appeared alongside his wife before a federal judge in New York on Jan. 5—with dueling demonstrations by his supporters and opponents outside the Manhattan courthouse. Separated by police lines, the rival protests nonetheless repeatedly escalated to physical confrontations. Inside, Maduro told US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein: "I'm innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country." Maduro also told the judge he was "kidnapped from" his home in Caracas. His attorneys are expected to argue he was illegally arrested and is immune from prosecution.

Human rights organizations, including the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), have urged an immediate end to violence between illegal armed groups in the northeast Colombian region of Catatumbo. WOLA joined the Colombian movement "Defendamos la Paz" in a call for armed groups in Catatumbo to suspend their conflict. In the Jan. 19 statement, WOLA wrote: "The Ejercito Nacional de Liberación (ELN) must cease human rights violations and adopt a truce to halt armed confrontations with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) dissidents." The rights organizations also called on the Colombian government to provide immediate humanitarian aid for the large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the region. WOLA urged the armed groups involved to "respect international humanitarian law and allow relief efforts to reach those in need."

A Venezuelan indigenous leader who fought against incursions by Colombian armed groups and outlaw gold miners into the country's southern rainforest was shot dead on June 30 in the Escondido 3 sector of Puerto Ayacucho municipality, capital of Amazonas state. Virgilio Trujillo Arana, a member of the Uwottujja indigenous people, was the leading force in the creation of the Sipapo Territorial Guards in Autana municipality, Amazonas. The Territorial Guard patrols were launched with support from the Amazonas Indigenous Peoples' Regional Organization (ORPIA).

Despite a peace process that has faltered under President Ivan Duque, the internal war in Colombia continues nearly across the country—now involving multiple armed actors: remnant guerilla groups, resurgent paramilitary forces, regional cartels, and the official security forces. Thousands have been displaced in recent months, as campesino and indigenous communities are either caught in the crossfire or explicitly targeted.

Rural communities in Colombia's northeastern Arauca department held anti-war protests amid inter-factional guerilla violence that has been terrorizing the region. Demanding attention from the government and international human rights organizations, some 1,200 marched in the hamlet of Puerto Jordan on Jan. 4, and another 500 in nearby Botalón, both in Tame municipality. Mayerly Briceño, an organizer of the protests in Tame, told El Espectador: "The state has no presence here, absolutely none; they only come here to protect the oil companies, to safeguard the petroleum. This is not about them coming to militarize... More zones are leaving behind fear and taking to the streets to demand peace. It is the only thing we can do as a people, to demand that peace comes to our territory." 

So-called "dissident"  FARC factions that have refused to accept the Colombian peace accords and taken refuge across the border in Venezuela now appear to be waging a local insurgency against the Nicolás Maduro regime. A group calling itself the Martin Villa 10th Front announced in early May that it had captured eight Venezuelan soldiers on April 23 during a battle in Apure state, near the Colombian border. On May 31, Venezuela's National Bolivarian Armed Forces announced that the soldiers had been freed in a rescue operation. But the independent Caracas Chronicles reports that the eight were actually released under terms of a deal negotiated in Cuba. The deal was said to have been brokered with the help of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a second Colombian guerilla group which remains in arms and whose leadership is based in Havana.