Instead, the president entrusted his first address to the UN to Vice-President José Manuel Restrepo, who delivered a speech written by De La Espriella and used the international stage to outline the new administration’s priorities on security, economic growth, sovereignty, human rights and Venezuela.

“I have asked the Vice-President of the Republic, José Manuel Restrepo, to read this message on my behalf,” Restrepo said at the beginning of the address. “I have done so because I assured the Colombian people that I would not leave the country during the four years of my mandate. I am keeping that promise.”

The decision breaks with the recent practice of Colombian presidents personally attending the annual gathering in New York. Restrepo had travelled to the United States ahead of the General Assembly, combining the UN appearance with an economic and diplomatic agenda focused heavily on attracting investment to Colombia.

The speech opened with the August 10 earthquake, which struck Colombia just days after De La Espriella took office.

“We can fall, we can suffer and we can cry. What we cannot and do not know how to do is surrender,” Restrepo read.

He said the government had been forced to respond to both the natural disaster and what it described as a broader crisis of confidence and security. “We had to act and we acted,” he said, while acknowledging international assistance received after the earthquake.

Security a central theme

Restrepo said De La Espriella had given the security forces an “unequivocal” instruction to recover territorial control and restore the authority of the state. The president’s message also established a deliberately broad definition of the armed organisations the government intends to confront.

“Organisations that murder, kidnap, use explosives, recruit minors and deliberately resort to terror to subdue society are terrorist groups,” Restrepo said. “That is what we call them and we are confronting them with all the legitimate force of the state, within the Constitution and the law.”

The government also called for greater international cooperation against drug trafficking, arguing that Colombian-produced illicit drugs do not remain within Colombia and that transnational criminal threats require an international response.

But the most pointed section of the address was directed at the United Nations itself.

De La Espriella has previously been critical of the organisation, and his government used its first appearance before the General Assembly to question whether the UN is delivering the results expected of it.

“Is the UN fulfilling those purposes with the effectiveness that today’s world requires?” Restrepo asked. He said Colombia believes in the organisation precisely because it is legitimate to question whether its institutions are responding adequately to contemporary problems.

“My country wants a United Nations whose effectiveness is measured less by the volume of documents it produces and much more by the results it achieves,” he said. Restrepo also criticised the use of human rights as a selective political instrument.

“I categorically reject the idea that human rights are used as flags raised against some and kept down against others,” he said. “They cannot become an instrument that rewards friends, punishes adversaries, or, worse, remains silent in the face of circumstances.”

The Colombian government, he added, wants an international system that is “serious, coherent and demanding with everyone.” Venezuela was another significant element of the speech.

Restrepo explicitly called for a political transition in Colombia’s neighbour, saying: “We trust in a prompt, safe and profound democratic transition in Venezuela.”

The statement places the new Colombian government more clearly behind a democratic transition in Venezuela while also calling for a re-examination of the international institutions involved in managing regional crises.

Economic growth formed the other major pillar of Colombia’s message in New York.

Before his appearance at the General Assembly, Restrepo presented a portfolio of 176 investment projects valued by the government at more than US$150 billion. The projects cover energy, infrastructure, logistics, agro-industry, tourism, industry, technology and critical minerals, as part of the administration’s “Misión Crecer” strategy and its ambition to raise Colombia’s economic growth rate to 6 percent.

At the UN, Restrepo extended that invitation directly to international investors.

“I want to invite you to look at Colombia,” he said. “We have access to two oceans, energy resources, enormous biodiversity and a government that defends private initiative.”

The broader message was that security and economic opportunity are inseparable. The government argues that confronting criminal organisations must be accompanied by investment, employment and development in territories vulnerable to illegal economies.

“Governments do not decree economic growth,” Restrepo said. “Their task is to create the conditions for it to happen.”

For De La Espriella, the arrangement allowed him to maintain his pledge to remain in Colombia while placing Restrepo at the centre of the government’s first major international diplomatic and economic presentation.

For Colombia, meanwhile, the 2026 General Assembly produced an unusual opening statement from a new administration: delivered not by the president, but by the vice-president, and directed as much at the effectiveness of the international system as at the country’s security and economic ambitions.

Across the old city, colonial streets that would normally be filling with residents, tourists and workers remained largely empty. Shops stayed shuttered, restaurants kept their doors closed and the usual movement through the historic centre was noticeably reduced.

The military presence was impossible to miss.

It was the morning after President Abelardo De la Espriella arrived in Santa Marta wearing a bulletproof vest, carrying a pistol and accompanied by heavily armed security personnel as he toured neighbourhoods affected by threats attributed to the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN), known to locals as ‘Los Pachenca’.

The president had ordered the militarization of the city after the group announced a 48-hour armed strike in retaliation for the death of José Luis Pérez Villanueva, alias Cholo, described by the government as the organisation’s second-in-command and financial operator. Cholo was killed during a security operation in the rural Guachaca area on Monday, along with several other members of the organisation.

But by Wednesday, the immediate question in Santa Marta was no longer simply whether the armed forces could occupy the streets. It was what happens next.

The government says the city is under control. The Army confirmed Wednesday that a military deployment remains in place at strategic points across Santa Marta and its rural districts, in coordination with the National Police, following the threats and intimidation attributed to the armed group.

Yet the empty streets tell another part of the story.

The -Paro Armado – or armed strike imposed by the ACSN has already disrupted commerce, transport and tourism, with reports of businesses being ordered to close and vehicles being attacked or burned. On Monday and Tuesday, authorities reported intimidation of traders in several neighbourhoods, gunfire directed at commercial premises. By 4:00 pm on Tuesday, Colombia’s Air Force had dispatched 4 Kfirs from Barranquilla to fly over Santa Marta. The government’s response has been deliberately uncompromising.

De la Espriella travelled to Santa Marta on Tuesday night to personally oversee the response, chairing a security meeting with military and police commanders and Mayor Carlos Pinedo. He subsequently appeared in videos patrolling neighbourhoods including Cristo Rey and 11 de Noviembre, promising that the armed forces would remain on the streets.

“We’re going after every one of these criminals, without mercy,” the president said during his late-night walkabout. At another point, speaking from inside a protected vehicle in Gaira, he urged residents to return to their normal activities, saying the city was militarized and that the government would protect them.

But restoring confidence is different from deploying troops.

For a city whose economy depends heavily on tourism, restaurants, hotels, transport and street commerce, the longer-term test will be whether residents and visitors feel sufficiently secure to resume normal life once the immediate security operation recedes.

That question is particularly important because the government’s confrontation with Los Pachenca is not confined to Santa Marta’s urban perimeter.

The organisation’s principal territorial base is in and around the Sierra Nevada, and the government’s own account of Monday’s operation points to a continuing effort to locate other senior commanders, including Fredy Castillo Carrillo, alias ‘Pinocho’, as well as other identified leaders.

The military deployment in Santa Marta therefore represents only one part of a broader offensive.

The government has already made clear that it intends to pursue the ACSN rather than revive the negotiating framework that under Petro’s failed “total peace” agenda included the illegal armed group. In August, De la Espriella announced the termination of the government’s dialogue process with all criminal groups, saying his administration would pursue the restoration of territorial control and the dismantling of organized crime.

Santa Marta is now the first major test of that approach in a tourist city.

The immediate operation has demonstrated that the state can rapidly put large numbers of security personnel into the streets. The Army says the deployment remains active, while authorities have also reported arrests and the seizure of material allegedly intended for attacks.

But the harder task may be making the soldiers less visible.

A successful return to normality would mean more than empty streets becoming busy again. It would mean merchants reopening without intimidation, buses and taxis operating normally, tourists moving freely between the historic centre and the coast, and residents no longer making decisions about whether to leave home according to warnings circulated by an armed organisation.

For now, Santa Marta remains caught between those two images: a government determined to demonstrate that the state controls the city, and a city centre that has yet to fully behave as though the crisis is over.

De la Espriella came to Santa Marta to show that the government would not allow an armed group to dictate the city’s life. On Wednesday, the next question is harder to answer. Can the hardline government persuade Samarios that a city free from rampant extortion is possible?

The emergency, which began on September 19 in the La Castellana area and on the San Marcos hillside overlooking Villa de Leyva, has expanded dramatically over four days. The latest assessment by Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, UNGRD, estimates that approximately 1,200 hectares have been affected across the region, including about 715 hectares inside the Iguaque sanctuary.

Authorities say the wider fire is approximately 75% controlled, and the flames have been confined in areas close to homes. But the most difficult section of the emergency has shifted higher into the mountains, where steep terrain is making access for ground crews particularly difficult.

Two active fronts remain, prompting continued operations by land and air.

The advance into Iguaque has transformed what initially threatened the tourist town of Villa de Leyva into a major environmental emergency.

The Santuario de Fauna y Flora Iguaque covers 6,889 hectares between the municipalities of Chíquiza, Arcabuco and Villa de Leyva. It protects a mosaic of páramo, high-Andean forest and glacial-origin lagoons in the Eastern Cordillera.

The sanctuary’s importance extends far beyond biodiversity.

Its high-altitude ecosystems help regulate and store water, while vegetation contributes to the recharge of aquifers supplying rural and urban water systems in the surrounding region. According to Parques Nacionales Naturales, Iguaque is the protected area within Colombia’s national parks system that supplies the largest number of municipal aqueducts, benefiting more than 30,000 people.

That makes the wildfire a threat not only to forests and wildlife but also to one of the region’s critical natural water systems.

The municipality of Sáchica has called for urgent reinforcement from the UNGRD, requesting additional aerial, ground and technical resources as the fire moves through areas surrounding the sanctuary.

Frailejones at risk

Among the species facing the greatest concern are the frailejones, the distinctive plants that dominate many Colombian páramo landscapes and play an important role in the capture and regulation of water.

Parques Nacionales identifies several species in Iguaque, including Espeletiopsis garciae, Paramiflos glandulosus and Espeletia tunjana. The latter is classified as endangered.

The ecological damage from a wildfire is not necessarily limited to plants directly consumed by flames. Fire can alter soils, destroy surrounding vegetation and change the conditions required for natural regeneration in fragile high-altitude ecosystems.

The sanctuary is also home to white-tailed deer, brocket deer, tigrillos and the ulamá, as well as more than 170 bird species. Among them are the Andean guan, páramo eagle and 19 species of hummingbird.

The emergency response has expanded as the fire has moved into increasingly difficult terrain.

According to the latest UNGRD report, around 250 people are involved in the operation, including firefighters, soldiers, police, Civil Defence personnel, Red Cross teams and national emergency agencies.

Three helicopters have been deployed for aerial firefighting: an MI-17 contracted by the Boyacá government, together with UH-60 Black Hawks operated by the Colombian Aerospace Force and the Army.

During the latest operation, the aircraft carried out 75 water drops over the fire zones. Authorities are also preparing to insert specialised personnel by air into areas that cannot easily be reached from the ground.

More than 20 park rangers have been working in the area since the weekend. On Monday night, another 15 forest-fire specialists arrived from Chingaza and Tama national parks and the Guanentá Alto Río Fonce Flora and Fauna Sanctuary to reinforce the response.

The ongoing threat to Iguaque carries both environmental and cultural significance. According to Muisca traditions, Bachué, regarded as the mother of humanity, emerged from the sacred waters of the Iguaque lagoon with a child who would become the ancestor of the pre-Columbian peoples.

The lagoon lies at around 3,599 metres above sea level, surrounded by páramo vegetation and the high-Andean landscape protected by the sanctuary. Parques Nacionales describes Iguaque as a territory where natural ecosystems and Muisca cultural traditions remain closely connected.

The sanctuary was declared a protected area in 1977 and today forms part of Colombia’s national system of protected areas.

Its ecosystems are particularly important in a country where páramos provide critical water-regulation functions. The vegetation captures moisture, slows its movement through the landscape and helps maintain water supplies during drier periods.

Fire moves beyond colonial enclave

For several days, the international focus of the emergency centred on Villa de Leyva, one of Colombia’s most visited colonial destinations.

The fire threatened homes, hotels and tourism infrastructure around the town, while residents and volunteers joined firefighters in trying to stop the flames advancing through the surrounding hills.

By Monday, however, authorities reported that the fire around the urban area was largely contained. The principal concern had shifted to the upper mountain slopes leading towards Iguaque.

The UNGRD says the fire is 75% controlled, but the figure does not mean the emergency is over. Two active fronts remain, and difficult terrain is preventing easy access to the highest areas.

Boyacá Governor Carlos Amaya has called for additional aerial support and appealed for continued resources to confront the remaining fire fronts. “Literally, a tragedy is being experienced,” he wrote on X, describing the images from the affected area as among the most painful seen in his department in recent years.

The immediate objective is now to prevent the remaining fire fronts from advancing further into Iguaque and to extinguish the areas already burning inside the protected zone.

The operation is expected to continue as long as weather, visibility and safety conditions permit. For Villa de Leyva, the fire has moved away from the immediate threat to its historic centre and patrimonial homes.

For Iguaque, however, the emergency is entering a more consequential phase.

What began as a wildfire on a hillside above a colonial enclave has become a fight to protect one of Boyacá’s most important high-altitude ecosystems – and the water systems, wildlife and cultural heritage that make this territory so unique for Colombia.

José Luis Pérez Villanueva, alias “Cholo”, described by authorities as the second commander and financier of the ACSN, was killed Monday during a security operation in rural Santa Marta. Six other alleged members of the organisation were also killed and three were captured, according to the government.

The operation immediately triggered reprisals attributed to the ACSN, including blockades along the Troncal del Caribe and the burning of buses. Intermunicipal transport and services toward La Guajira were suspended, while schools and businesses closed amid fears of an armed strike announced by the group.

De La Espriella travelled to Santa Marta late Monday night accompanied by a fleet of helicopters that could be seen flying over the Colombia’s oldest city. The president called a security council as authorities maintained a Unified Command Post to coordinate the response.

“[They] lost one of their principal commanders, we hit their finances and seized a powerful arsenal,” De La Espriella said in a message posted on X. “Now, defeated and cornered, they intend to terrorise the population with an armed strike. I will not allow it.”

The president added: “We are going after all the narcoterrorists of the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada and the Clan del Golfo. One by one.”

The Police National said the operation took place in the Quebrada del Sol sector of Guachaca, in the rural area of Santa Marta. It involved the Directorate of Anti-Narcotics, police investigators, Jungla commandos and police aviation, working with the Attorney General’s Office and with support from the Colombian Air Force.

Authorities said the operation produced seven deaths and three arrests. Among those killed was “Cholo”, identified by the government as one of the most important figures in Los Pachenca, another name used for the ACSN.

The group is a powerful armed criminal organisation operating across the Sierra Nevada and parts of the Caribbean region. Authorities associate it with drug trafficking, extortion and control of illicit economies and territory along the Troncal del Caribe, the principal road connecting Santa Marta with La Guajira. The government has portrayed the operation as a major blow against the organisation’s command structure and finances.

But the immediate consequences have been felt by civilians.

Communities in and around Santa Marta reported a sharp deterioration in security following Monday’s operation. Streets were left largely empty, commercial activity was disrupted and public transport was suspended. Indigenous communities in the Sierra Nevada have also faced confinement and heightened security risks amid the confrontation between armed groups and government forces.

Indigenous authorities have previously warned of the risks of forced displacement, confinement and the use of civilians as human shields in areas where armed groups operate. They have called on the state to strengthen protection for communities living in ancestral territories.

The president’s response has been uncompromising. According to eye-witness reports, on Monday armed gunmen could be seen shooting at shops that dared to open. Many of the city’s more affluent residents began leaving on Monday to nearby Barranquilla, in fear of potential violence.

In a video released after the operation, De La Espriella described the result as an “exceptional” achievement by the security forces and singled out “Cholo” as one of the region’s most feared armed figures.

He then turned his attention to the ACSN’s top leadership.

“They have been falling like rats: ‘Bendito Menor’, ‘Cholo’, and very soon ‘Pinocho’,” the president said, referring to Fredy Castillo Carrillo, identified by authorities as the organisation’s maximum commander and financier.

“Pinocho, you have an expiration date and we are after you,” De La Espriella added.

Castillo Carrillo is a key figure in the government’s campaign against the ACSN, whose influence extends beyond Magdalena into neighbouring La Guajira and Cesar.

The killing of “Cholo” follows the recent death of another senior ACSN commander, alias “Bendito Menor”, further intensifying pressure on the organisation’s leadership.

For Santa Marta, however, the immediate challenge is preventing the security operation from becoming a wider confrontation affecting civilians and one of Colombia’s most important Caribbean transport corridors.

With the Troncal del Caribe disrupted and authorities on heightened alert, the government now faces a test of whether its offensive against the ACSN can restore control without provoking further reprisals against the population.

For De La Espriella, the message is already clear: the campaign will continue. And after the death of “Cholo”, the president has publicly identified his next target.

In a world defined by acceleration, information overload and increasing disconnection, the ritual has taken on a renewed significance. It can be a ceremony, a prayer, a meal, a journey, a medicinal preparation or simply a repeated act that connects one person to another, or to a place.

It is this idea that lies at the heart of Rituales, a new exhibition at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango’s Casa Republicana in Bogotá, bringing together 19 works recently acquired by the Banco de la República between 2023 and 2026.

The exhibition considers ritual not simply as an inheritance from the past but as a living practice through which individuals and communities create meaning, preserve memory and negotiate their relationship with nature, territory and one another.

The works explore ceremonies of healing, religious practices, symbolic landscapes, funerary traditions and ancestral knowledge. Together, they move between the intimate and the collective, examining identity, memory, resistance and the ways in which cultural knowledge survives across generations.

The selection also reflects the breadth of the Banco de la República’s art collection. More than 200 works have been incorporated into the collection over the past three years, spanning a period from the 17th century to 2025 and encompassing a wide range of techniques, formats and artistic approaches.

 Spirituality and resistance

Among the works on display are two videos by Medellín-born artist Astrid Milena González, whose practice explores Afro-Colombian knowledge and spirituality.

In Hablar a plantas, singing, medicinal plants and knowledge transmitted through Afro-Colombian communities become forms of resistance to poverty, violence and displacement. Traditional medicine appears not simply as a means of treating illness, but as a network of physical, spiritual and communal relationships with the natural world.

In Dale el señor el descanso eterno (2022), a black priest in a white cassock leads the viewer into a symbolic territory where Catholicism, Afro-descendant traditions, magic and memory intersect. The work constructs a ritual universe in which human, natural and supernatural forces coexist.

Gabriel Silva’s large-format painting similarly enters a dreamlike territory. Mythological and fantastical figures appear as silhouettes within an intensely coloured landscape, their bodies merging with an orange geography. The figures seem to participate in an enigmatic ceremony taking place in a primordial world.

For the late Colombian artist Luis Fernando Zapata (1951–1994), ritual becomes a metaphor for the final transition. His sculptural object evokes both a sarcophagus and a chrysalis, contrasting its substantial three-dimensional presence with the fragile materiality of paper. The work becomes a meditation on introspection, mortality and transformation.

Peruvian artist Adriana Ciudad takes the idea of passage into the landscape. Developed from research and fieldwork with communities on Colombia’s Pacific coast, her work draws on funerary and farewell rituals in which rivers are understood as pathways connecting different worlds. Painting becomes a means of exploring the relationship between memory, territory and spirituality, with the river functioning as a space of transition, encounter and transformation.

The theatre of nature

In El privilegio de las sobras (2024), Barranquilla-born artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor creates drawings that resemble the stage of a 19th-century European theatre. The curtain remains closed and lamps illuminate the scene, but the audience is not human. A tropical jungle occupies the stalls. The absurdity of the encounter creates a tension between European architectural opulence and tropical vegetation, suggesting a ritual about to begin but whose participants and purpose remain deliberately uncertain.

Bogotá artist Andrés Quintero’s Lenguas de alta montaña y aerolito ovino (2023–2024) takes ritual into the territory of the journey.

The installation, combining sculpture and video, began with a newspaper report about Raquel Vivas, born in La Floresta, Boyacá, and connected to the Nasa community, who participated in covering the interior of Apollo 11 with sheep’s wool.

From this unlikely connection between the Colombian highlands and the American space programme, Quintero began searching for meteorites in Boyacá. The journey became an exercise in attentive listening, observation and walking through the landscape.

Along the way, he encountered sculptural mounds of salt patiently shaped by sheep repeatedly licking them. The resulting installation transforms an apparently ordinary rural activity into a kind of ceremony.

Sacred and profane

The collision between ancestral traditions and contemporary urban culture is central to the work of Tahuanty Jacanamijoy, whose family heritage comes from the Sibundoy Valley in Putumayo and whose artistic formation has included Bogotá and London. In Tears in the club (2022), painting and neon bring together the sacred world of the Amazonian forest and the profane atmosphere of electronic nightlife.

A two-headed serpent, with one head resembling a bird and the other a jaguar, evokes complementary forces of light and darkness. Within Amazonian cosmologies, such forces contribute to the balance between different realms of existence.

In Testigo, a red neon sun fills the exhibition space with an otherworldly glow. It functions simultaneously as a sacred and spiritual figure and as an emblem of the nocturnal urban world.

The domestic sphere provides another entry point into ritual.

Medellín artist Yuli Andrea Cadavid’s Brebajes (2022–2023) consists of engraved aluminium cooking pots. The images depict plants associated with care and healing, while the worn surfaces of the vessels evoke the heat, intimacy and accumulated memory of the household.

Cadavid’s research into plants, cooking and regional traditions is closely connected to female lineages and the forms of knowledge transmitted through everyday life. The kitchen becomes a place where cultural memory is preserved and passed on.

Joyce Rivas’s photographic series Bien querer revisits archival material from the Inquisition concerning Afro-Caribbean women accused of witchcraft during the colonial period. Rivas reconstructs rituals of love magic, spells and ancestral knowledge involving plants and objects, treating them not as remnants of superstition but as forms of cultural resistance and survival.

The work establishes a dialogue between history, botany and contemporary art, reclaiming knowledge that was once persecuted and reframing it through questions of identity and memory.

In Semilla (2003), Santa Marta-born sculptor Teresa Sánchez reduces the idea of transformation to its most elemental form. Made from native marfil and cedar wood from Puerto Asís, the sculpture captures the moment of germination.

The enlarged seed becomes a metaphor for origin and passage. Its vertical growth connects earth and sky, turning a simple biological process into a meditation on spirituality and existence.

Elsewhere, ritual becomes intensely personal.

Daniela Acosta Parsons’s La Habitación (2019) emerged from the artist’s experience of hospitalization following a depressive episode. Through drawings of furniture, bedsheets, curtains and changing light, the work reconstructs fragmented memories of an institutional interior.

The room becomes both a physical space and a psychological landscape. Acosta transforms private experience into a visual diary, using drawing as an act of mourning, communication and reconstruction.

Across Rituales, these different approaches converge around a deceptively simple proposition: rituals are ways of making sense of being alive.

Some belong to communities and have been transmitted across centuries. Others are invented or rediscovered in kitchens, landscapes, nightclubs, bedrooms and journeys through the countryside.

What connects them is their capacity to create a pause.

At a moment when daily life is increasingly shaped by speed, distraction and information, Rituales suggests that repetition, memory and attention can themselves become acts of connection.

Rituales: Adquisiciones recientes en la Colección de Arte del Banco de la República runs from September 9 to October 19, 2026, at the Casa Republicana of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá. Calle 12 No.4-37. Admission is free.

Visit BanRep’s official site for more information: https://www.banrepcultural.org/exposiciones/rituales

The blaze, which began on Saturday afternoon near the cusp of the San Marcos mountain, has affected almost 300 hectares of vegetation and spread towards populated areas and the surrounding mountains. The latest official reports put the fire at approximately 50% controlled, although several active fronts remain and changing winds could reignite areas already treated by firefighters.

The emergency has brought together more than 400 people, including firefighters, Civil Defence personnel, police officers, residents and volunteers. Four helicopters have also been deployed in the aerial operation, carrying out about 170 water drops over the affected areas.

The Colombian Air Force which deployed a UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter, has carried out approximately 35 water drops on the most active areas. According to Brigadier General John López, commander of the Military Air Transport Command, the aircraft released about 53,000 litres of water, or roughly 14,000 gallons, in an effort to reduce the intensity of the flames and prevent the fire from advancing into other sectors.

The aerial operation forms part of a broader response involving military aircraft, firefighters from Bogotá and Tunja, the Boyacá emergency services and hundreds of local volunteers.

Fire reaches edge of colonial Villa de Leyva

The fire has been particularly threatening because of the proximity of San Marcos to Villa de Leyva’s historic centre, one of Colombia’s best-preserved colonial landscapes with its emblematic Virgen del Rosario church.

The town, known for its large cobbled Plaza Mayor, whitewashed colonial buildings and surrounding Andean countryside, is one of the country’s principal tourist destinations. Smoke and flames have been visible from the town itself as the fire has moved across the hillsides above the settlement.

Some homes and hotels have been evacuated, while authorities have urged residents and visitors to remain away from the fire lines and to follow instructions issued by emergency agencies.

Classes were suspended across the municipality on Monday, September 21, and tourism and recreational activities in areas affected by the emergency were cancelled. The municipal coliseum has been designated as an alternative medical and emergency assistance centre.

Police commander Colonel James Totena urged residents to follow evacuation orders when issued.

“When we tell them they have to evacuate, think first about life and personal safety and then about material possessions,” Totena said, stressing that police would remain deployed to protect evacuated properties.

Authorities investigate possible arson attack

The cause of the fire has become a central part of the investigation.

Boyacá Governor Carlos Amaya said Monday that residents had reported circumstances that, in their view, did not resemble a naturally developing wildfire. He said witnesses described an unusually intense initial flare-up and reported seeing activity at different points on the hillside.

Amaya also said firefighters had reported what they considered suspicious behaviour while fighting the flames, including people in other locations who appeared to be intensifying rather than extinguishing fires.

The governor has stopped short of presenting those accounts as proof of arson, but the authorities are investigating the possibility that the fire was deliberately started.

The Boyacá government has offered a reward of up to 45 million pesos for information that helps establish the origin of the fire and identify those responsible. The information, officials said, will be handled confidentially.

Environment Minister Fabio Arjona has also said that preliminary information indicates the fire may have been deliberately caused, while stressing that authorities are carrying out the necessary verification.

Hotel owners appeals for help

Among the most distressing consequences of the fire has been the destruction suffered by residents and businesses on the outskirts of the town.

Hotel owners have appeared in videos circulating on social media attempting to fight the flames alongside neighbours and visiting tourists. On Sunday morning, authorities evacuated the Hotel and Convention Center Duruelo as smoke engulfed the property. Tourists could be seen scurrying down the long ramparts to reach the safety of the large open areas.

Government mobilises as fire is only partly controlled

The national government has pledged to deploy the resources necessary to contain the emergency. President Abelardo De La Espriella said late Saturday that Villa de Leyva was “not alone” and that state resources would be mobilised to protect the town and its residents.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara has been overseeing the national response, while Bogotá Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán sent firefighters from the capital to reinforce crews already working in Villa de Leyva and surrounding areas.

The latest operation includes approximately 207 firefighters and Civil Defence rescuers on the ground, together with roughly 200 residents and volunteers supporting different fronts of the emergency.

The four helicopters involved in the aerial response have made approximately 170 water drops, releasing an estimated 240,000 litres of water over the affected areas.

Despite the scale of the operation, strong winds remain a major obstacle. Authorities have warned that gusts could reactivate apparently contained areas and create new fronts.

Villa de Leyva declared a state of public calamity as the scale of the wildfire became clear, allowing authorities to coordinate additional resources and emergency measures.

The fire began on the afternoon of Saturday, September 19, and rapidly developed into a major emergency as flames moved across the San Marcos hillside.

By Monday morning, the fire had affected between approximately 290 and 300 hectares, depending on the latest operational assessment, with around half of the fire considered controlled.

The emergency has also affected wildlife, prompting police carabineros and specialised personnel to search for animals caught in the fire.

The crisis comes only days after Villa de Leyva hosted the Festival de las Ideas, which brought hundreds of politicians, academics, journalists and civil-society figures to the historic town.

It has also placed renewed attention on the town’s vulnerability to wildfire, particularly as dry vegetation and strong winds allow flames to spread rapidly through the surrounding hills.

For now, the municipality must attend to the immediate task of protecting lives, homes, businesses and the surrounding landscape. The strong seasonal winds that make Villa de Leyva a favorite destination for kiteflyers are fanning a disaster three-hours north of the Colombian capital. Disaster that also threatens an agricultural heartland known for its flower farms, tomato orchards and vineyards.

And then there is the opening night.

The inauguration of ARTBO has become something of a ritual on Bogotá’s cultural calendar, when a particularly concentrated collection of artists, collectors, gallery owners, cultural grandees, celebrities, socialites and the city’s have-to-be-seen crowd descends on Ágora. It is one of those Bogotá evenings when being seen looking at art can sometimes seem almost as important as the art itself.

For the art aficionados, however, the fair is serious business. And for four days ARTBO becomes a meeting point for the people who make, exhibit, collect, discuss and sell contemporary art across Colombia and Latin America.

The 22nd edition of ARTBO Feria Internacional de Arte will take place from September 24 to 27, bringing together 50 galleries from 20 cities, 228 artists, more than 30 institutions and more than 40 publishers across five floors of the convention centre.

Now one of the established dates on Bogotá’s cultural calendar, ARTBO is as much about the business of art as it is about looking at art. Works are exhibited and sold, emerging artists seek visibility, established galleries court collectors, and institutions use the fair as a meeting point for conversations about the direction of contemporary art in Colombia and Latin America.

This year’s fair has expanded from 44 galleries in 2025, with greater representation from South and Central America, including galleries from Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama and Guatemala.

“ARTBO is much more than a fair: it is a meeting place that connects Bogotá with Colombia, Latin America and the world through art,” said Ovidio Claros, president of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce (CCB), which organises the event. He said the fair demonstrates Bogotá’s capacity to attract talent, creativity, investment and knowledge while strengthening the circulation of Latin American art.

Contemporary art will dominate the fair, accounting for around 80 percent of the offering, with painting sharing the floor with photography, video, installation, performance, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and multimedia. Of the participating artists, 65 percent are Colombian and 35 percent international.

Bogotá’s international art fair returns for its 22nd edition with 50 galleries, 228 artists and seven sections at Ágora Bogotá — while a new AI-powered platform aims to bring more visitors into the world of collecting.

ARTBO 2026 is divided into seven sections, giving the fair a broader remit than its commercial galleries alone.

Galerías, occupying the fourth and fifth floors of Ágora, is the principal commercial section, with 50 galleries from 12 countries presenting their artists and works.

Instituciones, on the second floor, brings together museums, foundations, magazines and other cultural projects, alongside launches and publications.

On the third floor, Encuentro Editorial, curated by Relámpago, focuses on publishers, distributors and specialist bookstores working with art and visual culture.

Conversaciones, curated by Benedicta Badía, provides a forum for critical discussion and debate around contemporary art.

Trayectoria, an ARTBO–Bauer collaboration, turns the spotlight this year on Colombian artist Fanny Sanín, with José Roca as curator and the support of Galería Alonso Garcés.

Artecámara, a collaboration between ARTBO and Whitman, continues its focus on emerging artists without commercial representation. The section is curated this year by Melissa Aguilar.

And Ruta Diseño extends ARTBO beyond Ágora for the first time, taking activities into Bogotá’s La Macarena neighbourhood and connecting the fair with another of the capital’s creative circuits.

ARTBO Conecta

The most conspicuous innovation of the 2026 edition is ARTBO Conecta, an artificial-intelligence-powered tool designed to make the process of finding and buying art less intimidating.

The platform matches a visitor’s preferences, budget and expectations with works available from participating galleries, helping guide visitors through the fair and identify artists and works that might correspond to their interests.

For ARTBO, the technology is intended in part to address one of the perennial challenges of an international art fair: making the market accessible to people who may be interested in buying art but do not necessarily know where to begin.

“We want visitors to ARTBO not only to discover new proposals and artists, but also to find tools that help them take the step towards collecting,” said Jaime Martínez, director of ARTBO. “With ARTBO Conecta, we are especially accompanying those who are beginning this journey.”

The initiative comes as ARTBO continues to position itself not simply as a marketplace but as a broader cultural event — one where buying, collecting, publishing, exhibiting and discussing art overlap.

The programme will also include guided tours, activities for children and families and a publishing programme involving more than 40 editorial projects. Two anniversaries will receive particular attention: the 50th anniversaries of ArtNexus and Taller Arte Dos Gráfico, both of which have played significant roles in the development of art and graphic culture in the region.

For Bogotá, ARTBO has become an annual ritual as recognisable as the city’s other major cultural gatherings. There is the art, naturally, and then there is everything that gathers around it: the collectors inspecting the latest acquisitions, the gallerists making their pitches, the emerging artists hoping to be noticed, the aficionados comparing notes and the familiar faces who seem to appear at every opening in town.

Missing the ARTBO inauguration is, in certain Bogotá circles, almost an act of cultural absenteeism.

But beneath the social theatre is a serious art market and an increasingly international platform for Colombian and Latin American artists. For four days, ARTBO offers the city a concentrated view of what is being made, exhibited, discussed and collected across the region — and, for those who simply come to look, a pretty good excuse to spend an afternoon wandering around Bogotá’s contemporary art world.

ARTBO 2026 runs from September 24–27 at Ágora Bogotá, Calle 24 #38-47. Opening hours are noon–8 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday and noon–6 p.m. on Sunday. General admission is COP25,000. Entry is free for students, minors, people over 60, people with disabilities

Admission is free to the two-day festival, which brings together 13 participating nations and the UN Mission in Colombia in a celebration of food, culture and international exchange.

The festival is a social project sponsored by ACONDIP, the Association of Diplomatic Spouses Accredited in Colombia, and forms part of the District’s Sabor Bogotá 2026 agenda. The initiative seeks to connect Bogotá’s international diplomatic community with residents, visitors, local entrepreneurs and cultural organizations through one of the city’s most universal forms of cultural expression: food.

For Angela Garzón of the Instituto Distrital de Turismo (IDT), the festival also speaks to the relationship Bogotá residents have with their city.

“It is special for those of us who live here, for Bogotá residents. It is a way of loving the city,” Garzón said, describing the idea behind Sabor Bogotá and the initiative led by the capital’s First Lady Carolina Deik and Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán.

Garzón also emphasized the growing role of gastronomy in Bogotá’s tourism economy. According to figures cited, the capital received more than 4.6 million visitors last year, including almost two million international visitors.

She highlighted that gastronomy is an important reason for visiting Bogotá, with more than 65 percent of international visitors identifying the city’s food culture as a reason for their trip. Among Colombians travelling to the capital from other parts of the country, she said, more than 40 percent come because Bogotá offers a different gastronomic experience, including cuisine from countries around the world.

For the IDT, supporting El Mundo is therefore part of a broader effort to use cultural and gastronomic events to generate tourism and social cohesion. “These are events that bring thousands of national and international visitors and move tourism within the localities of the city,” she said.

The festival will also feature entrepreneurs from Hecho en Bogotá and Corazones Productivos, programmes of the District’s Secretariat of Economic Development. Garzón noted that such events have become opportunities for entire families to spend a weekend discovering different parts of the Colombian capital while supporting local businesses and start-ups.

A taste of the world

The festival’s international character will be reflected in a menu that stretches across Latin America and beyond. Visitors will be able to try baleadas and yuca with chicharrón from Honduras, alongside mixed Chalaco ceviche and chocotejas from Peru.

Guatemala will present dishes including jocón, tipucas, chuchitos and tostadas with filled mole, while Ecuador will offer encebollado and dishes featuring cheese. The programme also includes macarrón from Lebanon, Costa Rican chifrijo, and Turkish mercimek, köfte and baklava.

The participation of diplomatic communities gives the event a dimension that extends beyond the restaurant table. By presenting national cuisines in a public setting, the festival creates an informal space for cultural exchange and for Bogotá residents to encounter traditions from countries represented in the city.

The Sabores of Bogotá

The event forms part of the wider Sabor Bogotá 2026 programme, which will continue later in September with an awards gala at the Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on September 29.

Santiago Trujillo, Bogotá’s Secretary of Culture, highlighted the importance of cooperation between public institutions, private businesses, communities and civil-society organizations in developing major projects for the city.

At the September 29 gala, Sabor Bogotá will present awards celebrating local culinary traditions, including prizes for the city’s best ajiaco and empanada.

The El Mundo festival will also include a solidarity component following the recent earthquake disaster in Colombia. At the direction of the mayor, six businesses and entrepreneurial initiatives from Valle del Cauca and Colombia’s Pacific region will participate in the event, following the cancellation this year of the Festival Petronio Álvarez.

The inclusion of Pacific and Valle del Cauca producers alongside international participants adds a Colombian dimension to a festival whose central theme is global cultural exchange.

For ACONDIP and its participating diplomatic communities, the weekend will offer an opportunity to introduce Bogotá audiences to their countries through food and culture. For the city, it forms part of a growing calendar of gastronomic events that link tourism, entrepreneurship, culture and open public spaces.

As Bogotá increasingly presents itself as a destination for food as well as art, history and nightlife, El Mundo en el Corazón de Bogotá offers a particularly international expression of that identity: 13 nations, the UN Mission in Colombia and Bogotá’s own diverse culinary community sharing the same table.

The Festival Gastronómico y Cultural El Mundo en el Corazón de Bogotá takes place September 19 and 20 at Parque El Country, with free admission.

Parque El Country: Calle 127 No.11D-90.

The cases have brought renewed attention to the wider number of minors reported missing in the capital and to questions about what happens to those who do not quickly return home.

Among the children and adolescents whose cases have attracted attention are 14-year-old María Fernanda Sánchez, who disappeared on September 9. Her last known location was in the Porvenir neighbourhood of Soacha, south of Bogotá, at around 3 p.m.

Paula Ibáñez Vásquez, 14, was last seen in Bogotá on September 7. Sharick Nicoll Chia Carrizosa, 16, is also being sought, while 14-year-old Alana Sofía Castañeda Chávez was reported missing after being seen at Clarelandia Park in the Bosa locality.

Another prominent case was that of 15-year-old Joseph Santiago Santamaría, who disappeared on September 10 after leaving school in northwestern Bogotá. His family appealed for information and called for access to security-camera footage after he was last seen entering a TransMilenio station.

Santamaría was subsequently found alive in central Bogotá by investigators from the Fiscalía’s CTI. The Security Secretariat said he was receiving medical attention, while the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) was undertaking procedures to restore and protect his rights.

Another recent case involving Angie Jimena Arévalo also ended with the teenager returning home, according to Security Secretariat, César Restrepo.

294 reports involving minors this year

The latest cases form part of a wider and troubling picture.

According to figures cited by Bogotá City Council, 538 children and adolescents were reported missing in Bogotá during the first six months of 2026. Of those, 362 were girls or adolescent women and 176 were boys or adolescent men.

Adolescents between 12 and 17 years old accounted for 462 reports, or approximately 86 percent of the total involving minors. Ciudad Bolívar recorded 67 cases in this age group, followed by Kennedy with 59 and Bosa with 58.

The broader figures show a harrowing 1,340 missing-persons in Bogotá during the first six months of 2026, compared with 2,360 during the whole of 2025 and 2,391 in 2024.

A separate District count gives a more recent picture. According to figures cited by María Clara Name, coordinator of the Bogotá Council’s Children’s Caucus, 294 children and adolescents had been reported missing between January and September 2026. Of those, 162 had been found, while 19 had not yet returned home at the time of the report.

“Every 20 hours a minor goes missing in Bogotá” – César Restrepo

The concentration of cases among adolescents has also prompted concern in the Bogotá City Council over whether some disappearances could be associated with more serious forms of sexual exploitation and other criminal activity, including human trafficking.

The concern over missing minors has been compounded by the discovery of the body of a young girl inside a drainage canal in Ciudad Bolívar. On September 15, residents of the J.J Rondón neighbourhood alerted authorities after children playing in the area came across the body. The Metropolitan Police, Bogotá Fire Department and the Fiscalía’s CTI responded to the scene, with the victim subsequently transferred to the National Forensic Institute – Medicina Legal – for identification and examination. The girl was identified as nine-year-old Ana Lucía Gonzaléz, reported missing on september 14 in the nearby municipality of Mosquera.

Galán: “No case can be taken lightly”

Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán said the District is treating every disappearance of a minor with the greatest seriousness and is supporting the Fiscalía and Police investigations. “Absolutely every case of disappearances of minors in Bogotá is taken with the greatest seriousness and rigour by the Mayor’s Office,” Galán said.

He said his instruction to Security Secretary César Restrepo was that every report involving a missing minor should receive support from the District, while families should be accompanied throughout the search. “No case can be taken lightly or discarded,” stated Galán. “That is the instruction I have given and that is how we are working.”

For Bogotá, the immediate challenge is finding those who remain missing while establishing what lies behind the growing number of reports involving children and adolescents. Each case requires an individual investigation, but the concentration of reports among teenagers has made the issue a growing concern for families, investigators and the city’s authorities.

Authorities stress that families should not wait 72 hours to report a disappearance. A case should be reported immediately through the Fiscalía’s 122 line, Bogotá’s 123 emergency line, or the District’s AIDE programme at (601) 377 9595, extension 1137.

The earth beneath Chocó has continued to move more than a month after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Colombia’s Pacific litoral, with a series of tremors concentrated around the municipalities of Sipí and Istmina raising fresh questions about what is happening beneath the department.

The Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC) says the ongoing activity is not simply a sequence of aftershocks. Its monitoring network has identified two distinct patterns of seismic activity following the major earthquake of August 10: aftershocks at considerable depth and a separate concentration of earthquakes known as a seismic swarm.

The distinction is important.

Aftershocks generally follow a main earthquake and tend to decrease in frequency and magnitude over time. A seismic swarm, by contrast, does not necessarily have a single dominant event. Instead, earthquakes can continue at varying magnitudes without following the expected pattern of progressively weaker aftershocks.

According to the SGC, some of the aftershocks detected following the August earthquake have occurred at depths between 70 and 120 kilometres. The more persistent activity concentrated within parts of Chocó corresponds to the seismic swarm.

The phenomenon was particularly evident on Monday, September 14, with a new tremor (3.4-magnitude) registered Tuesday, by the SGC, at 3:30 am.

On Monday, the seismic activity began near Sipí, where the National Seismological Network recorded a magnitude 3.7 earthquake at 10:01 a.m., followed by a magnitude 3.2 event at 12:24 p.m. The activity then intensified during the afternoon and shifted towards Istmina. Within less than six minutes, three earthquakes greater than magnitude 4 were recorded.

The first, at 3:02 p.m., registered magnitude 4.9 at a depth of 39 kilometres. Two minutes later, another earthquake measuring 4.1 occurred, followed at 3:08 p.m. by a magnitude 4.4 event.

The sequence continued. At 4:13 p.m., seismographs recorded another magnitude 4.9 earthquake, followed by a magnitude 4.5 tremor at 5:39 p.m.

The movements were felt well beyond Chocó. By 4:30 p.m. Monday, the SGC had received more than 2,000 reports from people who had felt the earthquakes, principally in the departments of Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Antioquia and Tolima.

What is a seismic swarm?

Freddy Tovar, coordinator of Colombia’s National Seismological Network, explained that the defining characteristic of a seismic swarm is the absence of a single earthquake around which subsequent activity progressively declines. “An earthquake swarm is a sequence of earthquakes that, unlike aftershocks, does not have a main event from which the magnitudes progressively decrease,” he said.

Instead, seismicity can remain relatively constant, producing earthquakes of both greater and lesser magnitude without following a descending pattern. For communities still recovering from the August 10 earthquake, the continuing movements are a reminder that the emergency has not ended.

De La Espriella in Chocó

President Abelardo De La Espriella arrived in Quibdó on Tuesday morning for his latest visit to the department since taking office. He is expected to also visit Colombia’s most important Pacific port city – Buenaventura –  in neighbouring Valle del Cauca to inspect reconstruction efforts following the August 10 earthquake.

It is his fourth visit to Chocó since the earthquake. He travelled to the department on the day of the disaster and subsequently announced a special recovery programme known as the “Plan Marshall”, intended to address both earthquake damage and longstanding problems involving infrastructure and connectivity.

The president’s most recent visit to Quibdó included a meeting with business leaders who have been enlisted to help develop the reconstruction strategy.

The government has also declared an Economic, Social and Ecological Emergency, allowing the Executive to mobilise resources and accelerate measures intended to assist affected households and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

Governor defends humanitarian response

Chocó Governor Nubia Carolina Córdoba has defended the government’s humanitarian response amid criticism over alleged delays in delivering assistance to families affected by the earthquake.

Córdoba said over 300 tonnes of aid have reached affected municipalities but acknowledged the logistical difficulties of providing assistance across a department where many communities are located in remote areas with limited road and transport connections.

The challenge now extends beyond repairing buildings and infrastructure. More than a month after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake, the ground itself remains active.

The SGC’s identification of a seismic swarm does not mean that another earthquake of a particular magnitude is imminent. Rather, it describes a pattern of continuing seismic activity that requires monitoring. For residents across western Colombia, especially in the hardest hit cities of Pereira, Manizales and Cali, the rapid succession of tremors is a tangible reminder that the seismic emergency triggered on August 10 is still unfolding.

In a speech focused on the victims of corruption, De La Espriella argued that the consequences of stealing public money extend far beyond a criminal investigation or court case, directly affecting ordinary Colombians.

“When they steal the budget for a road, a hospital or a school, they are not stealing from the government, they are stealing directly from the Colombian people,” the president said.

De La Espriella rejected the idea that corruption should be viewed simply as a crime against the state. He said Colombians have a right to know the true cost of government and the obligations the country must meet.

“Colombians have the right to know, really, how much the state costs and what obligations we have to pay,” he said.

The president accused the previous government of presenting a budget that failed to reflect the country’s full financial position, saying it left essential expenditures unfunded and understated the real burden of public debt.

“The budget presented by the previous government did not show the whole reality, it lied, it left essential expenses unfunded and did not correctly reflect the true weight of the debt we have today. We decided to put all the accounts on the table, with transparency,” he said.

De La Espriella also singled out what he described as unrealistic revenue projections during the four years of Gustavo Petro’s presidency. “But there is something even more serious: for four years (of Petro), budgets were built on false revenue figures, and spending continued as if that money were going to come in, but it never did,” he said. “In 2024 alone, tax revenues were 71 trillion pesos less than estimated.”

The president also criticised what he called the “chaotic and disorderly state” of Colombia’s public finances during the administration of ex-President Gustavo Petro, pointing to the existence of 60 special funds that, he said, disperse public resources and make it harder to determine where money is held, how it is spent and what results it produces.

For De La Espriella, public money cannot be treated as the property of those temporarily entrusted with running the state. “Public money is sacred because it is the money of Colombians,” he said.

No privileges for the powerful

The president directed particular criticism at what he called Colombia’s “white-collar criminals”, rejecting the notion that wealthy or influential offenders should receive different treatment from other people convicted of crimes.

“The so-called white-collar criminals are not criminals of a superior category,” De La Espriella said. “Their damage, he added, can be “devastating because their victims are counted in the thousands.”

The president said the consequences for families affected by corruption should be considered before anyone attempts to use influence to help a convicted offender.

He also challenged the perception that in Colombia a person’s surname, former position or political contacts can provide protection from the consequences of a criminal conviction.

The prison system, he said, should not depend on “the surname, the position one held or the contacts one has.” he also went on to declare: “There will be no privileges for those who used a suit and tie to commit crimes.”

“I am coming for all of you”

The president said his anti-corruption campaign would not end with an investigation or a court ruling, promising to pursue those he holds responsible for what he described as the country’s financial deterioration.

“We are going to pursue without quarter those responsible for this disaster, those who lied in the figures, those who compromised Colombia’s future,” he said. “I will not leave you alone. I am coming for all of you.”

His message was ultimately framed around the principle that public resources belong to the citizens and that anyone who diverts or appropriates them must answer to the justice system.

“Public money is sacred because it is the money of Colombians,” De La Espriella said, turning the phrase into the central theme of his corruption offensive. Under that principle, the president highlighted that neither wealth nor political influence nor social status should provide protection from prosecution or punishment.

For most people who lived through the event, their answers to those questions will be a resounding “yes!”

As a memory researcher, I know long-lasting and vivid “flashbulb memories” typically are for mundane events like driving to work or cooking dinner. These memories are made remarkable only due to their association with learning about remote and exceptional public events.

Flashbulb Memories

Flashbulb memories are not memories of direct involvement in a newsworthy event. Instead, they are recollections of the exact moment and surrounding context of when someone learned of the event.

If you, for example, lived through an earthquake, your memory is likely to include traumatic and vivid details of what you were doing when the earthquake struck. You would have memories of where you were, who you were with, and your thoughts and feelings at the time.

However, the phenomenon of someone having a similarly strong memory when they’ve merely learned about an earthquake that occurred many miles away is what makes the flashbulb memory phenomenon significant.

When comparing flashbulb memories with ordinary memories of everyday experiences, my colleague and I found that in both types of memories, people tended to forget details they originally included in the written descriptions of their memories. Both groups also introduced details that contradicted information presented initially at similar rates.

However, even if flashbulb memories are not quite as accurate as we believe them to be, the exceptional qualities they exhibit do seem to differentiate them from ordinary memories.

A Deep Connection

When a surprising and consequential public event like 9/11 occurs, it captures attention due to its novelty and disruption of ordinary life. The event is also likely to evoke a strong emotional response.

Newsworthy events occur every day, however, and only some of those events lead to flashbulb memories.

Research suggests that events must be important within a person’s social group, or relevant to their identity, to become a flashbulb memory. Talking about and thinking about the event within your community reinforces the idea that the public event was important.

For instance, when grandparents share their flashbulb memories with younger generations, it helps communicate which historical events are important and what lessons can be drawn from those experiences.

Having a vivid, detailed memory of the event serves to reinforce a person’s connection to the group. In the context of the 9/11 attacks, sharing one’s flashbulb memory of that day can seem like a demonstration of patriotism and connection with other Americans.

Recounting where you were and what you were doing that day connects your personal history to a broader history. It can be a means of bearing witness.

Initially, people who actually experienced the event themselves tend to share their stories with each other. But as time passes, listeners hear those stories as a way of learning about past events that they did not themselves live through.

For these people, remembering 9/11 is about connecting the public and the personal to comprehend not just what occurred, but what it meant. With each anniversary, the group of people with a personal connection diminishes until the event simply becomes a part of the historical past.

What does it mean to ‘never forget’?

A common entreaty after tragedies is to “remember” or to “never forget” such historic events.

“Remember the Alamo” or “Remember Pearl Harbor” are examples, as well as the common refrain to “never forget” the Holocaust. Similarly, “never forget” became a solemn slogan to remember 9/11 immediately after the attacks.

These types of refrains are often calls to honor those who were directly affected. In the case of 9/11, it’s a call to reflect on the lives lost and the loved ones left behind.

For some people, this is a deeply personal act of mourning. For others, remembrance is a way of demonstrating respect and reverence for people they did not know but wish to commemorate.

As the event and its participants recede into the past, appeals to memory are often more abstract. They are calls to draw lessons and to shape future actions. Public memorials like the 9/11 Memorial and Museum are often constructed to encourage these abstract types of remembering.

Remembering 9/11

To remember an event like 9/11 can also mean the simple recalling of factual details. The United States suffered a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 forced a crash in rural Pennsylvania, thwarting another intended attack on Washington.

Those are key components of what it means to know what happened. But in many ways, those are the least important elements to commit to memory because the information is so readily available from other sources.

On the other hand, flashbulb memories of how an individual person heard about 9/11 are unique.

What it means to remember 9/11 will depend on who is doing the remembering and what they are being asked to recall. The traumatic memories of people who directly experienced the events in New York, Virginia and in Shanksville, Pa., are different from the flashbulb memories of people who learned about the events on that day from afar.

And these flashbulb memories differ from the factual memories that all Americans share about what transpired on that day, even if we were not alive when it occurred.

Each way of remembering 9/11 is important.

About the author: Jennifer Talarico is a Professor of Psychology, Lafayette College.

This article is reproduced thanks to a Creative Commons licence with The Conversation.

The government of President Abelardo de la Espriella has approved a pilot programme to test the aerial spraying of coca crops with glufosinate ammonium, an herbicide that officials are presenting as an alternative to the Monsanto-manufactured compound.

The decision marks the most significant move towards the return of aerial eradication since Colombia suspended the practice during the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos. But the government still faces environmental, health and legal hurdles before the first plane – or drone – can take off.

Authorised through a resolution of the National Narcotics Council – and dated August 18 – the pilot project would last seven days and cover no more than 1,000 hectares.

The location has yet to be disclosed, with the government arguing that secrecy is necessary to protect personnel and prevent obstruction, sabotage or retaliation by illegal armed groups seeking to protect their laboratories and drug-trafficking routes.

The resolution nevertheless establishes restrictions. The operation cannot take place in protected environmental areas or in territories directly affecting Indigenous or Afro-Colombian communities unless the required prior consultation process has been completed.

Before any spraying takes place, the government must obtain an environmental-management plan from the National Authority for Environmental Licenses, or ANLA. The agency has previously authorised glufosinate for the eradication of illicit crops, but only for ground-based applications.

That distinction is central to the government’s experiment.

Glufosinate not glyphosate

Glyphosate and glufosinate are both herbicides, but they are different chemical compounds. Glyphosate became the focus of Colombia’s aerial eradication programme for decades before the practice was suspended in 2015 amid concerns over potential health and environmental impacts.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate in 2015 as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Colombia subsequently suspended aerial spraying under Resolution 6 of 2015.

The De la Espriella administration derogated that resolution on August 28, reopening the legal possibility of aerial glyphosate spraying. This does not mean that glyphosate spraying will resume.

Instead, the government is pursuing a second track: testing whether glufosinate ammonium can be used from a low-altitude drone to target coca shrubs.

The distinction matters because the government is seeking to satisfy the constitutional and environmental requirements that have constrained aerial spraying since its suspension.

A technical assessment cited in the debate over glufosinate notes that much of the existing toxicological and environmental evidence concerns conventional agricultural use, where conditions such as climate, terrain and access can be relatively controlled. Those conditions differ substantially from aerial eradication operations in Colombia’s mountainous coca-growing regions, where armed groups, dispersed populations, legal crops and sensitive ecosystems complicate the assessment of risk.

Glufosinate is already used across large swathes of the Colombian agricultural lowlands, and has been authorised for ground eradication. But spraying it from a cropduster creates a different set of problems.

The government will have to assess the possibility of chemical drift, including the effects of wind on neighbouring legal crops, communities, waterways and endangered ecosystems.

The World Health Organization classifies glufosinate ammonium as a moderately hazardous pesticide. That classification has fuelled criticism of the proposal, particularly because replacing glyphosate with another herbicide does not automatically remove the health and environmental concerns associated with aerial spraying.

Its results are expected to inform a later decision on whether Colombia should adopt aerial glufosinate spraying more broadly.

The urgency behind the government’s decision is linked to the extraordinary expansion of coca cultivation. According to the latest United Nations monitoring figures cited by the government, Colombia had 260,000 hectares of coca in 2024, the highest figure recorded in the country’s history.

At the same time, forced manual eradication has fallen sharply. Between 2023 and 2024,  when Gustavo Petro was president, manual eradication dropped by 54 percent, from over 20,300 hectares to 9,400 hectares.

For a new government that has made the fight against narcotrafficking and armed groups a central security priority, those figures have increased pressure to find an alternative. The incoming government’s decision therefore represents an attempt to restore an aerial component to Colombia’s eradication strategy without immediately returning to the controversial glyphosate programme of the past.

The question facing Colombia is therefore no longer simply whether aerial coca spraying will return. It is whether the country is prepared to replace one controversial herbicide with another — and whether glufosinate can withstand the environmental, health and legal scrutiny that ultimately brought glyphosate spraying to an end over a decade ago.

Meeting in Barranquilla, the alternate seat of Colombia’s presidency since De La Espriella took office on August 7, the two leaders discussed security, narcotics trafficking, border cooperation, migration, investment and Venezuela.

De La Espriella said the meeting advanced an agenda designed to strengthen regional security, confront narcoterrorism and expand cooperation along Colombia’s borders while opening new opportunities for investment and economic development.

“Colombia retakes its international leadership with seriousness, character and a diplomacy of results, not speeches,” highlighted De La Espriella.

The message was unmistakable: after four years of often tense relations between Washington and the government of former President Gustavo Petro, Bogotá is seeking a rapid restoration of its traditional strategic alignment with the United States.

Rubio said Washington was equally interested in rebuilding the relationship. “There was a longstanding security relationship between the United States and Colombia,” Rubio said, adding that it had unfortunately been impeded during the previous three or four years by political leadership. “But that has now changed,” he said.

The meeting produced two memorandums of understanding signed by Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula and Rubio.

The first establishes a framework for cooperation on securing supply chains involving critical minerals and rare earths — resources increasingly viewed by Washington as essential to economic and national security.

The second establishes strategic civilian cooperation in nuclear matters, opening another area of technological and scientific collaboration between the two countries.

The agreements give the new relationship an economic and strategic dimension extending beyond the traditional U.S.-Colombia focus on counternarcotics.

Rubio said the economic opportunities in Colombia were “incredible,” while De La Espriella emphasized investment, development and prosperity as central elements of the renewed partnership.

Security returns to the center

Security, however, remained the dominant theme. De La Espriella said Colombia was seeking U.S. assistance with aircraft, drones, radar, intelligence capabilities and measures to combat money laundering as it confronts increasingly powerful drug-trafficking organizations and armed groups.

Rubio confirmed that U.S. and Colombian security officials were discussing new forms of cooperation, including equipment, intelligence and training, although he did not specify what Washington would ultimately provide.

“The security threats Colombia faces are the same ones we face in the United States,” Rubio said.

For De La Espriella, the objective is larger than bilateral cooperation. He said Colombia wants to consolidate itself as the United States’ principal hemispheric security partner.

The language places Colombia at the center of Washington’s broader effort to strengthen its influence across Latin America at a time when migration, organized crime, narcotics trafficking and regional instability have become major priorities for the Trump administration.

Venezuela looms large

Adressing the on-going Venezuela situation was inevitable during the official eight-hour visit. De La Espriella said Colombia would work responsibly with the United States following the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the emergence of Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, arguing that events in Venezuela have immediate consequences for Colombia.

“Everything that happens in Venezuela has direct consequences for Colombia,” he said, pointing to security, migration, narcotrafficking, smuggling, armed organizations and energy.

Colombia, he added, would deepen cooperation with Washington on border, migration and security matters while supporting efforts aimed at regional stability and the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan question gives the new U.S.-Colombia relationship an additional strategic importance, particularly given Colombia’s long land border with Venezuela and its exposure to the consequences of political and economic instability there.

A blunt assessment of the Petro

Perhaps the sharpest political moment came when Rubio described the inheritance awaiting De La Espriella after Petro’s administration. “You are confronting the mistakes of the last four years and you have to fix that,” Rubio said, adding that “the opportunities we have now” should be used.

His remarks offered a clear indication of Washington’s assessment of the leftist administration and expectations surrounding De La Espriella’s government. Rubio also stressed the historic depth of the U.S.-Colombia relationship, saying the links between the two countries were almost “impossible to replicate” elsewhere in the region.

Diplomatic partners to personal friends

The meeting also revealed an unusually personal connection between the two men. Rubio said he had known De La Espriella for years, long before the Colombian entered politics. He recalled that the two had been seated at the same table at a wedding in South Florida approximately two and a half years ago.

The secretary of state joked about arriving in Colombia to discover that someone he had known personally had become president.

The anecdote offered a rare glimpse behind the formal diplomacy — and underscored the extraordinary political transformation represented by De La Espriella’s arrival in the Casa de Nariño.

For Washington and Bogotá, however, the larger message from Rubio’s visit was clear: the era of diplomatic friction between the two governments is being replaced by an ambitious partnership built around security, strategic resources, economic opportunity and a shared interest in reshaping the balance of power in the hemisphere.

The visit, confirmed by Colombia’s Foreign Ministry, will be Rubio’s first official trip to Colombia since becoming the State Department’s top diplomat and one of the first major bilateral meetings between the administration of President Donald Trump and De La Espriella’s government, which took office on August 7.

According to the Colombian government, the meeting is intended to strengthen mechanisms of dialogue and cooperation between the two countries.

“During the meeting, the two governments will address opportunities to deepen bilateral cooperation and identify new areas of joint work in response to challenges related to security, stability and development in the hemisphere,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Rubio is expected to land at approximately 1 p.m., with his meeting with De La Espriella scheduled for 3 p.m.

The two leaders are then expected to participate in the signing of agreements before Rubio meets U.S. Embassy personnel later in the afternoon.

The precise itinerary remains subject to change as security and diplomatic arrangements are finalized.

The Four Pillars

Security is expected to dominate the conversation. Washington has identified increased cooperation against what it describes as narcoterrorism as one of the principal objectives of Rubio’s regional tour. Colombia remains a strategically important U.S. partner in combating drug-trafficking organizations and armed criminal groups operating across the region.

For the De La Espriella administration, the meeting provides an opportunity to demonstrate a decisive break with the failed “total peace” agenda and anti-U.S rhetoric of Gustavo Petro.

In recent weeks, Bogotá has signaled a significantly closer alignment with Washington on security issues, including Colombia’s entry into the so-called ‘Shield of the Americas’, the resumption of aerial glyphosate spraying and a more aggressive military and police campaign against criminal organizations and armed groups.

The two governments are also expected to discuss the possibility of expanding military cooperation, and relations with neighbouring Venezuela.

Weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke in Panama about the possibility of joint operations in Colombia. Bogotá has not confirmed that concrete plans for such operations exist.

Any proposal involving the presence or movement of foreign troops would also carry significant political implications in Colombia, where congressional approval requirements could become an important factor.

New Economic Partnership

Trade and economic cooperation are expected to form another important pillar of the meeting, particularly as Washington and Bogotá explore new areas of strategic economic cooperation.

The planned agreements on civilian nuclear energy and critical minerals could prove particularly significant.

Critical minerals and rare earth elements have become increasingly important to the United States as Washington seeks to strengthen supply chains and reduce strategic dependence on China.

For Colombia, closer cooperation in this area could potentially open new investment opportunities while placing the country’s mineral resources within a broader U.S. hemispheric strategy.

Earthquake Assistance

The devastating earthquake that recently struck Colombia is another key reason for Rubio’s visit.

The U.S. State Department has said Rubio will discuss American support for Colombia’s response to the disaster, including possible mechanisms for international cooperation and recovery assistance.

That gives the meeting an immediate humanitarian dimension alongside its broader geopolitical significance.

For the new Colombian government, American assistance could become an important component of reconstruction efforts in some of the territories hardest hit by the August 10, 7.4-magnitude earthquake.

Rubio’s arrival comes after a strained period in U.S.-Colombian relations under the country’s first leftist president. The relationship with the Trump administration deteriorated sharply over issues including deportation flights, migration and drug policy, culminating in diplomatic measures and a temporary suspension of some U.S. visa services in Bogotá.

The De La Espriella government has since moved rapidly to repair relations.

Foreign Minister Omar Bula described Rubio’s visit as a signal of the direction Colombia’s new foreign policy intends to take. “This is the first high-level visit that President De La Espriella will receive in Colombia and it shows the beginning of the reconstruction of a strategic alliance with the United States, our principal partner in the region,” he said.

The choice of Barranquilla also gives the visit a distinctly Caribbean dimension. Rubio is expected to spend at least part of Tuesday at the presidential facilities at Batallón Paraíso. Colombian officials have also been in contact with advisers to Barranquilla Mayor Álex Char over the possibility of Rubio visiting some of the city’s landmarks, potentially including the Caribbean broadwalk – Malecón.

Whether such a visit takes place will depend on the secretary’s schedule and security arrangements.

Rubio’s Regional Tour

After leaving Colombia, Rubio is scheduled to continue his regional tour to Peru and Ecuador, where he will meet the respective governments.

For Washington, the itinerary places Colombia within a broader effort to strengthen relationships with governments considered important partners in confronting organized crime, irregular migration and growing strategic competition in the Western Hemisphere.

For Bogotá, Tuesday’s meeting represents something potentially more consequential: the first major test of whether the new government’s promise to rebuild a strategic alliance with Washington can translate into concrete agreements on security, trade, energy and reconstruction.

A magnitude-4.1 earthquake was recorded at 8:58 p.m. on September 6 in the municipality of Totoró, within the area of influence of the Puracé volcanic complex, according to the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC). The event was reported at a depth of around 10 kilometres. No injuries or material damage were immediately reported.

The earthquake came as scientists continued to monitor changes in the volcano’s behaviour, with the latest observations showing persistent signals associated with the movement of fluids beneath the crater.

The SGC has kept Puracé at orange alert since August 1, a level indicating that significant changes in the volcano have been detected and that the possibility of an eruption is greater than under normal conditions. It does not, however, mean that an eruption is underway or certain to occur.

The latest monitoring report on Monday recorded an emission of ash reaching approximately 200 metres above the volcano, with winds carrying the plume towards the northwest.

Scientists at the Observatorio Vulcanológico y Sismológico de Popayán have also identified a continuing predominance of signals associated with fluid movement inside the volcanic conduits. Volcanic tremor has been detected beneath the crater at depths of less than one kilometre.  The entrance to PNN Puracé National Park  is located only 30 east of the departmental capital Popayán and some 200 km from the Pacific coast.

Superficial earthquakes – at depths of between seven and 11 kilometres – associated with the fracturing of rock continue to occur around the Puracé volcanic complex with the  SGC also reporting continuing emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO₂), and elevated carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the soil.

When the SGC raised the alert from yellow to orange on August 1, it said the increase in seismic energy, together with higher temperatures in ash and gas emissions, represented a significant alteration in Puracé’s behaviour. The agency noted that several monitored parameters had reached their highest levels since systematic monitoring began in 1993.

Puracé forms part of the Los Coconucos volcanic chain in the Central Andes, an area of high geological activity that extends from southwest Colombia to the departments of Huila, Tolima and Caldas in the central region of the country.

The SGC has repeatedly warned residents and visitors not to approach the craters of Puracé, Piocollo and Curiquinga or the headwaters of rivers originating in the volcanic zone. Sudden emissions of gases and ash, the expulsion of rock fragments and the accumulation of volcanic material that could generate localized mudflows remain among the potential hazards.

The erratic behavior of the Puracé comes as eruptions across the Pacific draw international attention.

From Puracé to Krakatau

Indonesia, one of the world’s most volcanically active countries, is dealing Monday with the aftermath of a large eruption at Anak Krakatau.

The eruption continued for over 25 hours before subsiding on Sunday, producing powerful explosions and enormous ash columns. Several Indonesian airports remained closed, including Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta. The Indonesian eruption provides a dramatic illustration of how volcanic activity can rapidly become a public-health, transportation and economic emergency.

So far, Colombia’s situation at Puracé is different as scientists monitor a series of geological signals that indicate that the volcano has moved well beyond its normal background or semi-dormant status.

For communities around Puracé, the immediate concern is not the activity of distant volcanoes but what the instruments beneath their own mountain are recording. The magnitude-4.1 earthquake on Sunday comes less than a month after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Colombia’s Pacific region on August 10, resulting in 331 dead, 111 missing and over 4,500 injured.

From September 4 to October 4, more than 1,000 artists from 16 countries will perform in 25 venues across the city, from the grand architecture of the Catedral Primada de Colombia to churches, concert halls, theatres and more intimate cultural spaces. The festival will also extend later this year – and into 2027 – to Manizales, Carmen de Viboral, Quibdó, Arauca, Chiquinquirá and Mompox as part of its mission to deliver music to vulnerable communities in the country, impacted by conflict and, more recently, the August 10 earthquake.

For a festival that began 15 years ago, the scale is significant. But its appeal lies less in numbers than in its breadth. Sacred music here is not confined to one faith, period or geography. Instead, the programme moves between religious, contemplative, spiritual and meditative traditions, creating a musical map that stretches from Europe and the Middle East to Latin America and Asia.

Missa pro Vida et Concordia

The opening concert provides an appropriately international beginning. The National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia and National Choir of Colombia, conducted by Tomàs Grau, will give the world premiere of Missa pro Vita et Concordia by the Bogotá-based, French composer, Julien Faure. Commissioned by the festival, the work reflects on life, reconciliation and the promise of coexistence.

Faure began writing the piece more than a decade ago, around the impending birth of his son. Its long gestation has given the work a personal foundation, while its eventual completion has coincided with a festival devoted to the idea of bringing people together.

“The Missa pro Vita et Concordia is a piece that I started writing a long time ago, more than 10 years ago,” says Faure. He describes the work as being inspired by the Nativity and by the associations of Christmas with birth, family and reunion. “It invites us all to meet again, to unite; as a union,” highlights the composer.

The opening programme will also feature American violinist Rachel Barton Pine performing Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Violin Concerto No. 1. The former draws on the Jewish tradition while the latter remains one of the defining works of the Romantic violin repertoire. Together with Faure’s new Mass, the programme sets up the festival’s central proposition: that music can create connections across traditions without erasing their differences.

A global programme

The weeks ahead will bring a particularly varied collection of performers to the Colombian capital. Among them are Britain’s The Tallis Scholars, Germany’s Belli & Schmeding Duo, the Sedda Ensemble from Mongolia and Iran, France’s Ensemble Organum, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, the National Choir of Peru and the Karlovy Vary Chamber Choir from the Czech Republic.

Colombian institutions and ensembles will be equally prominent, including the National Symphony Orchestra and National Choir of Colombia, Bogotá Piano Trio, Bogotá Baroque Ensemble and Compañía Cuerpo de Indias of El Colegio del Cuerpo.

Spain, this year’s guest country, will receive particular attention, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia leading a programme devoted to Mozart. It is a reminder that the festival is as interested in musical heritage as it is in contemporary creation.

Beyond Concert Halls

The festival’s evolution has also taken it beyond the conventional concert format. Alongside ticketed performances will be free concerts, talks, artist encounters, workshops and contemplative experiences involving gongs and Tibetan singing bowls.

The exhibition Rituales del Espíritu will bring together works from the festival’s art collection, extending the programme into the visual arts and offering another perspective on the relationship between ritual, belief and creativity.

Mariana Piotrowska, the festival’s director, says reaching the 15th edition is a moment worth celebrating, particularly after the pandemic and the practical difficulties of sustaining an independent cultural project. Five years ago, the festival also began taking its programme beyond Bogotá, opening a second chapter in its ambition to decentralise cultural activity in Colombia.

There is something fitting about staging such a festival in Bogotá. The city’s churches, theatres, libraries and cultural institutions offer a rich architectural setting, but the deeper attraction is its ability to bring different audiences into the same room.

After 15 years, the International Sacred Music Festival has become a platform for artistic circulation, intercultural dialogue and the exploration of spiritual heritage. Its success is perhaps best measured not by the size of its programme but by the conversations it makes possible.

In 2026, with La Concordia as its guiding theme, the festival is asking audiences to listen across boundaries. The answer, as ever, starts with music.

Visit the festival’s official site for the complete listing of concerts and purchase your tickets at TuBoleta.com   https://festivalmusicasacra.com/

But there is an equally important principle: the right to protest cannot become a licence to destroy.

That is the premise behind the Ley Anticapuchos, a new bill presented to Congress by representatives Jaime Arizabaleta of Centro Democrático and Julio César Triana of Cambio Radical, together with lawmakers from several regions and political parties. The proposal would create a specific criminal offense for people who conceal their identities in order to commit vandalism during public demonstrations.

The proposed punishment is substantial: between 54 and 96 months in prison, or four-and-a-half to eight years, accompanied by fines of between 50 and 200 monthly legal minimum wages. The penalty could increase by two-thirds where explosives, improvised dangerous devices, corrosive substances or other means capable of seriously injuring people or damaging property are used.

The important point — and one that should not be lost in the inevitable political argument over the bill — is that the proposal does not make wearing a hood or covering one’s face a crime. It targets the use of concealed identity as a means of facilitating vandalism or other criminal conduct during a demonstration.

That is a reasonable distinction. Colombia has already seen where the line can disappear. Colombia has spent years learning what happens when that distinction becomes blurred.

The country’s Paro Nacional of 2021 remains the clearest example. Beginning on April 28, the mobilization produced enormous demonstrations across Colombia. But alongside legitimate protests came violent confrontations, attacks on police facilities, destruction of public and private property and prolonged blockades of roads and transportation infrastructure.

In Bogotá, the CAI — Comandos de Atención Inmediata, the small police posts embedded in neighbourhoods throughout the capital — became particular targets. Public transportation infrastructure was attacked, commercial premises were damaged and city streets were repeatedly transformed into battlegrounds.

Whatever one’s political interpretation of the 2021 uprising, the destruction cannot be dismissed as an incidental detail. Nor can the prolonged road blockades, which at their height disrupted the movement of food, fuel, workers and essential goods during a period when Colombia was still confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lesson should not be that Colombians should stop protesting. It should be the opposite: peaceful protesters deserve better protection from those who turn demonstrations into opportunities for violence and destruction.

That is where the Ley Anticapuchos makes its strongest argument.

Anonymity should not become a shield for criminal conduct

A person who marches peacefully, carries a sign, chants a slogan or criticizes the government should not be treated as a criminal.

But someone who uses the anonymity of a crowd and a concealed face to smash windows, torch police stations, destroy transportation infrastructure or assault another person should not be able to invoke the right to protest as a defense against the consequences of that conduct.

There is an obvious practical problem with masked vandalism: identification becomes harder and accountability more difficult. Police investigations do not always have the resources to identify people who deliberately conceal themselves while committing crimes.

The bill attempts to address precisely that problem.

Under the proposed legislation, people who illicitly incite, direct, coerce or provide the means for blockades that threaten life, public health, food security, the environment or the right to work could face the same basic range of prison sentences and fines.

This is significant because a road blockade would be considered a criminal act when it prevents ambulances from moving, interrupts food distribution, prevents workers from reaching their jobs or cuts off communities from essential supplies.

Congress must protect protest while defining criminal conduct precisely

The challenge for Congress will be to ensure that the final legislation is drafted with sufficient precision to withstand constitutional scrutiny.

The state must not be given a vague instrument that could be used against peaceful demonstrators. Nor should legitimate civil disobedience automatically be equated with criminal vandalism.

But precision should not become paralysis.

The Ley Anticapuchos is ultimately about accountability. Its sponsors are arguing that Colombia has spent too long allowing the symbolism of protest to obscure the reality of criminal acts committed within protests.

As Triana argues, the objective is not to prevent demonstrations but to give authorities stronger tools against those who use anonymity to evade responsibility. Arizabaleta has made essentially the same case, arguing that the overwhelming majority of people who protest do so without concealing their identities or committing vandalism.

The distinction is fundamental.

Protest is an exercise of freedom. Vandalism is an abuse of it.

The dubbed “Hooded Law” is an attempt to inscribe this distinction into Colombia’s criminal code while preserving the constitutional safeguards that protect peaceful protest. That is a legitimate objective in any democracy.

The test for Congress will be whether it can achieve it without criminalizing dissent. If it can, Colombia will not have weakened the right to protest. It will have strengthened the principle that makes peaceful protest possible in the first place: freedom comes with responsibility, and anonymity cannot be a shield for harrassment or politically-motived victimization.

Human Rights Watch has warned that illegal armed groups are increasingly using TikTok, Facebook and other social-media platforms to recruit children, combining propaganda, promises of money and status, coded language and carefully chosen emojis to draw minors toward illegal armed organizations.

The warning comes as Colombia confronts a growing child-recruitment crisis and a grim parallel reality: children forced into armed groups are increasingly among those killed in military operations against them.

Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 1,500 children have been recruited by criminal organizations since 2021, based on data from the Ombudsperson’s Office. The organization says the real number is likely considerably higher because families often fear reprisals, distrust authorities or do not know how to report cases.

The Defensoría del Pueblo recorded 1,173 cases of children and adolescents being illegally recruited between 2024 and July 31, 2026. Ombudsperson Iris Marín has warned that a decline in reported cases should not be interpreted as evidence that recruitment is stalling.“A reduction in reported cases does not imply a decrease in recruitment, but rather an increase in underreporting,” Marín said.

The phenomenon is concentrated in some of Colombia’s most violent regions, where the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) and other FARC dissident factions, the ELN and the Clan del Golfo compete for territory and control of illicit economies.

But the battlefield is no longer confined to rural Colombia.

According to Human Rights Watch, armed groups have learned to use the language and culture of social media to make recruitment appear less threatening. Posts can feature motorcycles, weapons, cash, military-style clothing and images designed to glamorize life inside an armed organization.

In some cases, even an emoji can be part of the message.

Human Rights Watch documented the use of symbols including ninjas, clovers and bundles of cash, as well as altered spellings and coded references to armed groups, apparently designed to evade platform moderation while reaching younger audiences.

The organization reviewed dozens of TikTok and Facebook accounts and posts that promoted armed groups or encouraged children to join them. Some attracted thousands of followers and generated significant levels of engagement.

The recruitment can begin with what appears to be an ordinary conversation.

Children may be offered money, transportation, employment or the prospect of a more glamorous life. Once contact has been established, recruiters can move the conversation away from public platforms and into private messaging.

Human Rights Watch found that social media played a significant role in recruitment, with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace reporting that 44% of children recruited in 2025 were recruited through social networks.

The use of social media presents Colombian authorities with a new challenge: the traditional warning signs of recruitment can be invisible until a child has already been drawn into an armed structure.

The Defensoría says there are also numerous minors believed to be present in the ranks of the dissident factions led by Iván Mordisco and Calarcá whose cases have never entered official statistics. Marín has also pointed to growing recruitment in Catatumbo, where the ELN and the dissident Frente 33 remain active.

Guaviare has become one of the clearest examples of the danger.

On Aug. 27, Colombian forces carried out Operation Amón against a FARC dissident camp in rural El Retorno. Three minors, aged 15 and 16, were among those killed, according to Medicina Legal. The operation was followed by renewed scrutiny of the government’s decision to use aerial force against armed groups that may contain recruited children.

The deaths brought the number of minors killed in military operations under Colombia’s last three presidents to 107, according to figures from Medicina Legal: 42 during Iván Duque’s government, 62 during Gustavo Petro’s and three during the first weeks of President Abelardo de la Espriella’s administration.

The numbers underline a painful contradiction.

Children who have been forcibly recruited are victims of armed groups, yet once inside their camps they can become casualties of the state’s campaign against those same organizations.

That dilemma is becoming particularly acute under De la Espriella’s new government as he moves rapidly to revive offensive military operations. His hardline security policy aims to dismantle Petro’s capitulation to illegal armed groups and pursuit of amnesty agreements under a failed “total peace” policy.

The new government has defended the Guaviare operation, saying military forces complied with the legal requirements governing aerial attacks. Defense officials have argued that minors participating in hostilities can constitute legitimate military targets under international humanitarian law, while human-rights organizations have insisted that the presence of recruited children requires heightened precautions and careful assessment before an attack.

The debate is not new.

During Petro’s leftist administration, 62 minors were killed in military operations, according to Medicina Legal. The figure became particularly controversial in late 2025, when several children recruited by FARC dissidents were killed during military bombings. The City Paper previously reported on the deaths of 15 minors in four military operations that year.

What has changed, over this decade, is the speed with which recruitment is taking place online.

For Colombia, preventing the next child from entering an armed camp may therefore require more than military intelligence or patrols in remote territories. It may require understanding what happens on a teenager’s phone long before a soldier encounters that youngster in the jungle.

And by the time Colombia discovers that another child has gone missing, it may already be too late.

The announcement came during a nationally televised address from Bogotá in which De La Espriella sought to reset his government’s response to three simultaneous crises: wildfires across several regions, the aftermath of the Aug. 10 earthquake and deteriorating security.

The Tolima fires have burned more than 50,000 hectares, including about 28,000 hectares of agricultural land, according to official figures. Some 2,660 producers have been affected, losses exceed COP134 billion pesos ($33.5 million), and 163,000 animals are at risk. The fires have affected 23 municipalities and hundreds of rural districts, according to the government.

“We have indications, information and studies that show that a large part of these fires have been deliberately caused,” De La Espriella said, describing the perpetrators as “criminal hands.”

His comments add a potential security dimension to what has become one of Colombia’s most serious environmental emergencies of the year. Extremely dry conditions and high temperatures have helped fires spread rapidly, while authorities have also warned that human activity is responsible for many wildfires.

The president announced that the special program will be called “Environmental, Productive, Rural and Security Recovery” for Tolima.

The package includes 343 subsidies of COP65 million pesos each to rebuild rural homes damaged by the fires. The government will also provide 5,000 tonnes of hay and 5,000 tonnes of rice straw to feed livestock whose grazing land has been destroyed.

“We are going to provide 5,000 tonnes of hay and 5,000 tonnes of rice straw to attend to the feeding of the animals,” the president said. He also announced 7 billion pesos for productive projects aimed at helping farmers restart their livelihoods.

For farmers facing credit default, the government will freeze agricultural loan obligations for three months, giving producers additional time before repayments resume. The president also referred to possible debt-purchasing measures.

The crisis has been particularly severe for cattle producers, with livestock owners warning  that animals will face severe water shortages and starvation as pastureland disappears.

De La Espriella pledged that government assistance would continue after the fires themselves are extinguished. “We are not going to abandon Tolima when the last flame goes out,” he said. “We are going to remain until it recovers its productive capacity.”

Reconstruction begins after earthquake

The president also formally announced the beginning of Colombia’s reconstruction phase following the Aug. 10 earthquake, while emphasizing that emergency operations and searches for missing people will continue.

“Today I want to announce to the country that we are beginning a new stage: the reconstruction of the homeland,” De La Espriella said. “This does not mean that we are abandoning the search, humanitarian assistance or support for families.”

The latest government figures presented in the address put the number of people affected by the earthquake at 452,782, belonging to 213,400 families across 16 departments. The disaster has killed 331 people, injured 4,497 and left 152 missing.

The reconstruction program will focus on housing and essential infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and roads, while seeking to restore agricultural production and economic activity in communities devastated by the quake.

But De La Espriella stressed that reconstruction would not come at the expense of those still waiting for relatives to be found. “As long as there is one missing person, we will make every effort,” he said.

National Security shift

The address also marked a significant change in the government’s security policy. De La Espriella said he had ended dialogue processes with three armed groups, arguing that they had failed to demonstrate a genuine commitment to peace, civilian reintegration or submission to justice.

“I have taken this decision because there is no real and verifiable willingness for peace, much less for reintegration into civilian life or serious submission to justice,” he said.

The President ordered military and police commanders to recover territory controlled or pressured by illegal armed groups and confirmed new search units to combat extortion.

The combination of emergency relief, reconstruction and tough security posture represents an early test for De La Espriella’s government, less than a month since taking office.

For Tolima, the immediate challenge is fundamental: containing the flames, protecting livestock and restoring a rural economy that supplies the nation’s economic basket with essential staples, among them, rice, cocao, palm oil and sugarcane.

]]> 39266 https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombias-de-la-espriella-announces-military-strike-against-farc-dissidents-in-guaviare/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:34:07 +0000 https://thecitypaperbogota.com/?p=39262 Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella announced Thursday that the country’s Armed Forces have carried out a military strike against the FARC dissident faction commanded by alias Calarcá in the southern department of Guaviare. According to initial reports, eight members of the criminal armed group have been killed.

De la Espriella said the operation, code-named AMÓN, was conducted in the early hours of Thursday in a rural area of El Retorno against camps allegedly used by the Jorge Suárez Briceño Bloc, a structure belonging to the dissident faction of the former FARC.

The president described the operation as a “decisive blow” against the organization and said the offensive would continue after the military seized over a dozen rifles and five machine guns. According to De La Espriella, the operation began with a precision aerial bombardment followed by an assault by military commandos.

The strike was carried out by Colombia’s Joint Special Operations Command. According to information cited by El Tiempo, the operation was directed against the Rodrigo Cadete structure and also involved five Kfir fighter jets and six Super Tucano aircraft.

De la Espriella had signaled earlier Thursday that he would announce the results of a major military operation, warning that his government’s offensive against organized crime would continue. “For now, I can only say one thing: the offensive against crime will not stop,” he said.

Hours later, he expanded the message, portraying the Guaviare operation as part of a broader change in the government’s security strategy. “Colombia must know that we are going on the offensive,” De la Espriella added, highlighting that the country’s principal armed-group commanders and their criminal organizations would have no safe haven.“The major commanders and their criminal structures will have nowhere to hide and no sanctuary anywhere in the national territory,” he said.

The operation represents the second major aerial strike announced by the De la Espriella government this month. On August 11, the armed forces carried out an operation against the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla in the mountainous Catatumbo region. Authorities said at the time that the aerial operation caused no reported harm to civilians.

The government has presented the military actions as part of a security strategy for its first 100 days in office. The plan includes 15 so-called ‘beta operations’ aimed at disrupting armed organizations and targeting their senior commanders.

The latest operation underscores the government’s increasingly confrontational posture toward Colombia’s armed groups, particularly factions that have continued to operate in territories once controlled by the FARC.

Alias Calarcá, identified by Colombian authorities as one of the principal commanders of the dissident Estado Mayor de Bloques y Frentes, has emerged as a central figure among Colombia’s remaining FARC dissident structures. The groups are involved in activities including drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion and territorial control.

For De la Espriella, the Guaviare operation is intended to demonstrate that the state is seeking to regain the initiative militarily. The president said troops would remain in the area as the operation continued and that the Armed Forces were advancing toward the consolidation of government control.

Speaking during a security council in Barranquilla on Sunday, President De La Espriella said his government would end distinctions between criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, illegal mining, extortion, smuggling and other illicit activities.

“Here we have to stop treating these criminals differently,” the president said. “They must all be treated under a single designation, which is that of terrorist groups.”

He was even more emphatic moments later. “Here that division is over,” he said. “When it comes to combating crime, there are no differences either in the State’s action or in the State’s response.”

“And even less in a categorization invented by sectors seeking to protect these criminals so that the State cannot exercise legitimate force as it should,” he added.

“They are all terrorists and we are going to treat them as such, no matter what.”

The declaration establishes the central principle of the security strategy the president presented in Barranquilla: criminal organizations will no longer receive different treatment from the State according to their name, structure or particular criminal activity.

De La Espriella argued that Colombia’s criminal economies are interconnected, with narcotics trafficking providing the financial foundation for other illegal activities.

“Narcotrafficking is the principal source of financing for criminal structures,” he said, insisting that the State must respond to the entire criminal ecosystem rather than separating its components.

The president said his government would pursue a unified response from Colombia’s security and judicial institutions. “The Colombian Public Force must act as a monolithic and unified body, without rivalries between institutions, under a single flag,” he said.

The strategy includes the Army, National Police, Navy and Aerospace Force working with the Fiscalía General and the judiciary. Among the measures announced is the immediate creation of a National Search Bloc against Extortion, bringing together the country’s principal security forces and judicial authorities to target extortion networks.

De La Espriella also ordered the reactivation of the national rewards system, raids and networks of civilian informants, as well as urgent transfers of prisoners accused of continuing to coordinate criminal activities from inside Colombia’s prisons. “We cannot allow prisons to continue operating as centers of extortion,” he said.

The president also ordered a renewed assault on criminal finances, calling for greater cooperation between the financial system, the police and the Financial Information and Analysis Unit, or UIAF.

His government plans to establish specialized teams of prosecutors and judges in each city and to pursue the financial structures supporting organized crime.

De La Espriella has also singled out gota a gota (drop-by-drop) money lending networks, which provide informal high-interest loans and are frequently linked to criminal organizations. He described the practice as “a modern form of slavery” and said it affects approximately 12 million of Colombia’s most vulnerable, the majority without access to formal banking.

The president’s security agenda extends beyond Colombia’s traditional armed groups. He has also ordered Migration Colombia to conduct coordinated operations with police in Barranquilla against irregular migration and foreign criminality.

Barranquilla and its metropolitan area, meanwhile, are to become a “laboratory” for the new security strategy, with increased police presence, intelligence operations and closer coordination among institutions.

The president’s announcement comes as his government moves to strengthen security cooperation with the United States. De La Espriella has closely aligned his administration with Washington’s campaign against organized crime and narcotrafficking and has backed the Shield of the Americas, a regional security initiative promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration has said it is prepared to support Colombia in defeating what it describes as “narcoterrorist and criminal organizations,” including through expanded technology and coordinated operations with Colombian security forces.

But in Barranquilla, De La Espriella’s message was less about individual organizations than about the principle that will guide his government: that the State must combat all illegal armed groups with the same determination. He then delivered a declaration that is likely to become the defining phrase of his opening security offensive: “They are all terrorists, and we will treat them as such.”

Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara says the government has information pointing to the alleged involvement of FARC dissidents and illegal-mining networks, while Tolima Governor Adriana Magali Matiz says authorities have evidence and “serious indications” of deliberate criminal activity behind some of the fires.

The allegations come as Tolima confronts a devastating combination of extreme dryness, the El Niño climate phenomenon and widespread human-caused burning. According to the regional environmental authority Cortolima, fires have consumed more than 30,000 hectares of vegetation across at least 28 municipalities.

As of Sunday, nine major fires remained active, with San Luis, Coello and Suárez among the municipalities considered most affected and vulnerable. Just one day earlier, authorities were dealing with 24 active fires across 13 municipalities.

The destruction has reached far beyond forests. Fires have damaged crops of lemon, maize, avocado, coffee, mango and plantain, while at least 18,000 head of cattle have reportedly been left without food as pastureland disappears beneath the flames.

More than 600 firefighters are currently deployed, supported by Police aircraft, Army helicopters and private agricultural aircraft. Some aircraft have been making water drops even after nightfall as crews attempt to contain the advancing fires.

In rural communities including Chagualá, residents have appealed for aerial assistance as flames approach homes. On Monday, August 24, fires reactivated in rural Coello, including the Potrerillo and Gualanday sectors, where residents reported that the flames were dangerously close to a gas tank.

Criminal investigation

Lara said authorities are investigating information suggesting that armed dissident groups and illegal mining structures may be deliberately starting fires in municipalities including Ortega.

The alleged objective, according to the minister, would be to distract the security forces, obstruct security operations and generate disorder.

“We are going to take measures to investigate basically the criminal hands that may be causing these fires,” Lara said during an official emergency briefing in Tolima.

Governor Matiz has gone further, saying authorities have evidence and serious indications that criminal actors are involved.

“We have evidence and serious indications of criminal hands in the forest fires, and we are going to pursue this to the ultimate consequences,” Matiz said. She warned that anyone found deliberately starting the fires could face prosecution under Article 350 of Colombia’s Penal Code, which establishes the crime of arson and carries prison sentences of up to 22 years.

The allegations have also emerged from communities in rural Venadillo and Lérida, where residents have reported seeing men traveling by motorcycle who allegedly move through the area shortly before fires begin. Authorities have not publicly identified any suspects, and the claims have yet to be independently substantiated.

Not every fire is organized crime

Cortolima has cautioned against attributing the entire wildfire emergency to organized criminal groups. Olga Lucía Alfonso, director of Cortolima, said that most forest fires are caused, deliberately or accidentally, by human activity, rather than necessarily being linked to armed groups or organized crime.

The environmental authority has already referred several cases and reports to the Fiscalía General de la Nación and has begun administrative proceedings against people responsible for unauthorized “controlled” burns.

That distinction is crucial. While the government investigates whether criminal organizations are deliberately igniting some of the fires for strategic purposes, the broader wildfire crisis also reflects a longstanding problem of uncontrolled agricultural burning and other human activity amplified by extreme dry conditions.

The result is a disaster of unprecedented scale for Tolima: forests and farmland are disappearing, livestock are losing pasture, communities are being threatened and hundreds of emergency workers are fighting fires across a vast and difficult landscape.

Colombian authorities now face another question alongside the battle against the flames: whether some of the fires are being used as a weapon against the new hardline administration of President Abelardo De La Espriella.

The award-winning singer and pop superstar arrived in Quibdó accompanied by American philanthropist Howard Graham Buffett, representatives of CAF, the development bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, and her Fundación Pies Descalzos. The delegation met children, families and educators affected by the earthquake and assessed damage to schools and other educational facilities.

During the visit, Shakira met with Chocó Governor Nubia Carolina Córdoba and Quibdó Mayor Rafael Bolaños to discuss the needs of communities and the challenges facing the department’s education system.

The singer announced that she would personally dedicate her efforts to rebuilding the Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó Diego Luis Córdoba, one of the region’s most important higher-education institutions, which was severely damaged by the earthquake.

“I am going to dedicate all my personal efforts to rebuilding the Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó,” Shakira told journalists in Quibdó. She also announced that Buffett would work with Fundación Pies Descalzos to support the construction of 10 new schools in the department.

The initiative comes as nearly 200 schools in Chocó have reported damage from the earthquake, complicating efforts to return students safely to classrooms.

The initial US$1.25 million commitment combines contributions from several organizations. Shakira and Live Nation are providing US$500,000, the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund is contributing another US$500,000, and CAF has pledged US$250,000.

Fundación Pies Descalzos will coordinate the reconstruction efforts with local authorities and educational communities. The organization has worked in Colombia for 25 years, focusing on school construction and expanding access to quality education.

For Shakira, restoring schools is about more than repairing damaged buildings. She said classrooms provide children with stability and routine at a moment when their families and communities are dealing with the consequences of a major natural disaster.

“Schools are more than buildings. They give children the stability and routine they need most after a disaster,” she said.

The earthquake caused extensive damage across western Colombia, with Chocó among the hardest-hit areas. The destruction of educational infrastructure has added another layer to the recovery challenge in a department already facing longstanding social and economic difficulties.

Shakira said she had watched Colombia respond to the disaster with both grief and solidarity.

“In recent days I have seen my country suffer, but I have also seen people come together with the resilience and solidarity that has always characterized us,” she said.

She also emphasized the urgency of getting children back into classrooms.

“Every day that children do not go to school is a day in which we pause their future, and we cannot allow that,” she said.

The singer called on international governments, private companies and philanthropic organizations to join the reconstruction effort. She specifically appealed to the governments of Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom to contribute to the recovery of Chocó.

The involvement of Buffett, whose philanthropic work has included major investments in education and development, is intended to expand the reconstruction effort beyond the initial financial commitment. Together with Pies Descalzos, his support will focus on replacing schools destroyed or rendered unusable by the earthquake.

The rebuilding initiative also places education at the center of Chocó’s broader recovery. While emergency assistance has focused on shelter, food, health and infrastructure, the reopening of schools can provide children with a safe environment and restore a sense of normality as families begin rebuilding their lives.

Shakira’s relationship with education in Colombia extends well beyond the current emergency. Through Fundación Pies Descalzos, she has spent decades supporting school construction and educational programs, particularly in communities facing poverty and limited access to educational opportunities.

Her visit to Chocó therefore marks an extension of that work into one of Colombia’s most vulnerable regions at a moment of acute need. “The Chocó is not alone. Colombia is not alone. And we are going to move forward,” Shakira said.

The first phase of the initiative will focus on assessing damage, coordinating with local authorities and communities, and determining the priorities for reconstruction. The objective is to restore safe educational spaces as quickly as possible while laying the groundwork for longer-term improvements to schools across the department.

For communities still recovering from the earthquake, the return of children to classrooms could become one of the clearest signs that Chocó is beginning to rebuild.