Latest news with #LeónValencia
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘The cartels and clans are ecstatic': How USAID cuts have emboldened Colombia's narcos
US cuts to international aid spending have put Colombia's counter-narcotics operations 'on ice' – a development that experts warn will reenergise the country's notorious cartels. For decades, the US has supported Colombia in its fight against drug trafficking and armed groups through aid spending. Since helping to end the reign of infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, US defence and intelligence agencies have been instrumental in the country's counter-narcotic operations. Washington has also been instrumental in helping demobilise the leftist FARC rebels since the 2016 peace accord, ushering in a period of relative stability. But now, following the Trump administration's freeze of nearly all funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), along with changes to US State Department spending, analysts and civil society leaders are sounding the alarm. 'The groups that operate outside of the law – the cartels and the clans – are happy. They're ecstatic, because now they have the freedom to do whatever they want,' said León Valencia, director of the Bogotá-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. The US State Department has funded major counternarcotics operations in Colombia for years, but when president Donald Trump froze State Department spending in January, the vast majority were immediately halted. 'The entire fleet of Black Hawk helicopters was basically grounded; police units supported and trained by the US were disbanded; and programmes that were building capacity to investigate cases were all just put on ice,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. 'It had really wild effects.' Although most of these programmes have resumed under provisional 30-day waivers, Ms Dickinson warned that activities beyond daily maintenance are limited. 'Imagine the uncertainty that comes from knowing that you only have 30 days of funding guaranteed. Anything that's beyond the day-to-day treading water in these counter-narcotic operations is essentially on pause,' she said. 'They're not investing in new programmes, or undertaking new investigations.' The USAID cuts have also been 'catastrophic,' Ms Dickinson, and a dozen other experts and civil society leaders, told The Telegraph. In recent years, Colombia received around $440 million annually in USAID assistance for more than 80 programmes, making it the largest recipient of the agency's funds in the western hemisphere, according to US government data. While most of the programmes are not directly related to counter-narcotics, USAID-backed initiatives have helped stabilise regions still affected by armed conflict. They have created opportunities for young people at risk of recruitment by criminal gangs, supported farmers transitioning away from coca cultivation and aided the reintegration of former combatants into society. Now that funding has ceased. Ms Dickinson said that overnight the humanitarian system here in Colombia lost 70 per cent of its financing. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said that more than 50 USAID-funded programmes across the country have already been shuttered. 'It has had a big and deep effect in the most vulnerable territories,' he said. 'You can't imagine the terrible effects happening there.' Officials warn the cuts also endanger the implementation of the peace accord with the leftist FARC rebels. FARC fought the government for more than five decades before most rebels laid down their weapons in 2016. While the deal did not end the conflict entirely, it ushered in a fragile peace. Between 2017 and 2023, the US provided $1.5 billion in support of the deal. 'I think it will create more risk of violence and more vulnerability,' said Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's former foreign minister and current lawmaker, in an interview with Reuters. Colombia's conflict began in the 1960s amid demands for land reform, with rebels promising to redistribute land and wealth concentrated among a small elite. As part of the 2016 accord, the government pledged to grant formal ownership to poor farmers willing to stop cultivating coca. Since then, the funding has helped the government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories. But that work is now on hold, according to an anonymous source within the USAID land programme. 'In terms of drug policy, we managed to positively impact the issue from a territorial, transformational perspective,' he said. 'If farmers own their land, they hardly want to risk losing it by planting illicit crops, and if it's done on a massive scale, it becomes more sustainable in the fight against this phenomenon.' Mr Valencia added that the funding cuts have 'rendered it impossible to fulfil the peace agreement,' while Ms Dickinson said there is 'no one who will step into this gap', meaning key parts of the deal 'will not be implemented'. The cuts also come amid a surge in violence between armed groups, which saw tens of thousands of people displaced earlier this year and left more than 100 dead. Colombia is currently grappling with eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which recently described the situation as its worst humanitarian crisis since the 2016 peace accord. Overall, the 60-year conflict has killed at least 450,000 people; cocaine production and trafficking remain the main drivers of the ongoing violence. But others argue that the US should not be funding programmes or public employees in Colombia at all. 'Trump is right,' President Gustavo Petro said in a televised address earlier this year, where he also characterised US foreign aid as poison. 'Take your money.' Some also question whether the cuts will meaningfully impact drug trafficking, arguing that the US-led war on drugs has already failed, with consumption and cultivation at record highs. Isabel Pereira, a drug policy expert at Colombia-based research organisation DeJusticia, said that such programmes 'will never be enough' to stop drug trafficking. 'Coca as a cash crop will always be more profitable than any other crop,' she said. If the programmes had been successful, she argued, 'we wouldn't be in a situation today where we are at the highest number of hectares grown in Colombia.' 'I don't think it will have much of a differential effect because the fact of the matter is that the drug markets are always thriving,' Ms Pereira added. Although the high profile excesses associated with narcos like Mr Escobar are less prominent. Coca cultivation in Colombia has quadrupled over the last decade, while global cocaine production doubled. Drug use has also grown steadily, with the UN noting in 2024 that 292 million people worldwide reported having consumed narcotics in the previous year. The Colombian government, led by the country's first leftist president, Mr Petro, has already acted to reform drug policy. In October 2023, it launched a new national drug policy that aims to shift the narrative around psychoactive substances – focusing on rural development, reducing coca crops, and helping small farmers transition to the legal economy. In February, Mr Petro said that cocaine is 'not worse than whisky' and said that, like whisky, it should be legalised. 'If somebody wants peace, the business [of drug trafficking] has to be dismantled,' Mr Petro said. 'It could be easily dismantled if they legalised cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.' In March, Colombia went further, leading a landmark resolution at the UN commission on narcotic drugs, calling for reforms to the existing 60-year-old drug control system. 'The global drug regime has failed to deliver, period,' said Laura Gil, Colombia's ambassador-at-large for global drug policy, speaking on the sidelines of the Harm Reduction International conference. 'In my country, it has meant the fuelling of the internal armed conflict, it has meant thousands of deaths, and it has meant the stigma we carry as Colombians all over the world.' Catherine Cook of Harm Reduction International said US funding had long given Washington an 'element of control' over Colombia's drug policy. 'This is a moment for countries to be able to take back control and decide what they want to prioritise,' she said. Ms Dickinson agreed that drug policies have caused a 'very perverse fallout', but warned that cutting funding overnight 'empowers the criminal groups who are profiting from this business.' The USAID land programme source also acknowledged that 'not everything was perfect with USAID,' but countered that, on balance, 'more good' happened than bad. Mr Valencia, meanwhile, argued that the US's abrupt decision, if nothing else, amounted to a betrayal of its responsibilities. 'The US operation is an obligation. It is not a gift – the US is the main party responsible for consumption and the persecution of our poorest people,' he said. 'These funding cuts hurt efforts to repress trafficking, and the growers that no longer have support from the programmes. They are waiving all liability, and it is a great injustice.' Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
‘The cartels and clans are ecstatic': How USAID cuts have emboldened Colombia's narcos
US cuts to international aid spending have put Colombia's counter-narcotics operations 'on ice' – a development that experts warn will reenergise the country's notorious cartels. For decades, the US has supported Colombia in its fight against drug trafficking and armed groups through aid spending. Since helping to end the reign of infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, US defence and intelligence agencies have been instrumental in the country's counter-narcotic operations. Washington has also been instrumental in helping demobilise the leftist FARC rebels since the 2016 peace accord, ushering in a period of relative stability. But now, following the Trump administration's freeze of nearly all funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), along with changes to US State Department spending, analysts and civil society leaders are sounding the alarm. 'The groups that operate outside of the law – the cartels and the clans – are happy. They're ecstatic, because now they have the freedom to do whatever they want,' said León Valencia, director of the Bogotá-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. The US State Department has funded major counternarcotics operations in Colombia for years, but when president Donald Trump froze State Department spending in January, the vast majority were immediately halted. 'The entire fleet of Black Hawk helicopters was basically grounded; police units supported and trained by the US were disbanded; and programmes that were building capacity to investigate cases were all just put on ice,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. 'It had really wild effects.' Although most of these programmes have resumed under provisional 30-day waivers, Ms Dickinson warned that activities beyond daily maintenance are limited. 'Imagine the uncertainty that comes from knowing that you only have 30 days of funding guaranteed. Anything that's beyond the day-to-day treading water in these counter-narcotic operations is essentially on pause,' she said. 'They're not investing in new programmes, or undertaking new investigations.' The USAID cuts have also been 'catastrophic,' Ms Dickinson, and a dozen other experts and civil society leaders, told The Telegraph. In recent years, Colombia received around $440 million annually in USAID assistance for more than 80 programmes, making it the largest recipient of the agency's funds in the western hemisphere, according to US government data. While most of the programmes are not directly related to counter-narcotics, USAID-backed initiatives have helped stabilise regions still affected by armed conflict. They have created opportunities for young people at risk of recruitment by criminal gangs, supported farmers transitioning away from coca cultivation and aided the reintegration of former combatants into society. Now that funding has ceased. Ms Dickinson said that overnight the humanitarian system here in Colombia lost 70 per cent of its financing. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals, said that more than 50 USAID-funded programmes across the country have already been shuttered. 'It has had a big and deep effect in the most vulnerable territories,' he said. 'You can't imagine the terrible effects happening there.' Officials warn the cuts also endanger the implementation of the peace accord with the leftist FARC rebels. FARC fought the government for more than five decades before most rebels laid down their weapons in 2016. While the deal did not end the conflict entirely, it ushered in a fragile peace. Between 2017 and 2023, the US provided $1.5 billion in support of the deal. 'I think it will create more risk of violence and more vulnerability,' said Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia's former foreign minister and current lawmaker, in an interview with Reuters. Colombia's conflict began in the 1960s amid demands for land reform, with rebels promising to redistribute land and wealth concentrated among a small elite. As part of the 2016 accord, the government pledged to grant formal ownership to poor farmers willing to stop cultivating coca. Since then, the funding has helped the government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories. But that work is now on hold, according to an anonymous source within the USAID land programme. 'In terms of drug policy, we managed to positively impact the issue from a territorial, transformational perspective,' he said. 'If farmers own their land, they hardly want to risk losing it by planting illicit crops, and if it's done on a massive scale, it becomes more sustainable in the fight against this phenomenon.' Mr Valencia added that the funding cuts have 'rendered it impossible to fulfil the peace agreement,' while Ms Dickinson said there is 'no one who will step into this gap', meaning key parts of the deal 'will not be implemented'. The cuts also come amid a surge in violence between armed groups, which saw tens of thousands of people displaced earlier this year and left more than 100 dead. Colombia is currently grappling with eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which recently described the situation as its worst humanitarian crisis since the 2016 peace accord. Overall, the 60-year conflict has killed at least 450,000 people; cocaine production and trafficking remain the main drivers of the ongoing violence. But others argue that the US should not be funding programmes or public employees in Colombia at all. 'Trump is right,' President Gustavo Petro said in a televised address earlier this year, where he also characterised US foreign aid as poison. 'Take your money.' Some also question whether the cuts will meaningfully impact drug trafficking, arguing that the US-led war on drugs has already failed, with consumption and cultivation at record highs. Isabel Pereira, a drug policy expert at Colombia-based research organisation DeJusticia, said that such programmes 'will never be enough' to stop drug trafficking. 'Coca as a cash crop will always be more profitable than any other crop,' she said. If the programmes had been successful, she argued, 'we wouldn't be in a situation today where we are at the highest number of hectares grown in Colombia.' 'I don't think it will have much of a differential effect because the fact of the matter is that the drug markets are always thriving,' Ms Pereira added. Although the high profile excesses associated with narcos like Mr Escobar are less prominent. Coca cultivation in Colombia has quadrupled over the last decade, while global cocaine production doubled. Drug use has also grown steadily, with the UN noting in 2024 that 292 million people worldwide reported having consumed narcotics in the previous year. The Colombian government, led by the country's first leftist president, Mr Petro, has already acted to reform drug policy. In October 2023, it launched a new national drug policy that aims to shift the narrative around psychoactive substances – focusing on rural development, reducing coca crops, and helping small farmers transition to the legal economy. In February, Mr Petro said that cocaine is 'not worse than whisky' and said that, like whisky, it should be legalised. 'If somebody wants peace, the business [of drug trafficking] has to be dismantled,' Mr Petro said. 'It could be easily dismantled if they legalised cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.' In March, Colombia went further, leading a landmark resolution at the UN commission on narcotic drugs, calling for reforms to the existing 60-year-old drug control system. 'The global drug regime has failed to deliver, period,' said Laura Gil, Colombia's ambassador-at-large for global drug policy, speaking on the sidelines of the Harm Reduction International conference. 'In my country, it has meant the fuelling of the internal armed conflict, it has meant thousands of deaths, and it has meant the stigma we carry as Colombians all over the world.' Catherine Cook of Harm Reduction International said US funding had long given Washington an 'element of control' over Colombia's drug policy. 'This is a moment for countries to be able to take back control and decide what they want to prioritise,' she said. Ms Dickinson agreed that drug policies have caused a 'very perverse fallout', but warned that cutting funding overnight 'empowers the criminal groups who are profiting from this business.' The USAID land programme source also acknowledged that 'not everything was perfect with USAID,' but countered that, on balance, 'more good' happened than bad. Mr Valencia, meanwhile, argued that the US's abrupt decision, if nothing else, amounted to a betrayal of its responsibilities. 'The US operation is an obligation. It is not a gift – the US is the main party responsible for consumption and the persecution of our poorest people,' he said. 'These funding cuts hurt efforts to repress trafficking, and the growers that no longer have support from the programmes. They are waiving all liability, and it is a great injustice.'
Irish Times
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Colombia's fragile peace under threat as US withdraws aid
When Colombia signed a landmark peace agreement with rebels in 2016, it was celebrated internationally for ending a war that had ravaged much of the country for decades. The United States bolstered the peace efforts, helping displaced farmers return to their land and helping prosecute war crimes. Now, support from the US government – the agreement's biggest foreign economic backer – has vanished. As the Trump administration has withdrawn most foreign assistance globally, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), it has undercut a deal designed, in part, to curtail the flow of drugs to the United States. 'This puts wind in the wings of armed groups,' said León Valencia, director of the Bogota-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, an organisation that works on post-conflict issues and had received US funds. 'They can tell demobilised guerrillas or victims that the government signed a peace agreement and didn't keep its promise.' READ MORE Since 2001, USAID has spent more in Colombia than any other South American country, about $3.9 billion. Farc rebels in the Colombian jungle in May 2016, months before the Colombian government struck a peace deal with the rebel group. Photograph: Federico Rios/New York Times While the US defence and state departments funnelled military spending in the 2000s toward a much-debated plan to eradicate coca farming, USAID poured money into related economic development projects. Then, after Colombia signed the peace deal with the country's biggest and oldest guerrilla group, the United States also directed spending to projects that helped Colombian officials fulfil the agreement – while also giving farmers alternatives to cultivating coca leaves, the base for cocaine. The rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, had been fighting the government for six decades. Compounding Colombia's challenges during the second Trump administration has been the withdrawal of support from the US state department, which helped pay for efforts such as major counter-narcotics operations and the tedious process of removing landmines. The results have been on-the-ground setbacks for the military and police that could benefit criminal groups. 'It's hard to overstate what a big paradigm shift this is for the Colombians because they're so interconnected with the Americans,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors and tries to prevent armed conflicts. 'It's a tectonic shift that the US might not always be there.' Deactivated handmade land mines on a once-popular footpath during conflict in Carmen De Viboral, Colombia, in 2015. Photograph: Meridith Kohut/New York Times In small towns and rural areas of Colombia where armed groups are still active, USAID projects had been vital to helping maintain stability, according to interviews with 14 current or former agency employees or contractors based in Colombia. Most declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak, and out of concern that it would jeopardise the possibility of future work. 'There are parts of the country where there's the bad guys and then there's USAID,' said a former contractor, who was working with a non-profit that suspended its work trying to prevent young people from joining armed groups, after its US financing was stopped. USAID had also helped Colombia provide services for the more than 2.8 million migrants from Venezuela who have arrived in the past decade, making Colombia the world's largest recipient of people fleeing Venezuela's political and economic crisis. Still, US support isn't entirely welcomed in Colombia. Many conservative politicians agree with the Trump administration's claims that it's an inefficient use of funds, while some leftist politicians say US money is an instrument to control Colombian society. Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia. Photograph: Federico Rios/New York Times Colombia's leftist president, Gustavo Petro, questioned why US aid was going toward beefing up the country's immigration and customs agencies, saying that type of spending infringed on the country's sovereignty. 'Trump is right,' Petro said in a televised address, referring to president Donald Trump. 'Take your money.' Colombia's armed conflict goes back generations. Rooted in frustration over inequality and land distribution, it morphed into a complex battle among leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government, fuelled by drug money and other illicit business. While Farc laid down its arms, offshoots remain, and existing and new armed groups have gained strength, according to analysts. Today, the country faces eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which described the country's humanitarian situation as reaching its most critical point since the signing of the peace accord. Ariel Ávila, a senator for the Green Party who worked in peace-related projects before holding office, said USAID's withdrawal eliminated resources for a web of non-profits that relied on US support for democracy-building efforts, some of which have shut down. Bags of humanitarian aid donated by USAID in Cúcuta, Colombia, in 2019. Photograph: Meridith Kohut/New York Times 'For me, USAID hasn't been just about peace building,' Ávila said. 'It's been an agent for democracy.' Central to helping the country cement a lasting peace has been the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court dedicated to trying crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the internal conflict, which left at least 450,000 people dead. American assistance – through USAID and the state department – represents about 10 per cent of the court's foreign support, court officials said. The US government provided technical and logistical support in three of the court's large-scale cases – each representing thousands of victims – on sex crimes, crimes targeting black and indigenous people, and the systematic murder of leftist politicians. The agency also provided investigative tools, such as DNA test kits, to identify bodies found in mass graves. The loss of US help will slow down the court's work, court officials said, which is worrisome because it has a 15-year deadline to reach verdicts and sentences in cases involving tens of thousands of victims and defendants living in rural and difficult-to-reach areas, said judge Alejandro Ramelli, president of the court. 'We're committed to finding the answers to thousands of questions that the victims have had for many years and have never had answered,' Ramelli said. 'International aid is essential to being able to find that truth.' USAID funding also helped the Colombian government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories, which was key to the peace deal. Land inequality had been a core grievance since fighting erupted, so the government promised to give formal ownership to poor farmers working in rural lands. Government officials are in the process of mapping broad chunks of territory for which little or no formal government record exists. Colombia's National Land Agency, which oversees the process, said the US government helped carry out land surveys, develop safety protocols for work in conflict areas and identify land used for illegal crops. Officials have mapped more than 3.2 million acres through a programme funded by USAID. In the town of Cáceres, in the mountainous Antioquia region, they were able to issue titles to 230 families who agreed to stop farming coca leaves in exchange for formal land ownership. Without the support, much of that mapping is on hold because the National Land Agency does not have the budget to complete the work on its own, the agency said. 'The importance of USAID is evident,' the agency said in a statement. USAID support has also been key in regions experiencing new conflict. In the northeastern Catatumbo region, near the Venezuela border, the country is seeing its worst period of violence in a generation. Since January, 106 people have been killed and more than 64,000 displaced from their homes, according to a local government count. Theylor Villegas (27), is among the displaced. In 2019, he helped found Corporación Pride, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group in the Catatumbo region, and last year his organisation won a USAID-financed contract to track violence affecting women, young people and minority groups. In January, two major events flipped Villegas's life upside down: Widespread gunfire erupted between offshoots of the disbanded Farc guerrillas, and the Trump administration ordered a global freeze on foreign aid. Villegas was forced to flee the region and lost both his contract and US-sponsored psychological and legal support he was receiving for his work. Now, Villegas's future is uncertain, and his organisation's work tracking and supporting victims in one of Colombia's most violent regions is on hold. 'I feel impotent,' he said. 'An organisation like ours in this part of the world rarely gets noticed.' – This article originally appeared in The New York Times .
New York Times
05-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
How Trump's Ending of U.S.A.I.D. Threatens a Nation's Fragile Peace
When Colombia signed a landmark peace agreement with rebels in 2016, it was celebrated internationally for ending a war that had ravaged much of the country for decades. The United States bolstered the peace efforts, helping displaced farmers return to their land and helping prosecute war crimes. Now, support from the U.S. government — the agreement's biggest foreign economic backer — has vanished. As the Trump administration has withdrawn most foreign assistance globally, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, it has undercut a deal designed, in part, to curtail the flow of drugs to the United States. 'This puts wind in the wings of armed groups,' said León Valencia, director of the Bogotá-based Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, an organization that works on post-conflict issues and had received U.S. funds. 'They can tell demobilized guerrillas or victims that the government signed a peace agreement and didn't keep its promise.' Since 2001, U.S.A.I.D. has spent more in Colombia than any other South American country, about $3.9 billion. While the U.S. Defense and State Departments funneled military spending in the 2000s toward a much-debated plan to eradicate coca farming, U.S.A.I.D. poured money into related economic development projects. Then, after Colombia signed the peace deal with the country's biggest and oldest guerrilla group, the United States also directed spending to projects that helped Colombian officials fulfill the agreement — while also giving farmers alternatives to cultivating coca leaves, the base for cocaine. The rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had been fighting the government for six decades. Compounding Colombia's challenges during the second Trump administration has been the withdrawal of support from the State Department, which helped pay for efforts like major counternarcotics operations and the tedious process of removing land mines. The results have been on-the-ground setbacks for the military and police that could benefit criminal groups. 'It's hard to overstate what a big paradigm shift this is for the Colombians because they're so interconnected with the Americans,' said Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors and tries to prevent armed conflicts. 'It's a tectonic shift that the U.S. might not always be there.' In small towns and rural areas of Colombia where armed groups are still active, U.S.A.I.D. projects had been vital to helping maintain stability, according to interviews with 14 current or former agency employees or contractors based in Colombia. Most declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak, and out of concern that it would jeopardize the possibility of future work. 'There are parts of the country where there's the bad guys and then there's U.S.A.I.D.,' said one former contractor, who was working with a nonprofit that suspended its work trying to prevent young people from joining armed groups, after its U.S. financing was stopped. U.S.A.I.D. had also helped Colombia provide services for the more than 2.8 million migrants from Venezuela who have arrived in the last decade, making Colombia the world's largest recipient of people fleeing Venezuela's political and economic crisis. Still, American support isn't entirely welcomed in Colombia. Many conservative politicians agree with the Trump administration's claims that it's an inefficient use of funds, while some leftist politicians say U.S. money is an instrument to control Colombian society. Colombia's leftist president, Gustavo Petro, questioned why U.S. aid was going toward beefing up the country's immigration and customs agencies, saying that type of spending infringed on the country's sovereignty. 'Trump is right,' Mr. Petro said in a televised address. 'Take your money.' Colombia's armed conflict goes back generations. Rooted in frustration over inequality and land distribution, it morphed into a complex battle among leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government, fueled by drug money and other illicit business. While FARC laid down its arms, offshoots remain, and existing and new armed groups have gained strength, according to analysts. Today, the country faces eight separate armed conflicts, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which described the country's humanitarian situation as reaching its most critical point since the signing of the peace accord. Ariel Ávila, a senator for the Green Party who worked in peace-related projects before holding office, said U.S.A.I.D.'s withdrawal eliminated resources for a web of nonprofits that relied on U.S. support for democracy-building efforts, some of which have shut down. 'For me, U.S.A.I.D. hasn't been just about peace building,' Mr. Ávila said. 'It's been an agent for democracy.' Central to helping the country cement a lasting peace has been the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court dedicated to trying crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the internal conflict, which left at least 450,000 people dead. American assistance — through U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department — represents about 10 percent of the court's foreign support, court officials said. The U.S. government provided technical and logistical support in three of the court's large-scale cases — each representing thousands of victims — on sex crimes, crimes targeting Black and Indigenous people, and the systematic murder of leftist politicians. The agency also provided investigative tools, such as DNA test kits, to identify bodies found in mass graves. The loss of U.S. help will slow down the court's work, court officials said, which is worrisome because it has a 15-year deadline to reach verdicts and sentences in cases involving tens of thousands of victims and defendants living in rural and difficult to reach areas, said Judge Alejandro Ramelli, president of the court. 'We're committed to finding the answers to thousands of questions that the victims have had for many years and have never had answered,' Mr. Ramelli said. 'International aid is essential to being able to find that truth.' U.S.A.I.D. funding also helped the Colombian government map millions of acres in conflict-afflicted territories, which was key to the peace deal. Land inequality had been a core grievance since fighting erupted, so the government promised to give formal ownership to poor farmers working in rural lands. Government officials are in the process of mapping broad chunks of territory for which little or no formal government record exists. Colombia's National Land Agency, which oversees the process, said the U.S. government helped carry out land surveys, develop safety protocols for work in conflict areas and identify land used for illegal crops. Officials have mapped more than 3.2 million acres through a program funded by U.S.A.I.D. Just in the town of Cáceres, in the mountainous Antioquia region, they were able to issue titles to 230 families who agreed to stop farming coca leaves in exchange for formal land ownership. Without the support, much of that mapping is on hold because the National Land Agency does not have the budget to complete the work on its own, the agency said. 'The importance of U.S.A.I.D. is evident,' the agency said in a statement. U.S.A.I.D. support has also been key in regions experiencing new conflict. In the northeastern Catatumbo region, near the Venezuela border, the country is seeing its worst period of violence in a generation. Since January, 106 people have been killed and more than 64,000 displaced from their homes, according to a local government count. Theylor Villegas, 27, is among the displaced. In 2019, he helped found Corporación Pride, an L.G.B.T. advocacy group in the Catatumbo region, and last year his organization won a U.S.A.I.D.-financed contract to track violence affecting women, young people and minority groups. In January, two major events flipped Mr. Villegas's life upside down: Widespread gunfire erupted between offshoots of the disbanded FARC guerrillas, and the Trump administration ordered a global freeze on foreign aid. Mr. Villegas was forced to flee the region and lost both his contract and U.S.-sponsored psychological and legal support he was receiving for his work. Now, Mr. Villegas's future is uncertain, and his organization's work tracking and supporting victims in one of Colombia's most violent regions is on hold. 'I feel impotent,' he said. 'An organization like ours in this part of the world rarely gets noticed.'
