Colombia's President-elect to Abolish Peace Commissioner's Office, Citing 'False Peace'

Abelardo de la Espriella, Colombia's president-elect, declared on Monday that his administration will dismantle the office of the Peace Commissioner, a key body in negotiations with illegal armed groups. He announced this as part of broader reforms aimed at restructuring the presidency.

"The Peace Commissioner's office will be eliminated because there will be no more false peace processes in my government," De la Espriella stated via social media. He also plans to abolish the National Reconciliation Council and the Presidential Council for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. Their functions will be transferred to the Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, and Defense.

De la Espriella, who takes office on August 7, vowed to prioritize national security and dismantle what he described as a "perverse system of impunity." He is a vocal critic of outgoing President Gustavo Petro's "total peace" policy. The president-elect intends for the Justice and Interior ministries, along with a new Commissioner for Security, to immediately end any impunity found within the "mirage of false peace."

The president-elect specifically condemned the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) for granting former FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, known as Timochenko, permission to travel to Spain for conferences. De la Espriella called Londoño a "war criminal" who deserves life imprisonment, asserting that "no apparent formalism can hide that the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the FARC leaders remain unpunished."

He also questioned the return of anthropologist Pilar Rueda Jiménez, wife of left-wing ex-presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, to her work at the JEP. De la Espriella criticized the tribunal for allegedly providing refuge to the family of a "sore loser" who refuses to accept election results and promotes civil disobedience.