What went wrong with Colombia's "peace" deal
The bus was carrying families home. Women returning from a relative’s funeral. Children. Ordinary people on ordinary roads through Cauca department, a stretch of southern Colombia that has known too much of this kind of grief for too long.
On April 25, an explosive device tore through it near the El Túnel sector of Cajibío. At least 20 dead: 15 women, five men, 36 more injured. Among those searching the wreckage were relatives already in mourning. Vivian Tejada had lost three family members in the blast. They had been on that bus returning home after burying another relative who had just passed away.
The attack is being called Colombia’s deadliest mass casualty strike against civilians since the 2003 car bombing of the El Nogal social club in Bogotá. It came five weeks before a presidential election and in the middle of what Colombian President Gustavo Petro once promised would be total peace.
I want to be precise about what I mean when I say what went wrong here. Because it is tempting to reach for the simple frame — idealist president, hardened criminals, inevitable collision — and leave it there. But the failure runs deeper than that. And in some ways, it was visible from the beginning.
