Colombia’s Pro-military Narratives in the Post-peace Agreement

A decade after the start of the peace talks between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) insurgency, the country’s military has not been immune to the polarised debates surrounding the final 2016 peace agreement, particularly as today the country experiences a significant rise in polarisation, social discontent and organised armed violence that is blamed by multiple sectors of Colombian society on the peace agreement itself. This commentary traces the origins and development of recent pro-military narratives in Colombia, explaining how apprehensions by the military to the 2016 peace agreement translated into a ‘stab-in-the-back’ notion, portraying the military as victims of a betrayal by the civilian leadership. The consequence of this narrative has been a galvanisation of the support of various societal actors of the military, including by politicising the military institution, to defend Colombia’s decades-old militarised national security approach.