“Send a helicopter! They’re going to kill us! They’re going to kill us! For God’s sake, there are injured people here! Do you want them to kill us or what? Send support!”
That was the desperate call of a police officer trapped by countless explosions during an assault by part of the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) in Jambaló, Cauca, which is strategic territory for organized crime in southwestern Colombia.
Starting at 5 a.m. on November 19, 2025, members of the Dagoberto Ramos Front of the EMC – a federation of dissident factions from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) – set off bursts of gunfire and explosives at the police station.
“The civilian population near the police station should withdraw,” one of the EMC’s foot soldiers repeated through a megaphone, according to a statement from the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca – CRIC), an organization that brings together more than 90% of the Indigenous communities in Cauca.
But that was only the beginning of a terrifying day, as the EMC extended its assault to Silvia, Corinto, and Padilla, other municipalities near Jambaló.
“The offensive was simultaneous, as if someone had given the order to ignite all of Cauca at once,” said the CRIC.
Jambaló was hit especially hard. At least 10 people were hurt, including a child, according to CRIC’s tally. The town was cut off from the rest of the country, left without communication, water, or electricity, with at least 60 homes affected.
“In this area, where the rooster’s crow competes with the gunfire, no one is under any illusion that the war is a distant matter,” read another statement from the CRIC.
These are the latest in a long list of attacks by the EMC against security forces in Cauca in the last two years. At the heart of the fighting is control of territory peppered with illegal gold mines, coca and marijuana crops, and a crucial bridge that connects the south of the country to the Colombian Pacific — a key exit point for drugs heading to international markets.
With these attacks, the EMC’s message is clear: they are the ones in charge. The possibility of peace in Cauca is growing more distant.
The Central General Staff’s Legacy in Cauca
A decade after it was formed, the group that was born rejecting peace is now keeping it away from Cauca. The EMC originated from a decision by its commander, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco,” in 2016. Then the leader of the FARC’s First Front, Mordisco decided to turn his back on the peace agreement the guerrillas were negotiating with the Colombian government, and formed the EMC.
In its early days, Mordisco’s group joined forces with the dissidents of the FARC’s Seventh Front. What started with 400 men in the southeastern departments of Guaviare, Guainía, and Vaupés quickly became the largest dissident faction in Colombia, with influence in the south, east, and west, including the department of Cauca.
SEE ALSO: Central General Staff Profile
In Cauca, it leveraged alliances with former combatants who had been part of the FARC’s 6th, 8th, 30th, and 10th fronts, as well as the Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column – which was present in the department for decades. From here emerged the dominant dissident nuclei in the department today: the Dagoberto Ramos, Jaime Martínez, Carlos Patiño, and Rafael Aguilera fronts.
In addition to the EMC dissidents, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the 57th Front, a dissident FARC structure not aligned with the EMC, also operate in Cauca and are trying to build their influence there.
Both the ELN and the 57th Front are fighting the EMC at the southern and northern ends of Cauca for control of drug trafficking, illegal mining, and strategic corridors that abound in the department.
What Total Peace?
Given the EMC’s power in Cauca — and other territories nationwide — in 2022, President Gustavo Petro began peace talks with the armed group as part of his “Total Peace” policy, which seeks to negotiate a halt to the criminal activities of the main armed groups.
The idea of ending the war in one of the territories most affected by the armed conflict once again sparked optimism among the people of Cauca, to whom peace isn’t just the absence of violence but a synonym for government presence, job stability, and development.
“There was a lot of hope,” said a representative from a multilateral organization in the territory, who spoke with InSight Crime on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “People came to me excited, thinking that everything would improve here: opportunities, goods, and services,” he added.
What seemed to be one of the first successes came in October 2023: a bilateral ceasefire between the government and the EMC. But the absence of conflict between the armed forces and the dissident group brought few benefits to the people of Cauca. The EMC took advantage of the ceasefire to expand their presence and control. Not only did coca cultivation increase, but they also began to dispute areas controlled by other criminal groups, all at the cost of a massive recruitment drive targeting minors.
A murder marked a turning point in the negotiations. On March 16, 2024, the Dagoberto Ramos Front shot Indigenous leader Carmelina Yule in the municipality of Toribío, in the department’s north. Yule had refused to stay silent about the criminal organization’s abuses. The day she was killed, she had gone with a group to rescue a young Indigenous boy whom the Dagoberto Ramos Front had recruited.
In response to the murder, President Petro suspended the ceasefire, and the EMC underwent an internal split. Mordisco refused to continue negotiating until the ceasefire was restored, while another faction, led by Alexander Díaz, alias “Calarcá Córdoba,” chose to continue the talks.
With the murder of Yule, the hopes surrounding Total Peace in the territory were also buried.
SEE ALSO: GameChangers 2025: Colombia’s Total Peace Remains in Pieces
The reality is that the EMC was stronger than ever. Its power became evident even in the departmental capital, where they started putting up banners to announce their presence.
“Twenty minutes from the center of Popayán, there are militia members,” said a teacher who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons.
In rural areas under their control, they imposed a regime where no one moves without authorization. This is called “carnetización,” and it means people have to carry identification issued by them at all times to move around those areas.
“They set up a checkpoint entering the township, and if you don’t have the card, they charge you 500,000 pesos [about US$130]. Then they call your person in the village to verify and let you in,” a teacher from the department told InSight Crime. “It’s a mechanism they use to prevent someone from the other groups from entering.”
In other cases, people are made to drive with the window down or ride motorbikes without a helmet. “Lower the window or take a bullet,” is one of the messages the EMC left on banners and graffiti in rural areas of northern Cauca. This is one of the first things EMC structures do when they take control of a new area, a member of a non-government organization told InSight Crime, and the communities cannot remove these signs.
The Military Bet
With the EMC stronger in Cauca and the collapse of the peace talks, Petro’s government ordered in October 2024 the deployment of more than 1,400 soldiers and 17 armored vehicles – part of “Operation Perseo.” It aimed to retake control of El Plateado, a strategic town in the central municipality of Argelia, and expel the Carlos Patiño Front.
El Plateado is a fundamental cog in the drug trafficking machine, and sits at the heart of the Micay Canyon, a region that is home to more than 75% of all coca crops in Cauca. It also connects cocaine-processing laboratories with countless drug exit points on the Pacific coast.
“Their [the EMC’s] empire is focused on this point,” said a security expert in Cauca who spoke with InSight Crime on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Although Operation Perseo forced the Carlos Patiño Front to withdraw from El Plateado, its influence over the population and its criminal revenues are far from drying up. The EMC carried out different actions to hinder the advance of military troops in the Micay Canyon. Some were purely military, such as flooding the territory with anti-personnel mines. Others were a clear demonstration of the social control they still have in the area, even with the army presence there.
In early March, the Carlos Patiño Front, through threats related to disrupting commerce and economic activity, or harming residents, pressured the canyon’s community into staging a riot against the army and the police, in which protesters detained 29 uniformed officials.
“They would tell them, ‘Anyone we see who looks too happy about the army will face consequences,’” said one social worker, who spoke to InSight Crime on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The EMC also sought to keep its drug trafficking operations flowing, reviving old corridors used by the FARC in southern Cauca, the security expert explained.
“When the army came in, they closed off the northern part of the Micay Canyon. So what did they [the EMC] do? They found a way to move the drugs out somewhere else, especially through the Colombian Massif,” the expert added.
To do this, the EMC announced the creation of a new faction called the Andrés Patiño Front in July 2025. With it came its incursion into the Colombian Massif, which connects southern Cauca with the departments of Nariño and Putumayo, two of the country’s largest coca producers. The Massif has been under ELN control for years, and is now a battleground between both criminal syndicates and security forces.
To fight these local wars, the EMC — like the ELN — has swelled its ranks by recruiting minors. In 2024, local authorities recorded 345 minors recruited across the department, while in 2021 there were 46 — representing a 650% increase in just three years.
Of the total minors recruited in 2024, 64% were Indigenous and from northern and eastern Cauca. Many of them were taken to the canyon and the massif.
Authorities’ Hands Are Tied
Today, Cauca is held captive by the war, and the security forces have their hands tied.
Beyond the Micay Canyon, the EMC has continued to entrench its presence in Cauca through constant attacks against the police and army. From early 2023 to now, they have carried out more than 40 targeted attacks, mostly against police stations and military posts, using explosives, snipers, car bombs, and drones.
“After Operation Perseo, what they’ve done is go around blowing everything up. They blow something up here, they blow something up there,” a worker at the governor’s office told InSight Crime.
Recently the EMC has specialized in drone attack systems, technically known as WAS (Warfare Automation Systems). These devices, capable of carrying fragmentation grenades or mortars, are operated remotely and have allowed the EMC to attack security forces without leaving their barracks.
The EMC’s offensive reached another dimension on June 10, 2025, when it carried out around 18 attacks in Cauca and neighboring Valle del Cauca department, hitting police stations, naval facilities, and main roads. The strikes killed seven people.
Attacks against security forces in Cauca are so common a phrase echoes through locals: “The police are ‘kidnapped’ inside their own barracks.”
Various sources on the ground told InSight Crime that, because of the constant attacks against them, police officers have opted to pull back and have been forced to limit patrols.
The army, for its part, has also faced a kind of hybrid warfare tactic. As happened in the Micay Canyon, across Cauca criminal groups have continued to exploit the civilian population to carry out riots aimed at preventing troop advances, such as during operations to destroy machinery used in illegal mining.
“It’s a never-ending war, and the community is hardest hit,” a local researcher told InSight Crime.