Nine years have passed since Colombia celebrated a landmark peace agreement between guerrillas and the government, and three years since President Gustavo Petro vowed to "complete peace." But in reality, decades of internal conflict in the country continue - making it one of the oldest internal conflicts in the world.

The violence occurred in early 2025, the most intense rise in years. Fighting between two armed guerrilla groups in the Catatumbo area, dozens of people were killed and displaced. More than 400 signatories have been killed since the largest armed group, the Colombian Revolutionary Force (called the Colombian Revolutionary Force), signed the 2016 peace agreement. At the same time, more than 1,200 social leaders and human rights defenders were assassinated.

We often define peace as absent from war. However, the problem of treating peace and war as an all-or-nothing binary is that it obscures the violence that takes place in the “peace time.” This paradox is nothing new to Colombians. In many communities that are most affected by violence, thinking about the “post-conflict era” feels utopian.

As a Colombian researcher who has worked with African-African Colombian leaders for more than a decade, I note the emphasis on the emphasis on peace negotiations and the elimination of historical violence that still exists, especially for racial minorities. Colombia is the Spanish-speaking Latin America with the largest population of black people. In Chocó in the Pacific Coast region I studied, African-Colombians were the majority.

The communities there are not only related to contemporary conflicts, but also the ongoing challenges of the legacy of slavery, colonialism and the picking industry. Many residents, especially women, work together every day to try to bring peace and justice.

Rights and reality

Colombia has been in trouble in the war for sixty years as legal and illegal armed groups of all political territories and resources are fighting for the war. The conflict has estimated that about 450,000 people have been killed and about 7 million have been displaced.

Black and indigenous communities are at the forefront, especially in rural areas, where their lives and territories are threatened by armed groups and corporations. In my research institute, in the Chocó department, the distant and biodiversity of the region attracts illegal groups and practices such as drug trafficking, as well as mining and other types of resource extraction that threaten traditional livelihoods. Mercury produced in industrial use poses additional dangers to people’s health and the environment.

The black rural communities in the Pacific Lowland where most Chocó is located have legal rights to collective ownership of their territory and consult on development plans. In fact, land grabbing and targeted killings against illegal crops, mining and other extraction practices have become the norm here, just like rural areas of Colombia.

Conflict has exacerbated racism and gender hierarchy, with black women, especially activists, especially vulnerable. For example, Vice President Francia Márquez Mina (won the award for her activism against illegal mining) survived the 2019 attack near the Caucasian department near her. She and her family have had other threats to their lives since then.

Build unity

Even in the "post-conflict" era, peace is a difficult task. It requires social change that will not happen soon. Instead, it is the accumulation of tiny sparks in people's daily commitments.

In my book Post-Conflict Utopia: Daily Survival of George Columbia, I wrote about how black women’s organizations take care of their territory and communities. For example, "ComisionAdas" belongs to one of the largest groups in Colombia, known as cocoa bacteria. These women traveled to the Atlato River and its tributaries, leading workshops on the organization and territorial and women’s rights.

Everyone in the community is welcome to participate in dialogue on issues such as women’s political participation, land ownership and related legislation. For example, Comision ada María Del Socorro Mosquera Pérez wrote a song that shared the importance of the 1257 law, a landmark law of 2008 against violence and discrimination against women.

Among the research projects discussed in the research project "Mujerespacíficas" I discussed in the book, Comisiona Rubiela Cuesta Córdoba would better say: "The best legacy a person leaves to family and friends is resistance."

The focus of these women's groups is on the Atrato River itself. Since 2016, the same year as the Peace Agreement, the Colombian Court has regarded the river as a legal person and has the right to protect, protect, maintain and restore.

This river is a source of diet and transportation between many basin communities, where drinking water, electricity and other amenities are scarce. But it is also intertwined with politics and spirituality. Pilgrimage tours like rivers and their tributaries that have occurred many times since 1999, emphasizing that there is no life without rivers. Participants traveled through areas where quasi-military and guerrilla active, showing solidarity for vulnerable communities.

ComisionAdas of cocoa are part of many other organizations - emphasizing that survival is intertwined not only with land and rivers, but also with other regions and countries. The fight for women’s rights has led Comisionadas to work with other organizations to build a wider network of care. These include La Red Department de Mujeres Chocoanas, the feminist alliance of Chocó’s women’s organization; La Ruta Pacíficade Las Mujeres, a feminist movement from 300 organizations across Colombia; and Black Women, an anti-protective network with members of more than 150 countries.

Their solidarity reminds peace and justice are daily efforts. As Justa Germania Mena Córdoba, the then leader of Comisionadas, told me in 2012: "One cannot change the world alone."