War on drugs prolonged Colombia’s decades-long civil war, landmark report finds

Colombia's president-elect, Gustavo Petro, right, embraces the president of the truth commission, Francisco de Roux, during the presentation of their final report on the country’s armed conflict in Bogotá. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AFP/Getty Images

The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombia’s disastrous civil war, the country’s truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.

The report, titled “There is a future if there is truth”, was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).