Colombian President Gustavo Petro this week emphatically pointed out that his greatest enemy currently goes by the name Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, better known by his pseudonym, Ivan Mordiscoleader of an illegal group that calls itself the General Staff and claims to be the continuation of the extinct FARC guerrilla movement. Petro had already defined him as a “partner of the drug trafficking junta”, a mafioso, leader of an “armed tracketism” organisation. This week he stepped up his tone. “He is the largest recruiter of minors in the country, I will report him to the International Criminal Court,” said the head of state. He said this after being harshly criticized for having ordered the military to bomb a camp where two lieutenants of Mordisco, alias jimmy and alias Fishand in which seven minors died. “If the bombings are stopped, the bosses will recruit more boys and girls, because they will realize that in this way they will protect themselves from risks,” the president said in his defense.
Bite replied cynically. “We will evaluate revolutionary trials against those responsible materially and intellectually for the murder of children,” he said in a video broadcast on social networks this Wednesday, without acknowledging that he is the one who brought them into the line of fire. He also threatened the tranquility of the elections to be held next semester. “We wanted the 2026 electoral process to have as little trauma as possible, but faced with the advance of the belligerent sectors, we have no choice but to take a position in defense of the territories,” he added.
The situation is delicate because if it is true that Mordisco is responsible for the recruitment of dozens of children, it is also the State’s obligation to protect the lives of minors. Precisely for this reason the guerrilla leader keeps them by his side in case of bombing. “The level of children in their ranks is higher than other groups, and that is their strategy,” says Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group in Colombia. “When you see photos of EMC leaders, they are always surrounded by children. On the one hand they use them as human shields, they think it is more difficult for the public force to attack them; on the other hand, many girls are “in the service” of the commander. Since most of the military operations have been against the EMC, this group has tried to increase its ranks, and the easiest thing for them to do is to do it with children.”
According to a report by the Ideas for Peace (FIP) Foundation on the growth of the eight armed groups in the country, based on public force data, the Mordisco EMC is the one that has grown most recently, with 20% more people in its ranks in seven months: it went from 3,276 members in December 2024 to 3,919 in July 2025. The third largest force, behind the ELN guerrillas (6,450) and the Clan del Golfo (8,945), are very present and very feared in the south of the country, especially in the departments of Guaviare, Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño.
Although it is not possible to know with certainty how much of the increase is due to the recruitment of children, the EMC’s commitment is known in Cauca, where they use forms of seduction to bring minors into their ranks, from which they then prevent them from leaving. “They use social networks to attract attention, they give them money, luxury things. Then going out is impossible, also because they send them to other departments where they cannot escape, to the Amazon”, says Andrés Cajiao, Conflict and Security researcher at the FIP.
But the enormous power of Mordisco described by Petro has nuances, adds the specialist. The one who was a middle manager in the extinct FARC, and refused to sign the 2016 peace agreement, usually moves to the edges of the Amazon jungle, where he heads his Amazonas bloc and where Guaviare is located, the department where the bombings against his two allies took place. But more than 60% of the EMC members belong to the Western bloc, and are concentrated in Cauca, where the leaders are more allies than subordinates of the now public enemy number one. “Although there is communication between the two blocks, Mordisco does not define everything that happens in Cauca, nor can he always access the resources that come from there,” adds Cajiao, referring to the money that often comes from drug trafficking, as Petro says. “Certainly Mordisco has links to drug trafficking, but it is not a great Pablo Escobar who manages everything. Today no group or leader has so much influence. What happens in every place of Cauca is more the responsibility of the commanders of the area”, he continues.
By the same token, both Cajiao and other analysts believe that Petro’s push against Mordisco repeats former President Iván Duque’s failed strategy against the EMC, pursuing ringleaders or “high-value targets” in low-hierarchy structures. “What would happen if Mordisco was killed in a bombing? Will we see the end of guerrilla dissidents? He could be replaced or, quite possibly, we could have multiple small dissidents instead of one big one,” says Kyle Johnson, academic director of the Conclip Responses Foundation (Core). “This military offensive against Mordisco is really more political, thinking about next year’s elections, in which the big issue will be security. It is a way to show the actions of the left-wing government in front of the more centrist voters.”
Taking out Bite might not end EMC, but it might affect someone who has become an icon in some way. First, in 2016, he refused to demobilize as a member of the defunct FARC. Then, in 2022, he gained visibility when outgoing President Duque claimed to have assassinated him. Vera appeared months later, confident and making statements, when Petro invited her to negotiate peace, allowing an unprecedented meeting of dissident leaders who enthroned Mordisco as their leader. He ended up leaving the table in April 2024 and becoming an enemy of the head of state. Four months before the legislative elections and six months before the presidential ones, Petro bets on achieving a major military victory by beating Mordisco. But it would be the end of a leader, not of the so-called dissidents and much less of the conflict.
