On November 6, 2025, Colombia commemorated the 40th anniversary of the tragedy at the Palace of Justice, which left its mark on Colombian history. The attack, carried out by the defunct M-19 guerrillas backed by drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, killed more than 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court judges.
On this anniversary, former vice president and leader of the Cambio Radical Party, Germán Vargas Lleras, said that the takeover was a crime that has yet to be punished. It highlights that the truth is still not revealed and victims continue to fail to get justice.
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Mr. Vargas Lleras spoke clearly and frankly in an opinion column published in a newspaper. time, By integrating both the facts themselves and the position of the current president, Gustavo Petro, regarding this episode in the history of this country.
In his book, barbaric “genius”Mr. Vargas Lleras not only recalled the tragic events, but also expressed outrage that some people, like President Petro, seemed to be trivializing and even justifying what happened.
“Forty years have passed and we still have no idea what happened on that fateful November 1985.“The truth remains hidden, victims continue to wait for compensation, and the wounds in society remain open.”, Vargas Lleras noted the lack of significant progress in the investigation and the pain that remains in Colombian society.
According to the former vice president, the M-19 attack was not an isolated incident or a desperate reaction by rebels, but a carefully planned operation with the clear intention of destabilizing the country and preventing the extradition of drug traffickers, including Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar.
Vargas questioned Petro’s description of the event as “genius” in X’s account. “The outrage of the Colombian people is not only due to a lack of respect for the victims, but also due to attempts to rewrite the history of this genocide,” he said in his column.
For him, Petro’s position is an attempt to delegitimize the suffering of the victims and manipulate the facts for political purposes. Vargas Lleras said the current president appears to be ignoring the pain of the families affected and the irreparable damage the attack caused to Colombia’s justice system.
Vargas Lleras recalled that more than a quarter of a century has passed, but the country is still far from knowing the full truth about the events at the Palace of Justice. In his book, the former vice president cites the words of Carlos Medellín, the son of one of the magistrates killed in the bribery.
Vargas Lleras said he supported the Medellin mayor’s office’s request to reopen the case, saying, “There were court records documenting the executions of the judges and evidence that was manipulated to hide the magnitude of the crime. The entire nation should know what happened back then, even today’s President Petro was involved.”
The former vice president also criticized the lack of political will to reveal the facts. In his view, the amnesties granted to M-19 members at the time provided a kind of “general pardon” that ended up burying investigations and leaving those responsible for crimes unpunished.
“Despite the fact that the terrorist organization committed multiple crimes, including kidnapping and murder, and was never held accountable for these incidents, the investigation was abruptly terminated after the amnesty.” He clearly showed discomfort. For Vargas Lleras, the fact that M-19 members are treated differently than the national army and national police is one of the gravest injustices that still lingers in the memory of Colombians.
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