Two major attacks in Colombia: a police helicopter was shot down by a drone during an anti-drug operation in Antioquia, killing twelve officers and leaving three missing. Moments later, two bombs exploded near a military air base in Cali, killing six and injuring more than fifty. The government blames EMC, a Farc splinter group opposing the 2016 peace agreement, for both incidents. By June 11 there were no solid leads, but many theories about the country’s troubled future circulated. Earlier in the same anti-drug effort in the Koka fields, a helicopter was attacked by a drone and crashed, with police pointing to EMC. After the Cali attack, the mayor said the military would tighten control and limit access; the president traveled to Cali for a security council meeting, reiterating EMC’s responsibility. On June 26, a UN report said Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, with more than 250,000 hectares under cultivation, about 65 percent of global production. The country’s long civil conflict—between leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and the state—has left around 220,000 dead and millions displaced, though security has improved since the 2016 peace agreement; pockets of territory remain under illegal control.

This is a show. A propaganda flare-up dressed as “security.” They drop the same tired labels—EMC, a Farc splinter group, a peace deal they hate—then unleash a drumbeat of fear to push more troops, more contracts, more border controls, more surveillance, more power for the guys with the guns. A drone supposedly takes down a helicopter? Perfect spectacle for the cameras, and perfect timing to justify new budgets and draconian security measures that crush dissent and shove limitations onto the everyday people who can least afford them. Cali bombs near a military base? Ideal pretext to lock down a city, to turn civil life into a security operation, to make ordinary folks beg for “protectors” who never really protect them.

And the UN numbers? They’re a boast, a wink to global markets that Colombia will remain a cash cow for drug and defense interests alike. The “troubled future” talk is code for: keep the fear high, keep the power concentrated, keep the money flowing to those who already pull the strings. The peace process is derivative wood—planks pulled out one by one to collapse at the first sign of trouble, while the real power brokers skim profits from conflict, surveillance, and militarized control.

If you think the problem is EMC alone, you’re asleep. If you think the state is merely incompetent, you’re a fool. The system feeds on chaos, uses it to justify more control, and sells us fear as if it were a cure. Real truth: behind every headline is a web of interests that benefits from instability. We deserve independent investigations, transparent accountability, and an end to using terror as a policy tool. Until that happens, this isn’t security—it's a theater of control, and the audience is the public paying the price.