2024-04-25 17:23:24
A platoon of 34 soldiers has been held since Friday by a community in southern Colombia, in the department of Meta, after an operation against environmental crimes, authorities reported this Saturday.
The local governor, Rafaela Cortés, “conclusively” rejected the retention of 31 soldiers and three officers in the municipality of Vista Hermosa, and assured that behind the incident are the rebels of the FARC dissidents who rejected the peace agreement of 2016.
The Army stated in a press release that the soldiers were held “by a group of approximately 60 people allegedly from the community.”
In a video on Instagram, Cortés denounced that “they have been instrumentalizing the civilian population to confront the public force (…) This pressure is due to the latest captures that we have carried out with the public force on the structure of these criminal groups.” .
The Central General Staff (EMC), the largest dissident of the FARC, is carrying out peace negotiations with the government of Gustavo Petro amid setbacks and violations of what was agreed at the dialogue table.
“At this time, a commission from the UN and the Ombudsman’s Office, together with local authorities, are heading to the scene of the events to mediate with the population,” an Army official told AFP.
Earlier, the rebels admitted to having detained two investigators from the Prosecutor’s Office along with a “companion” in a rural area of the Santander de Quilichao municipality, in the department of Cauca (southwest).
The two women and the man “are in good health,” the EMC said in a bulletin this Saturday.
– Negotiations under tension –
A series of attacks against civilians and public forces in the midst of a truce agreed between the government and the EMC at the end of last year exhausted the president’s patience.
The dialogues began to dilute on March 17, when the government decreed the end of the bilateral ceasefire in three departments in the southwest of the country after the murder of an indigenous leader by the rebels.
The dissidents maintain pressure in rural areas where they control illegal mining and drug trafficking, in the country that produces the most cocaine in the world.
The EMC assured that the Prosecutor’s Office investigators “were surprised” on Friday at “a control and registration point” with “two weapons with their respective ammunition as well as electronic devices to collect information.”
“We hope through international organizations that security conditions can be generated for his release,” added the organization that refused to hand over its weapons as the bulk of the FARC guerrilla did when it signed a historic peace pact.
On Tuesday, the government removed the rebel commander alias Iván Mordisco from the talks, in an effort to save the “total peace” policy with which it seeks to defuse the six-decade conflict through dialogue with the main armed groups.
In 2022, military intelligence estimated the EMC’s strength at around 3,500 combatants.
Colombia is experiencing a six-decade armed conflict that has left 9.5 million victims, including kidnapped, missing, displaced and murdered.
© Agence France-Presse