2023-11-08 07:01:00
Less than a week was enough for total peace, which was already in decline and discredited, to end in a worse crisis from which there seems to be no way out without making transcendental changes.
With the kidnapping of the father of the Colombian soccer player “Lucho” Díaz, the armed strike in Chocó by the National Liberation Army, ELN, and the uprising of the FARC dissidents from the Negotiation Table, Congress had sufficient arguments to request a step that has been very difficult for President Gustavo Petro: removing Danilo Rueda from the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace and appointing someone in his place to give order to the peace projects.
Such is the loyalty between Petro and his commissioner, that Rueda has been one of the only key players of this Government that, despite criticism, has managed to remain in his position after the ministerial shake-ups, the dismissals of Directorates and the multiple changes of command that the head of state has requested.
But that same “devotion” that the president has for him has not been reflected in other peace experts, politicians and congressmen. Although the majority recognizes that Rueda has “good intentions” and “tries to do everything for true peace” – as one of the Government’s negotiators said – “it is clear that he lost the ability to keep this in order a long time ago and that, Little by little, he has stopped being a figure of authority in the face of armed groups.”
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For all this, representative Catherine Juvinao wonders if “there will be a limit to all this, president,” because, according to her, the first step so that total peace does not continue to be “a total setback,” is to remove Rueda from that leading role from where things have been disorganized.
The house of cards
But, despite the fact that what was seen this week was the fall of a “castle” to which Petro has always given the “crown” of his Government, the truth is that this has been an accumulation of small falls after falls of “ cards” or problems that were generating the current crisis.
To begin with, Petro was always questioned that the ceasefires implemented with so few advanced negotiating tables could only end with mutual violations and, even worse, with an expansion tool for illegals to dominate new territories while the Public Force complied. with its promise not to attack its structures.
So it was. According to figures presented this Tuesday in the Congress of the Republic, between 2022 and so far in 2023, the FARC dissidents known as the Central General Staff increased their presence in the country by 39.5%; the Clan del Golfo by 12% and the ELN by 17.5%.
Which means that the two main groups that most increased their territorial control are, precisely, the structures with which the Government would have made the most progress in the installation of negotiation tables and ceasefires.
But it’s not just those numbers that have increased. According to Juvinao, confrontation between armed groups increased 85%, extortion 15%, kidnapping 77%, attacks on oil pipelines 56% and confinement 24%. “What are these ceasefires for then if people continue to be killed,” he asks.
The collapse
Under this panorama it is clear that the foundations were already weak, but the “cards” began to collapse quickly with the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz.
That plagiarism that has now been going on for 10 days – and that continues without proof of survival or a release date – undermined society’s confidence in total peace and began an internal rupture that ended everything else.
This Monday, the ELN did not think it was enough to keep a character widely loved by Colombians kidnapped, but instead provided information that it would have another 30 kidnapped and announced a 72-hour armed strike that would cover the entire Chocó.
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Immediately afterwards, the dissidents did their thing and suspended the negotiation table arguing alleged non-compliance by the Government, a claim that seems excessive if one takes into account that they kidnapped 15 soldiers and sowed terror in Cauca just a few days after agreeing on the table.
With all this, Petro has a shaky total peace, an increase in armed confrontation and a leader whom many stopped supporting. However, even his critics believe that there is still time to straighten the path and improve: “removing Danilo Rueda and refocusing on Paz Total is not a defeat but mere good sense,” Juvinao concluded in the political control debate.
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