Lhe Colombian government has reached a six-month ceasefire with the five main armed groups and drug-trafficking gangs operating in the country, President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla himself, announced on New Year’s Eve. .
The truce reached bilaterally was the main objective of the government as part of its “total peace” initiative with these various groups to end the conflict which persists despite the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the Marxist guerrillas of the Armed Forces Revolutionaries of Colombia (FARC), which have become a political party.
“We have agreed a bilateral ceasefire with the ELN, Segunda Marquetalia, the Central General Staff, the AGC (Gaitanist Self-Defense Militias of Colombia) and the Self-Defense Forces of Sierra Nevada, January 1 to June 30, 2023, the extension of which will depend on the progress made in the negotiations,” the head of state tweeted on Saturday.
The armed organizations and the state will have to respect this truce and “there will be a national and international verification mechanism”, added the president, qualifying the agreement as “bold”.
Colombia’s first left-wing government, which took office on August 7, in November resumed peace talks suspended by the former government of Ivan Duque (2018-2022) in an attempt to end the continent’s last internal armed conflict. through negotiations.
Negotiations are currently taking place with the ELN (National Liberation Army), the last recognized guerrilla still active in Colombia. The ELN, which has some 2,500 fighters and a vast network of collaborators according to independent estimates, was founded in 1964 by trade unionists and students sympathetic to Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the Cuban revolution.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres hailed this development which “brings new hope for complete peace to the Colombian people at the dawn of the new year”, reported his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
“Exploratory Dialogues”
At the same time, separate “exploratory dialogues” are taking place between delegates from Mr. Petro and the Segunda Marquetalia and Central Staff groups, dissidents from the FARC.
The AGC are the armed wing of the main Colombian drug gang, the Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan), previously led by drug baron Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias Otoniel, now detained in the United States after his extradition .
Like the Sierra Nevada self-defense forces, they are made up of far-right paramilitaries demobilized between 2003 and 2006 under the presidency of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010).
Colombia, the world’s main producer of cocaine, has been plagued for some sixty years by a complex internal war, which has claimed more than nine million victims (dead, missing and displaced), between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and state security forces.
At the beginning of December, the government had estimated that a dozen armed groups were “in a situation of bilateral ceasefire”, while there would be nearly 90 political and/or criminal groups operating today in Colombia, counting a total of around 10,000 members, according to the NGO Indepaz (Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz).
The ELN announced on December 19 a “unilateral ceasefire” during the holiday season, until January 2. After this announcement, the government called on the other armed groups to join the truce.
Congress had endorsed the president’s “total peace” policy in November.
The government is offering “lenient treatment from a judicial point of view” to members of armed groups in exchange for their dismantling, Iván Cepeda, a pro-government senator and negotiator with the rebels, recently explained to AFP.
Former President Uribe’s right-wing opposition party, the Democratic Center, called the “total peace” proposal an “apology for crime and impunity”.
Despite ongoing discussions, the government has failed to stem the spiral of violence in the country. In 2022, Indepaz recorded nearly a hundred massacres.
02/01/2023 01:50:20 – Bogota (AFP) – © 2023 AFP