2023-04-21 05:25:53
The lawyer of the largest drug trafficking organization in Colombia He says he does not represent a “little group of bandits” and asks the government for political status to negotiate peace. Otherwise, “they will not submit” to Justice and will continue “at war”.
Ricardo Giraldo is the first public spokesperson for the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC).better known as the ‘Clan del Golfo’, a name they reject because of its gang connotation.
The feared army of the narco It is made up of 9,000 fighters who spread their tentacles to some 30 countries and traffics about half of the cocaine from Colombia, the world’s largest producer.
The government resumed the war against the “Clan del Golfo” in March after accusing it of breaking the ceasefire and attacking the civilian population, but the illegal group denies it and Giraldo describes the breakdown of the dialogue as “something absurd”.
With his “total peace” plan with the guerrillas and the biggest criminal groups in the country, Petro aims to extinguish half a century of internal conflict which has caused nine million victims.
Granting political status would imply considering that it is not a criminal gang. As with the FARC and ELN guerrillas, it would allow its members to agree to alternative sentences to jail and the possibility of engaging in politics after laying down their arms.
This is a summary of the interview with Giraldo, who received the AFP in an office in an exclusive sector of Medellínaccompanied by a bodyguard.
Q: Does Petro underestimate the AGC?
A: The government has underestimated both the proportion of men and the military, social, and political power that the AGC have (…) It is badly believed that they were a small group of bandits, criminals who did nothing but traffic drugs and that it is completely false.
A stratification of the actors is seen. Some more important, (a) those who are given a political status, a negotiation. And others with whom there will simply be dialogues for their submission.
Q: What is your involvement in drug trafficking?
A: The AGC, the ELN, the FARC (dissidents), they all charge a tax for letting (the narcos) go and take (the coca). The peasant has the money, that is the illegal economy. There is not a single armed group in Colombia that is not financed from the same.
Q: What is the difference between collecting that tax and being a cartel?
A: A self-defense group or an armed group that is part of a conflict has different purposes, the drug trafficker does not. Drug trafficking has a single purpose: profit. They don’t, neither the self-defense groups nor the guerrillas have the intention of distributing profits (…) they invest in their communities.
They have built schools, they have paved roads, they have brought electricity and aqueduct to some villages.
Q: What happens if the government insists on not recognizing the AGCs politically?
A: Submission for the AGC will not be. They will not submit.
Q: The government says that your offer to submit to justice is “kind” to the drug traffickers.
A: Kind? If they offer you imprisonment of between six and eight years without the benefit of redemption of sentence for work and study, and also between three and four years of (sentences) of restorative justice… With the provisions that exist -without the need to submit to – They can give you the same six and eight years with redemption for study and that would easily become three years (…) in prison.
Q: So they would continue in the war?
A: Well, they are at war. But it is that the State has to guarantee the right to peace.
Q: And the extradition?
A: As things are, I would prefer to negotiate at once with a foreign government than with the Colombian one.
Q: How much power do they have?
A: After an incomplete peace process (…) the territories left by the AUC are occupied by other actors in the conflict, ex-FARC and ELN. Here comes the emergence of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces, not as paramilitaries but as self-defense, to protect themselves from other actors in the conflict and even from State agencies.
They are not far-right paramilitaries. Members of the AGC were (guerrillas) ex-FARC, ex-EPL -beginning with (the extradited capo) Otoniel-, people who found no other opportunity than to arm themselves to protect their parcels.
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