Colombia says 10 armed groups agree to unilateral ceasefire

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Colombia’s government announced on Wednesday that at least ten armed groups in the country, including dissident FARC forces and the Gulf Clan gang, had agreed to join a unilateral ceasefire.

The proposal is a banner of the newly sworn in President Gustavo Petro. Still in the campaign and taking office in August, the leftist politician promised to seek what he called “total peace” with these groups, fully implementing a peace agreement signed in 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and establishing new arrangements with other guerrillas. .

“Each of these groups — with their identity, nature and motivation — is expressing a willingness to be part of a total peace,” Danilo Rueda, the Colombian government’s high commissioner for peace, told a news conference, calling this stage “an exploration phase. “. “We ask them not to kill, not to disappear with people and not to torture. We are moving forward.”

Among the groups that have expressed their intention to join the unilateral ceasefire are two FARC dissidents —the Central General Staff and the Second Marquetalia—, Clan do Golfo and the Autodefensas de Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Rueda did not mention the other organizations.

Colombia has accumulated a six-decade conflict that has killed at least 450,000 people. Illegal armed groups count around 6,000 fighters in their ranks, according to security forces, engaging in extortion, murder, drug trafficking and irregular mining.

Petro, himself a former member of the M-19 urban guerrilla, said his government would be willing to offer reduced sentences to gang members who deliver illicit goods and provide information about trafficking. “The peace office is studying legal mechanisms to allow the transition of armed groups to the rule of law,” Rueda said.

The president also intends to restart peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN), considered the largest rebel group and the last active guerrilla in the country. The talks were suspended during the administration of the right-wing Iván Duque, Petro’s predecessor, but they can be resumed —Chile, Cuba and Venezuela have already been mentioned as possible venues for this dialogue; with the latter, Colombia has just sealed a rapprochement by reopening its borders last Monday (26).

An ELN negotiator told Reuters this month the group is in favor of a bilateral ceasefire to pave the way for further negotiations.

The government has said it will halt air strikes against armed groups in an attempt to avoid collateral damage to civilians and the deaths of forcibly recruited minors.

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