(San Vincente del Caguan) The bilateral ceasefire with the government in Colombia is “in crisis”, said the main dissident faction of the former FARC guerrillas, which said it was “gravely concerned” by the continuation , according to her, of the attacks of the security forces against her troops.
“The ceasefire is in crisis,” said in a statement “FARC Central Staff”, or EMC-FARC, the main dissenter of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which had refused to sign the historic 2016 peace agreement between the government and the Marxist guerrillas.
“[…] Our units have found themselves in recent days besieged in several places of the national territory by the army, to the point of risking breaking the ceasefire, and this because of the armed forces”, warns this statement, authenticated Friday by AFP with the rebel group.
These dissidents cite two incidents on April 11 and 12, respectively in the departments of Cauca (southwest) and Arauca (northeast), the first having caused two deaths in its ranks by military fire.
“These serious violations of the bilateral ceasefire by the armed forces give rise to our grave concern”, warns the dissidence, which reaffirms its will “to move forward to consolidate progress” towards “total peace with social justice”.
A six-month bilateral ceasefire has been agreed with the main factions of the FARC dissent since January 1, as well as with other armed groups. If he has since been broken with the drug traffickers of the Clan del Golfo, he has seemed respected until now with the dissidents.
In the middle of the week, the government announced that the peace process with the EMC-FARC was “consolidating”, after a meeting on April 12, in the presence of representatives of the international community, with about fifteen commanders of this group, themselves gathered since the beginning of the month in a conclave in the Caqueta region (southwest).
Under the command of “Ivan Mordisco”, the EMC-FARC dissidents have federated in recent months at least three other “Fronts” of dissidents operating outside Caqueta, a historic stronghold of the Marxist guerrillas.
According to the Colombian press, they are preparing to organize in the coming days a “mass political act”, in this same region of Caqueta, to publicly clarify the contours of their adherence to the ongoing negotiations.
In power since the summer of 2022, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in Colombia’s history, aims to implement a “total peace” policy aimed at disarming guerrillas, armed groups and criminal gangs and to end the violence in the world’s leading cocaine-producing country. Peace negotiations are already underway with the Guevarist ELN, but still no ceasefire.
