- Daniel Brown
- Correspondent for BBC Mundo in Colombia
1 hour
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Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s peace plan is in crisis.
In the early hours of this Wednesday, nine officers were killed in a bomb attack on an army base in Catatumbo, a coca-growing region on the border with Venezuela.
The area was historically controlled by the National Liberation Army (ELN), the country’s oldest guerrilla force.
Most likely, experts told BBC Mundo, the attack was carried out by said insurgent group, which is currently negotiating with the government over demobilization.
Although he did not attribute the attack to the ELN, Petro called his negotiation team for consultation and denied the fact. The chief of the army and the peace commissioner attributed it to the ELN, while Álvaro Uribe, former president and key figure in the opposition, lamented “that Colombia has given up on security.”
The episode in Catatumbo adds to other incidents that have raised skepticism in recent weeks about Petro’s ambitious “total peace” plan, which is attempting to negotiate simultaneously Sentence abbreviations with The guerrilla and The Drug dealer in exchange for their demobilization and legal contribution.
“It is already clear that the scope of total peace will be limited and the government must recognize this,” said Jorge Mantilla, an expert on organized crime. “You will have to Delineate the boast of total peacewhich implies adjustments to the agenda, the procedures and, above all, the actors who negotiate or not”.
Juanita Vélez, researcher at the Conflict Response Study Center, adds: “Petro ensnares himself in total peace. This is slower than anticipated and I see it as very difficult to consolidate over the remaining reign (3.5 years).”
In the 7 months he has been in power, Petro has failed to stem the rise in violence registered during the government of Iván Duque. Although homicides and assassinations of society leaders have declined slightly, police say kidnappings, extortions and massacres have increased.
These are the three main fronts on which the Petro Plan has suffered blows that make its objective more difficult.
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1. Attack on the most advanced process
The attack in Catatumbo is the strongest blow that the total peace project has suffered, because of the various negotiating tables set up by Petro, that of the ELN was the strongest solid and progressive.
The government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) negotiated with this guerrilla for 6 years and Duque suspended talks in 2019 after a bombing of a police academy.
Petro resumed the Santos process and in just two months, according to interlocutors, it was possible to resume the interrupted course.
In addition, the coincidence between the reformist agenda of Petro, a former M19 guerrilla fighter, and the slogans of the ELN, a liberation theology-influenced Guevara movement, created the notion that this would be a relatively easy peace process.
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Subtitle,
Critics are concerned that all of Petro’s peace ambitions are concentrated in one person: Daniel Rueda (right), Peace Commissioner.
The ELN, however, is a fragmented federal guerrilla group with growing power in the country’s coca-growing regions. Each of their fronts has a certain autonomy, they even face each other. Their political agenda is ambitious and their negotiators opportunistic.
In December, Petro announced that he would stop fighting the ELN, and then, when it became police and military intolerable, backed down. Many interpreted it as a calculation error or a method problem.
“Attacking in Catatumbo is a way to strengthen your position at the table and to say that the process isn’t as easy as you thought,” says Kenny Sanguino, a crime attorney from the Free University of Cúcuta, the city closest to Catatumbo.
But on the government side, Sanguino sees “strategic problems because in practice no operations are carried out against these groups while they continue to exercise authority in the regions”.
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Subtitle,
Negotiations with the ELN in Mexico are progressing but now with the news that the ELN has killed 9 soldiers.
2. Failure of the truce with the Clan del Golfo
The current largest armed group in the country is not the ELN, but a paramilitary remnant dedicated to drug trafficking and extortion called the Clan del Golfo.
The group has no political goals like the guerrilla. For example, Petro cannot offer them reforms in search of social justice in exchange for demobilization. That is why he has proposed reducing penalties if they help to break up organized crime.
This implies court procedures such as the lifting of arrest warrants, leading to heated arguments between the government and prosecutors.
Like the ELN, this group has attempted to strengthen its bargaining position by attacking and pressuring civilians.
Petro the policy of forced eradication of coca cultivation changed, boosting production and strengthened the clan’s reasons for not wanting to give up the lucrative business of drug trafficking.
Two weeks ago, the Colombian President announced the suspension of the ceasefire he had proposed to the Clan del Golfo after the group attacked small miners and transporters in two key areas of artisanal mining production.
“We will not allow them to continue to sow fear in the community,” he said.
It was the first of the negotiating tables to collapse. The first, but no longer the only blow to “total peace”.
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Subtitle,
The Clan del Golfo, also known as the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, has expanded its power.
3. The exFARC is threatened by fragmented and strengthened dissidents
The peace agreement signed between Juan Manuel Santos and the country’s largest guerrilla group at the time, the FARC, fell into a crisis during Duque’s tenure: hundreds of ex-combatants were killed, a significant proportion of the signatories returned to arms and those who had since initially fought them refused to sign, they were strengthened.
This trend has not changed with Petro in power.
Last week, the former head of the FARC, Rodrigo Londoño, assured that the “The implementation of the peace agreement is in great danger“, due to the threats and evictions of signers in supposedly protected areas.
Responsible for these attacks, according to Londoño, are armed groups calling themselves FARC dissidents, also known as the Central General Staff, who seek political status in order to enter Petro’s proposed negotiation processes.
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Subtitle,
Last week’s mining strike, allegedly infiltrated by the AGC, has placed several cities under curfew.
The FARC dissidents are in fact a network of diverse interest groups made up of new recruits rather than ex-guerrillas with political vocations. Petro has tried to bring them to justice as members of the guerrillas, but authorities insist they are criminals who must submit to the law.
Juanita Vélez assures: “In the face of dissidences, we remain entangled in knowing whether the Second Marquetalia (group that signed but returned to arms) has political status or not. And the Central Joint Chiefs of Staff (dissidents since the beginning of the peace process with Santos) have had very little pressure from the army and that means they don’t want to sit down and negotiate.”
And Mantilla concludes: “In 7 months the government has failed to maintain sufficient political capital to support total peaceneither have they managed to consolidate a technical capacity around the idea of total peace and have not designed a security strategy that makes peace felt in the territories”.
Petro came to power under the banner of total peace in a country that has been at an intermittent war for at least 60 years, if not 200 years. Being a leftist and ex-guerrilla seemed to be an advantage for the president.
It is now clear that even this unprecedented and historic state of affairs does not make peace an easy goal.
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