The Colombian President, Gustavo Petro announced this Sunday that he is suspending the bilateral ceasefire with the Clan del Golfothe main criminal group in the country, after the mining strike that this group incited in the northwest.
“I have ordered the Public Force to reactivate all military operations against the Clan del Golfo. The bilateral cessation with this outlaw group is suspended,” Petro said, in a message on his Twitter account.
The Colombian government declared a bilateral ceasefire on December 31 for both this group -also called the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC)- and the Central General Staff of the FARC dissidents, the Segunda Marquetalia and the paramilitaries of the Sierra Nevada, in an act that has been breached in recent weeks by instigating a mining strike in Bajo Cauca Antioquia with violent actions such as the burning of several ambulances.
“We will not allow them to continue sowing anxiety and terror in the communities,” said Petro, alluding to the reasons for the suspension of the dismissal, which is understood to be due to these events that have kept the population of this part of the country in suspense, being intimidated into carrying out a strike that is aligned with the economic objectives of this group.
In an interview with EFE, this week the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, assured that these events called into question the intentions of this group, dedicated above all to drug trafficking and illegal activities such as mining -which triggered the strike-, of wanting to seek peace and enter into talks with the Government.
“Any action of pressure and coercion on the civilian population, any abusive exercise of force as has occurred in Bajo Cauca, in addition to being rejectable and reprehensible, calls into question the will to build peace and calls into question the possibility of a cessation into the fire,” Rueda said.
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The Interior Minister and government spokesman, Alfonso Prada, had already assured “the suspension or lifting of the dismissal has not been on the table, but the possibility of it being lifted at any time is not closed to the extent that there has not been conditions to guarantee tranquility in the territory”.
According to the authorities, The Clan del Golfo, the largest criminal gang in the country, is behind a violent mining strike that has paralyzed the Bajo Cauca region in the department of Antioquia (northwest) since March 2where two ambulances were burned last week, despite the fact that the authorities assure that order has already been restored.
Petro has defended a policy of “total peace” to which it intends to link various armed groups operating in the country to start peace negotiations, although for the moment the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) is the only one with which it a formal dialogue has been initiated.
The Government, through the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (OACP), has already made preliminary contacts with this group, which is made up of some 9,000 people and has control in 14 departments, especially the Pacific and Caribbean.
Unlike the ELN or the FARC dissidents, the Colombian government does not want to recognize this group’s political status, and instead offers submission to justice and establish dialogues that with this suspension of the ceasefire remain in doubt.
