Gustavo Petro bets everything to seek peace in Colombia. On December 31, at the stroke of midnight, he announced a bilateral ceasefire agreement with five armed organizations. For six months, extendable as negotiations progress, the ELN, the Second Marquetalia, the Central General Staff [ambas disidencias de las FARC], the AGC or Clan del Golfo and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada will suspend actions. “This is a bold act. The bilateral ceasefire obliges the armed organizations and the State to respect it,” the president assured.
Camilo González Posso, director of Indepaz, says that Colombia is facing an “extraordinary” event. “[El acuerdo] It will affect 80 illegal structures, including fronts and columns, with an impact on nearly 350 municipalities in Colombia. More than 15,000 armed forces from these organizations, according to the most conservative calculations, are suspending confrontational actions with the public force,” he says. in an analysis of the Petro announcement. But not all are equally optimistic. Although the Government published a statement in which it tried to explain how this cessation will work, unprecedented by those who participate and for its duration, there are still many doubts. Former Defense Minister Gabriel Silva Luján has questioned its effectiveness. “It will only be good news if it is not simply a tactical pause. For the Head of State to announce a bilateral ceasefire that is only unilateral is nonsense. The State in truce and the enemy in combat mode. If there were questions, now there are serious doubts and concerns”.
The country is facing the largest peace truce since the negotiations that ended in the peace agreement between the FARC and the Government of Juan Manuel Santos in 2016. Petro aspires to extinguish decades of armed conflict that has left nine million victims, through dialogue with paramilitaries, gang members and guerrillas. His government negotiates with the ELN and achieved the cessation of hostilities between the Shottas and Espartanos, two mafias that terrorized the port of Buenaventura, on the Pacific coast of Colombia.
According to Indepaz, at least 10,000 men will be part of the truce, which has also been accepted by the largest drug gang in the country, the AGC or Clan del Golfo, and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada. The Government has explained that there will be a specific decree for each of the organizations, which will determine the duration and conditions of the termination, which will be monitored by the UN Verification Mission, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Catholic Church.
Since he took office on August 7, Petro and his government have made “total peace” the center of their policy. In Congress, they managed to push forward with majorities a law that allows them to negotiate with armed groups, even if they are not political and live off illegal economies such as drug trafficking or mining. The regulation also allows you to negotiate with the members of the FARC who took up arms after signing the 2016 peace agreement. “There are some structures that if they are not incorporated, they leave half the country in a bloodbath,” the government assured when it defended its proposal before Parliament.
For León Valencia, director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), the dismissal announced by Petro is a “coup of opinion and the expression with facts that it is possible to achieve total peace.” “It has the stamp of what the M19 did when it proposed expressions of peace with political facts and opinion. If a country wakes up in a new year with a peace process with a number of such different organizations, this brings an impact, ”said the analyst this Sunday on Caracol Radio. “The word they use is bilateral cessation, it is not just a cessation between the State and the groups, but a relief for the civilian population. The war in Colombia is very limited, there are 11 territories where there is the greatest armed conflict, violence and illegal drug enclaves. That is why these territories must be prioritized by the oversight offices, ”he explained.
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In 2022, there were 179 murders of social leaders, 94 massacres, and more than 70,000 people left their homes displaced by violence. When making the announcement, the Government said that the bilateral cessation is the response to the clamor of the communities of the territories most threatened by violence.
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