Petro signs ‘total peace’ law that will give access to negotiate with illegal armed groups

First modification: 05/11/2022 – 23:42

Free way to negotiate. President Gustavo Petro sanctioned Law 418, the legal framework for ‘total peace’, the first law to come out of Congress during his administration and which would allow him to begin negotiations with armed groups.

“The regulation that allows governments to build negotiations with those who are outside the law has been renewed, to achieve the dream of total peace in Colombia,” Petro assured after the signing.

The president explained that “there will be people who will negotiate with the justice system the possibility of a peaceful dismantling of crime, there will be people who will negotiate with the government the options of putting an end to an insurgent war, from many decades ago, which must end definitively, without echoes, so that Colombian society is the true owner of the country”.

Law 418 gives the head of state the power to negotiate with guerrilla groups such as the National Liberation Army, ELN, or the FARC dissidents, and opens an alternative for hundreds of young people to provide social service as a complement to compulsory military service. , among other matters.

The legal framework was signed on Friday by Petro and by the interior ministers, Alfonso Prada; Defense, Iván Velásquez and Justice, Néstor Osuna, in the presidential hacienda Hatogrande in the north of Bogotá.

Since he took office on August 7, Petro has insisted on promoting a ‘total peace’, with which he seeks to negotiate with the illegal groups that still operate in the country and achieve an agreement like the one reached in its moment with the FARC, which includes some type of legal agreement or submission to the Justice.

Law opens doors to future negotiations

Minister Alfonso Prada, Spokesman for the National Government, commented to the media that the negotiations will have a differentiator depending on the organization with which the government decides to sit down, and that it will be defined by a high-level commission made up of the Minister of Defense, the High Commissioner for Peace and by the Director of the National Intelligence Directorate.

“The three of them make up this instance that is supremely important in total peace because it is going to qualify the type of organizations with which we are going to start, or a political dialogue (as with the ELN) or on the other hand, they qualify it as an organization of high impact of crime, what you have known as criminal gangs”, assured Prada, clarifying that the latter will receive justice.

Article five of the text explains that “approaches” and “conversations” could be held with high-impact illegal structures that “demonstrate the will to move towards the rule of law.”

Even the law leaves open the possibility of negotiating with the so-called “peace deserters”, those who signed the 2015 peace accords and who decided to rearm, as in the case of Iván Márquez.

Colombia is expected to start talks in November with the ELN, Latin America’s oldest guerrilla group. The meetings would be held in Cuba with the presence of delegates from Norway, Spain, Chile and Venezuela.

Another novelty of this law is the creation of social service, which will give young Colombians the opportunity to choose to work with victims or on environmental issues, as well as the creation of special zones of La Paz and the National Program for the Voluntary Surrender of Weapons.

In the first nine months of 2022, some 90,000 people have been confined to their homes in Colombia as a result of the armed conflict, according to the United Nations Organization, UN, the highest figure in a decade.

Another 75,000 people were forced into forced displacement in the same period of time, according to the organization, which added that thanks to the “Total Peace” initiative, the number began to drop considerably since September.

with EFE