The Central General Staff (EMC), made up of former FARC members who rejected an agreement in 2016, announced on Sunday that they are ready to set up a dialogue table with the government on May 16 and start peace talks.
Leftist President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 urban guerrilla, has vowed to end six decades of armed conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead by signing peace or surrender agreements with rebels and gangs. criminals, in addition to fully applying the pact with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The EMC is one of the two dissident factions of the FARC and is made up of former leaders and combatants who did not accept the peace agreement, which in 2016 allowed the reincorporation into civilian life of 13,000 people who formed a political party and received 10 seats. in Congress.
“We announce to the whole world that our delegates to the dialogue table with the Colombian State, headed by the National Government, are ready for May 16 of this year,” Ángela Izquierdo, spokesperson for the armed group, told reporters in a meeting of the rebel group in the Llanos del Yarí, on the border between the departments of Meta and Caquetá, in the south of the country.
There were no immediate comments from the Colombian government or the high commissioner for peace.
The attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, suspended the arrest warrants against some 20 members of the EMC at the beginning of March, which facilitated a meeting of the EMC leaders in the Llanos del Yarí, where they agreed on the date for the installation of the table of dialogue.
The group, made up of 3,530 people -2,180 combatants and 1,350 helpers-, has maintained a bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government since the beginning of the year.
The other dissident faction of the FARC is the Segunda Marquetalia, which in August 2019 returned to the armed struggle, alleging that the State failed to comply with the peace agreement.
Some legal experts maintain that the abandonment of the agreement by Segunda Marquetalia turns it into a criminal group and prevents the Government from giving it a political status to start a peace talk, so the only alternative is submission to justice.
The Petro government restored peace talks with the rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the two parties seek to move towards a bilateral ceasefire agreement in a third round of talks that will begin soon in Cuba.
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