Colombian government suspends ceasefire with part of EMC

The Colombian government has suspended the bilateral ceasefire with part of the Central General Staff (EMC) guerrilla group that broke away from a peace negotiation, but will maintain it for three more months with the structures that remain in dialogue, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez announced on Tuesday.

The EMC is a faction of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group that rejected the 2016 peace agreement and continued its armed struggle.

“The National Government declares the ceasefire with all the blocks and fronts that made up the previously called Central General Staff of the FARC dissidents, commanded by Iván Mordisco, to be over,” the minister said on his X account.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro began peace talks with the 3,859-member EMC in late 2023 as part of his efforts to end a six-decade internal conflict that has left more than 450,000 dead.

But last March it suspended a bilateral ceasefire with that group in the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño, due to an increase in hostilities by the rebels.

In the midst of negotiations with the government, most of the structures that make up this armed group, accused of being financed by drug trafficking and illegal mining, left the negotiating table to press for the reestablishment of a bilateral ceasefire, causing a division, according to sources close to the dialogue.

The ceasefire will be maintained in the regions of the country where the EMC structures that continue to negotiate are present, such as the departments of Norte de Santander, Antioquia, Meta and Caquetá.

However, it will continue to be suspended or interrupted in the areas where the structures led by Néstor Gregorio Vera, better known by his nom de guerre “Iván Mordisco”, who left the negotiating table, operate.

In departments excluded from the bilateral ceasefire, such as Cauca, attacks by this illegal armed group against the Military Forces and the National Police, who fight the rebels by air and land, are frequent.

The Commander of the Military Forces, Admiral Francisco Cubides, announced a total offensive against all EMC structures that are outside the peace negotiations with the Government.

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