The obstacles to a “Total Peace” in Colombia and an end to decades of war

In a sign of seeking a definitive solution to the internal armed conflict of decades in Colombia, President Gustavo Petro since he took power in August 2022 has insisted on the idea of ​​reaching peace in the South American nation with the policy of “Total Peace”which became law last October and allows it to allocate a budget and advance negotiation processes with different illegal armed groups to achieve that end.

However, the task of “total peace” has faced a number of challenges to achieve the disarmament of armed actors such as the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the FARC dissidents, ex-guerrillas who did not accept or deserted from the 2016 Peace Agreement, paramilitary groups such as the Clan del Golfo and criminal gangs that live off illicit economies.

For Patricia Pantoja, a victim of the armed actions of the ELN in the department of Nariño, on the border with Ecuador, the achievement of advancing in a ceasefire with that guerrilla is “positive” since for years they have lived under the crusading war of these groups that They dispute the territory.

“We were waiting for a bilateral ceasefire because honestly our territory is still plagued by bullets, our population lives in total fear. The municipality of Ricaurte has suffered the dispute of these armed groups, this has generated that there is no development, we only have these groups that live whipping us and creating displacement. Hopefully the ceasefire brings peace, I believe that President Petro’s peace project and the will of the ELN to reach an agreement,” Pantoja told the voice of america.

Peace talks with the ELN

The ELN is the last active guerrilla in Latin America. Since November last year, the Colombian government and the rebel group agreed to set up a peace negotiation table, in a first step to achieve the disarmament of some 5,580 combatants.

The greatest progress in negotiations with this group arrived on June 9when the parties agreed in Havana, Cuba, the ceasefire for 180 days from August 3.

In the first days of July, the Colombian government and the guerrillas suspended offensive operations such as a phase prior to the bilateral ceasefireof which it is expected that in the next few days the parties will approve the protocols of the same that include the evaluation, extension or suspension.

Néstor Rosanía, director of the Center for Security and Peace Studies, told the VOA that the panorama of the armed conflict in the country is “so complex” that in half a century of armed confrontations “no” government has been able to provide a solution.

“Today, no group, including the ELN, really thinks of taking power through arms. The problem is so complex that no government has been able to solve it, neither the heavy-handed government of Álvaro Uribe, nor the total peace government of Gustavo Petro, and it is basically because a kilo of cocaine in Colombia can cost $2,500 in New York. , and in Tokyo $100,000. So those prices in the international market generate disputes between these groups”.

However, while the order to freeze offensive operations came into force, the ELN claimed responsibility for attacks on various army and police commandos, and these acts of violence have sparked rejection by public opinion.

This was expressed from her Twitter account by Paola Holguín, a senator from the Democratic Center, the main opposition party to the Petro government, who described as “infamous” suspending military operations against the ELN while the group continues with a “criminal onslaught.”

“Infamous. Faced with the criminal onslaught of the ELN, Petro responds with a decree that orders the suspension of military operations starting tomorrow against the members of the ELN who participate in the peace process and orders a formal cessation of operations between August 3 and January 29, 2024.

Illegal armed groups that in the armed conflict

“When there is a decentralization of the conflict and there are many armed groups, they all come to dispute the territories, the drug trafficking routes, they generate clashes between these same groups,” he stressed to the VOA Rosanía, about the complex task of “getting” these groups to demobilize.

According to figures from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), an organization in charge of monitoring peace and reconciliation, between the ELN, the ex-FARC groups, the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), known as the Gulf Clan, criminal gangs and groups drug traffickers, some 17,600 people make up the illegal armed groups in Colombia.

With these groups, the government has advanced efforts to find ways to reach agreements that allow breaking decades of an internal armed conflict that has left more than nine million victims, according to the SISPRO database of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. .

For the Pares Foundation, although it is true that the government “must urgently address the security and violence crisis” that is occurring in Arauca, Chocó, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Norte de Santander, Antioquia, and in other territories in dispute, “pointing out a general crisis of national security is not correct”, and that on the contrary, in the country there has been one of “improvement in security” in several of its departments and cities.

“It is clear that design errors, added to an excess of expectations towards the armed actors and low operational capacity of the government, have indeed produced scenarios of multi-actor violence that are extremely delicate to manage, as in the case of Arauca, or as it was in Bajo Cauca Antioqueño during the mining strike. It is important to correct design errors before launching a new ceasefire by the State and to concentrate on setting up possible dialogue and negotiation tables, while the public force maintains an active and sustained territorial presence in the departments with the greatest affectation ”, analyzed the foundation.

Drug trafficking and the fragmentation of armed groups

“What we are seeing is that what Colombia has are groups that fragment very quickly, that divide and come back and create alliances and that is generating violence in the region. There, the leaders who try to prevent the communities from being left in the middle of the conflict have been assassinated,” Rosanía said to the VOA.

According to data from the Institute for Development and Peace (Indepaz), so far this year 89 social leaders have been assassinated, 53 massacres have occurred, and 378 peace agreement signatories have been assassinated since 2016.

“To be a victim of the armed conflict is to live in anxiety and to live in psychological, economic and territorial despair, because here we are in the anxiety of being in a conflict zone, that is why the ceasefire is important to sit down to find a solution to the problem because here we are not looking for culprits but rather finding solutions to the conflict,” he told the VOA Emery Quiñonez, social leader of Magui Payán, a municipality on the Colombian Pacific coast.

According to the Pares Foundation, the armed confrontations are not only due to the actions of the public force against criminal organizations, but rather the armed dispute in the territories occurs between different illegal groups that have their own economic interests in the different regions where they control “drug trafficking.” , illegal mining and extortion”.

Buenaventura, the main port of Colombia, where a peace table began last December for a legal negotiation between the “Shottas” and “Espartanos”, the two criminal gangs that control that territory, broke up a few weeks ago due to the emergence of new disputes between these groups.

“The violence that is very strong in Buenaventura between the Shottas and the Spartans is due to the dispute over the control of cocaine from the port of Buenaventura. These two groups were previously made up of a single gang called La Empresa, they fought among themselves and there appear these two groups that control this marginal area that says that a port where a large part of the cocaine produced in the country leaves. ”, Rosanía explained to the VOA.

Lastly, the Pares report says that the excessive “expectation” of the government to reach agreements with the armed groups has produced “scenarios of violence” that have been difficult to manage.

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