Violence rages in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca

A series of attacks with explosives has shocked southwestern Colombia. The municipality of Jamundí, in the department of Valle del Cauca and the adjacent department of Cauca, have experienced an escalation of violence since the suspension of the ceasefire by the government with the Central General Staff (EMC) of the FARC dissidents. .

Violence is raging in this area of ​​the country, where the EMC rebels increased their actions in Cauca, with continuous attacks in the municipalities of Argelia, Suarez, Cajibío and Popayán, the capital of this department.

At the same time, the EMC, divided in two since March, extends its arms towards the department of Valle del Cauca, under the command of alias ‘Iván Mordisco’, the maximum commander of this group, with multiple attacks in Jamundí, a municipality located just 20 minutes from Cali.

The actions, which have escalated in Jamundí, with three motorcycle bomb attacks in the last two weeks that have left more than seven people injured, explains Javier Rincón, director of the Center for Studies in Military Law at the Javeriana University of Bogotá, They have the objective of pressuring to reach a ceasefire with the government again.

“It is a pressure that is part of a constant strategy that Colombian guerrillas have always had when they are sitting at a negotiating table, or when they are close to sitting at a negotiating table, or when they want to obtain something at the negotiating table. . “It is part of their manual, to try to demonstrate force for purposes, to be able to have more positions in the negotiations,” Rincón told the Voice of America.

“They want to show that they rule the region. To a large extent what these EMC fronts with which the negotiation broke down are trying to tell the government ‘without us there can be no peace, you have to take us into account and you have to return us to the dialogue table,’ he added.

The increase in violence in recent weeks has generated criticism of President Gustavo Petro and his policy of total peace, the president’s main emblem, with which he is betting on multiple negotiations with armed groups.

“Petro talks about peace in Europe while the terrorists he has at the dialogue tables continue killing and kidnapping. In the last hours, attacks in Jamundí, Suárez, Puerto Alvira and Cajibío. “What peace?” wrote Senator María Fernanda Cabal, of the Democratic Center, one of its main opponents, in X.

After the recent attacks in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez told the media on Wednesday that “I do not know whether he will renew the ceasefire with the EMC.”

Juan Ugarriza, professor at the Faculty of Jurisprudence at the Universidad del Rosario and expert in peace and conflict issues, explains that the government’s total peace policy has lacked a “peace strategy” in negotiations with these armed groups.

“The absence of a real strategy has not created incentives for any of these armed groups to be willing to leave the conflict and to the extent that the government does not create a strategy for that to happen, violence will tend to increase.”

In that sense, he mentions that in this context, contradictory situations will continue to arise to the agreed ceasefires, so the government should “untie the hands of the public force.”

“Military action is not contrary to the search for peace and the government should understand that it is a necessary and important actor for peace to occur, that does not exist at this moment. So, military pressure is fundamental to the extent that it is articulated with a general strategy that involves state institutions so that these groups stop violence,” he added.

Finally, the Army announced the deployment of soldiers with experience in developing urban, rural, anti-explosive and air assault operations, who will be mainly in the Jamundí areas, where the EMC has increased its armed actions.

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