Colombia suspends rebel ceasefire after Indigenous teens killed

World
By William

The government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced it is suspending the ceasefire with a rebel group accused of killing four indigenous peoples in a recent attack.

The government said on Monday it will resume attacks against the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) group, a splinter of the now-disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once the country’s largest rebel group.

The temporary suspension applies to the provinces of Caqueta, Putumayo, Guaviare and Meta. In other regions, the ceasefire with the EMC remains in effect.

“If a bilateral ceasefire is not effective in protecting the life and integrity of the entire population in certain areas, then there is no point in continuing,” a government statement said.

The incident underscores the difficulty of building peace in a country where various armed groups compete for control of resources and territory, often leading to violence and displacement in the regions where they operate.

Last week, indigenous organizations accused the EMC of killing four people trying to evade forced recruitment in the southern province of Putumayo. All four victims were native minors, according to one government statement on social media.

On Saturday, the Petro government called the killings an “attack on peace”. The president continued to criticize the violence on his Twitter account on Monday.

“Killing indigenous children is an unacceptable crime against humanity,” Petro wrote. “Forcibly recruiting minors is the same thing.”

In Colombia and throughout South America, indigenous communities are often victims of violence by criminal groups seeking to carry out illegal operations in the areas where they live.

The attacks also highlight the challenges Petro faces as he attempts to carry out an agenda of “total peace” to combat Colombia’s nearly six-decade-long internal conflict.

Petro, the country’s first leftist president and former guerrilla fighter, has sought to move away from the heavy-handed, military-focused approach of his predecessors.

However, his emphasis on negotiating with armed groups has produced mixed results. A Red Cross report released in March found that while violence between armed groups and government forces has decreased, civilians continue to face displacement and violence from armed groups.

Those mixed results were further seen when Petro announced around the New Year holidays that his government had signed a series of ceasefire agreements, including with the EMC and other dissident FARC groups such as the Segunda Marquetalia.

But almost immediately he had to backtrack on claims that a ceasefire had also been reached with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the largest remaining rebel group, after it denied the existence of such a ceasefire.

And the truces that did remain met with stumbling blocks. Since then, Petro has accused the Gulf Clan criminal group of violating the ceasefire.

Attempts at a ceasefire, meanwhile, have continued with the ELN, with the latest round of talks in Cuba. But those negotiations were fraught with tension, especially after the group reportedly killed nine Colombian soldiers in late March.

“When Petro came to power, he had essentially promised to try to achieve what he calls ‘total peace,'” Al Jazeera correspondent Alessandro Rampietti explains.

“This was seen as very ambitious, but many of these groups also saw the opportunity [of] having for the first time a left-wing president to negotiate with – one who was less bellicose than previous Colombian governments,” he said.

“But so far this plan has been big on announcements and big on the president’s vision, but has achieved little in terms of practical effects.”

Groups like the EMC were founded in the wake of a historic 2016 peace deal that disbanded the FARC as an armed force. More than 14,000 fighters agreed to demobilize – a milestone in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

However, some groups refused to participate in the 2016 peace agreement. Former FARC commanders formed their own splinter organizations, such as the EMC.

Petro, who has inherited the legacy of this 2016 deal, has attempted to engage directly with groups such as the EMC to see them disarm as well.

But as Rampietti reports, Petro’s approach has been criticized by some in the political opposition as being too soft. Incidents such as the death of the four indigenous youths only reinforce those concerns.

“Remember that formal negotiations with this group were supposed to start on May 16, but were postponed while the government negotiators in this group were still refining the details of, among other things, exactly how the ceasefire was expected to work,” Rampietti said. . .

“In essence, this is sadly just the latest setback in a series of setbacks that Petro’s peace policy has faced in the country since he came to power last August.”

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