BOGOTA: The government in Colombia has agreed to a six months ceasefire accord with the five largest armed groups operating in the country.
The decision was announced by President Gustavo Petro on the eve of the new year. The truce was the key objective of Petro’s “total peace” policy. The policy aims to end the armed conflict that the country has seen even after the dissolution of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) back in 2017.
The armed groups still operating in the world’s largest cocaine-producing country are locked in deadly disputes involving drug trafficking revenues besides other illegal businesses, according to an independent think tank, the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz). Petro tweeted, “We have agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with the ELN, the Central General Staff, the Second Marquetalia, the AGC and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada from January 1 to June 30, 2023”. The ceasefire is extendable depending on progress in the negotiations, according to Petro.
‘Bold accord’
He revealed that there would be a national as well as international verification mechanism for monitoring progress under the “bold” accord. Peace talks had been suspended from 2018-2022 under the government of Ivan Duque but after Petro came to power on August 7, he resumed negotiations in November 2022. He is leading the country’s first leftist government.
50 years of conflict
The government is offering the armed groups benevolent treatment from the judicial point of view in exchange for a surrender of assets, Senator Ivan Cepeda told AFP. Some dissidents had refused to lay down their arms alongside their FARC comrades some six years back when the fearsome rebel army signed the deal with Bogota aiming at an end to more than five decades of conflict. The nation has suffered more than 50 years of armed conflict between the state and various armed groups of left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers, and right-wing paramilitaries.
