2023-07-08 07:00:00
File photograph from April 16, 2023 that shows “Iván Mordisco”, general commander of the FARC dissident calling itself the Central General Staff, in San Vicente del Caguán (Colombia).
Photo: AFP – JOAQUIN SARMIENTO
As Colombia+20 had reported on Friday, the National Government and the FARC dissident calling itself the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP announced this Saturday the resumption of peace talks. Negotiations with this group, as well as the ceasefire, stopped last May after the murder by this armed group of four indigenous minors who had fled the ranks of the Carolina Ramírez front in Putumayo.
“The National Government and the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP announce that they have reached an agreement to establish a peace dialogue table. At the facility (…) the parties will discuss and approve the bilateral ceasefire,” the statement said.
This dissidence has about 3,200 people in arms and is commanded by Iván Mordisco and other middle managers of the extinct FARC guerrilla who did not accept the Peace Agreement with the FARC in 2016. It is estimated that they are distributed in 23 fronts that operate in 16 departments of the country.
In context: After crisis, Iván Mordisco’s government and dissidents will reactivate peace talks
The communiqué had a first version that circulated on July 7 and where it was stated that from this Saturday until the date of installation of the table, delegates from both parties will begin a preliminary phase with the presence of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace , representatives of the international community, the Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches.
A second version – dated July 8 – involves the UN Verification Mission and the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP-OAS) in this task.
This second version also makes modifications to what the parties will discuss. The topics will be: adjustments to the ceasefire protocol and protection of communities and civil society, and the implementation of oversight, monitoring and verification mechanisms at both the national and local levels. Also the praagenda of the dialogue table.
With this adjustment, the two new features contained in the first statement regarding the methodology of the traveling table and the mechanisms for civil society participation are left out.
The document also specifies that in this phase a National Confidence Generation and Contingency Resolution Team will be installed, made up of those same entities mentioned above, and whose objective will be precisely to resolve the tensions that were generated as a result of the unilateral breaking of the ceasefire. .
Another detail that changed between both statements was the order of the signatures. In the second document, the signature of the high commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda, was first and on the left, and Andrey Avendaño, delegate of that dissident, on the right.
Finally, the parties indicate in the text that in the coming days “the names of the people who will make up their delegations will be publicly announced.”
Also: Government suspends ceasefire with FARC dissidents in four departments
As this newspaper learned, the rapprochements between both parties began to be reactivated in the last two weeks with several intense meetings between Commissioner Rueda and delegates of the dissidents of the Central General Staff of the FARC, under the command of Iván Mordisco.
The encounters have occurred mainly in Catatumbo, Norte de Santander, and in the Yarí plains, in Caquetá.
One of the Government’s objectives, which is still under discussion, is for the EMC to renounce the practice of kidnapping, not to hinder the upcoming regional elections and to suspend actions against the civilian population. That is what the dialogue mechanism that will be installed in the next few hours will focus on.
Why was the process truncated?
The dialogues with the Central General Staff were, along with that of the ELN, one of the most advanced of the seven that the Government is currently carrying out with dissidents and other armed and criminal groups. However, last May the process was stopped after the murder of the four indigenous minors. This fact led the Government to suspend the ceasefire in four departments and the response of this dissidence was a threat issued on May 27 when they urged the candidates of “parties or sectors that fuel the war” to desist from entering their areas. Of domain.
Days later, in a statement, the EMC recognized the crime of the minors: “In light of the events that occurred in Putumayo, we assume responsibility for the death of the three young people (there were not four) who were executed,” the statement says. which they add that the minors were of the age that “international humanitarian law requires for their recruitment” and that in that case it was done “voluntarily.”
These mutual claims led to the dialogue process being suspended.
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