The unresolved questions of the Government of Iván Duque about his plan against the Clan del Golfo

Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias 'Otoniel', is extradited to the United States, on May 4, 2022.- (AFP)

Since before Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias

, was extradited, the victims of the Clan del Golfo denounced the presence of other

.

“There is no peace here.

Otoniel is no longer leading this war, but there are already others,” a social leader from Urabá Antioquia told this newspaper on April 15, when President Iván Duque had just signed the shipment of the drug lord to the United States.

Last week, after the extradition became effective, reality proved him right.

An armed strike that cornered the inhabitants of 178 municipalities showed that although Úsuga is gone, the violence continues.

Now it's

,

and

.

Before

he was

.

The leaders of the Clan del Golfo or the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), the other name of the paramilitary organization, have inherited a structure with a certain level of institutionality and that is why they maintain control of territories and have the capacity to confine entire towns. , even though the most visible leaders are gone.

Cutting off the snake's head does not work to dismantle a structure that has a presence in 11 departments throughout the country.

“The strategy of attacking the ringleaders has differentiated impacts.

In the FARC it worked to weaken and stimulate individual demobilizations, but in other organizations it can fragment them and have a negative effect on the population in which they are inserted,” says Eduardo Álvarez Vanegas, a researcher on conflict issues.

On Monday, when the armed group had announced the end of the blockade, after four days of terror, President Iván Duque stated that some 52,000 soldiers and police officers are reinforcing the offensive to confront the AGC and announced the creation of search blocks to locate to the three new leaders of the organization.

For Kyle Johnson, a researcher at the Conflict Responses Foundation, the Government's reaction, in addition to being late, responds to an “old script, to a perspective focused on high-value targets (ringleaders) that no longer works.

Steps need to be taken to dismantle the organization, but with its submission and guaranteeing them sufficient incentives.

A much more frank conversation is necessary, where it is also known who, in the economic and political sectors, benefits from their actions.”

The new government plan shows, according to analysts, that operations as ambitious as Agamemnon I and Amagenon II, in which the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police participate, have not been enough to diminish the organization.

President Duque, however, has said that through these actions, more than 2,000 members of the Gulf have been captured in more than 1,000 actions.

Juan Diego Restrepo, director of the Verdadabierta portal, dedicated to the conflict, considers that Duque's announcement has not made it clear what will happen to these operations, after the announcement of search blocks, nor has he said what the actions will be to confront their international networks. .

"The government has not told us a very important point and that is how it will act against the network that operates abroad, what is Colombia's strategy to attack them, taking into account that they are [the Gulf Clan] large exporters of cocaine" Restrepo points out.

The researcher questions that even though history has shown the ineffectiveness of "cutting off the head of the serpent", this is still the plan on which all efforts are focused.

“Concentrating only on what they call the value objectives does not mean the disappearance of the structures, but their rearrangement.

In the case of the AGC, they had already defined the succession since 2017 when

had given the first signs of wanting to submit to justice.

That caused part of his head to split off and he lost power.”

For Restrepo, it is also not clear how the search blocks will work for an organization like the Clan del Golfo that operates in a network and functions vertically.

“What will happen to the Agamemnon operation.

Is it going to dissolve? Are the search blocks going to be nourished with these names?

There are many questions still unanswered."

After the capture of 'Otoniel', not only have there been more than 300 arrests, we have managed to raid goods and properties of this organization and seize more than 60 tons of cocaine hydrochloride.

We will continue to hit all your territorial structures.

pic.twitter.com/X8KfSLnV7B

– Iván Duque 🇨🇴 (@IvanDuque) May 9, 2022

The Gulf Clan came to have an army of around 4,000 men, including informers and gunmen.

The independent study center Indepaz estimates that its foot force is around 1,600 members, but it could be more.

This structure, according to the analysts consulted, subcontracts small gangs for certain actions: murders, kidnappings, extortion.

Duque has said that after

's extradition, 16 more processes of members of this organization are on the way to be sent to the United States.

“There is only one message: we will never give in to the Clan del Golfo and any drug trafficking structure.

They are seeking political recognition, trying to see who will buy that idea,” said the president, in a new slam of the door to the possibility of trying, by way of submission, to disarm the organization that has already demonstrated the power it has to control entire towns.

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