Gustavo Petro, Pedro Niño and Juan Fernando Petro, during a meeting in March 2022.RR SS
Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on December 31 that the Clan del Golfo, the country's largest drug trafficking group, is one of the actors in the armed conflict with whom there will be a bilateral ceasefire.
Two days later,
El Tiempo
revealed that criminal lawyer Pedro Niño will be the spokesperson for the talks with that organization, in accordance with a presidential resolution signed on December 28.
The lawyer has extensive experience in rapprochement with this type of group and has been working for months to generate "spaces of trust" with the Clan del Golfo, according to his colleague Juan Fernando Petro, the president's brother, as he recounted by phone.
“There would be no more suitable person than Pedro [Niño],” he says.
Niño, with 20 years of experience, has defended politicians and businessmen convicted of associating with paramilitary groups.
In April of last year, he also led a scandal when he took Gustavo Petro's brother and the current Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, to meet with imprisoned politicians who wanted to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation with the then presidential candidate.
According to the resolution to which
El Tiempo
had access , Niño has been authorized to contribute to the work of the High Commissioner for Peace "to verify the real will for peace and reintegration into civilian life" of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia ( AGC), as the Clan del Golfo is also known.
The document recognizes Niño as the "spokesperson" of the armed group that will "advance the efforts" to submit to justice, in coordination with the High Commissioner.
"Commissioner Rueda will define our functions," added Niño in dialogue with
El Tiempo
.
The Clan del Golfo cannot be part of a traditional peace process like the one with the FARC because it is not a group of a political nature, but rather a criminal organization.
However, the Government hopes to find a legal path through the figure of "submission to justice" recognized in the total peace law, approved last November.
The regulations allow "approaches" with "high-impact armed crime structures" so that they submit to justice, a figure that allows negotiating judicial benefits.
Niño explains to EL PAÍS that his appointment is part of the dialogues that already exist between the armed group and the Executive.
"My designation obeys a direct request from the General Staff of the AGC, who have entrusted me with the possibility of building bridges with the national government," he says by text message, since he is in a rural area with limited signal telephone.
He affirms that he will strengthen the dialogues with his 20 years of experience in Colombian prisons as defender of the prison population: “With them we have worked in the deepest territories of our national geography.
Therefore, the experience gathered from the territories can be taken to Bogotá”.
The lawyer has defended various relevant actors in the armed conflict.
Recently, he represented Benito Molina, who was president of the Córdoba Livestock Fund between 1997 and 2007, when businessmen in the area financed paramilitary groups before the Special Jurisdiction for La Paz (JEP).
Molina was sentenced to 16 years in prison for dispossession of land, but he is currently on temporary release conditioned by his information contributions to justice.
Niño has also been a lawyer for 'Kiko Gómez', the former governor of La Guajira convicted of homicide, who recently failed in his attempt to pass his case to the JEP.
Later, Niño was at the center of the visit by Petro's brother to prisoners for corruption in April last year, in the middle of the electoral campaign.
The lawyer enabled access to the La Picota prison in Bogotá for Juan Fernando Petro and the current High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda.
The three were part of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, a peacebuilding organization that has provided legal advice to different actors in the armed conflict.
The visit entangled the electoral campaign, since Niño was accused of giving the prisoners a document in which Petro offered them "forgiveness and forgetfulness."
The lawyer denied that he gave the proposal to the inmates and said that it was a political entrapment.
The Commission recognized "the imprudence" of entering with the brother of a candidate.
After Petro won the elections, both his brother and Niño went on to work with the Latin American Commission on Human Rights, a regional NGO that supports peace talks in Colombia.
And from there both Juan Fernando and Niño were able to be part of the government's "confidence spaces" with armed groups, as the president's brother confirmed to El PAÍS by phone.
"Pedro [Niño] can bring the AGC closer to the government for pertinent and serious dialogues that generate the necessary trust," says Juan Fernando Petro, who also mentions that Niño has not only worked with people in prisons, but also knows the power of the AGC in one of its areas of influence, Urabá.
"He knows better than anyone the idiosyncrasy, the thinking, of what happens in prisons, corruption and power there, but also in the territories," adds Juan Fernando Petro.
"He has had a low profile for years and works as a lawyer with those characters who have paid their debt to society and society has not returned their civil and political rights."
The president's brother cannot be a spokesperson, due to his relationship with the president, but he says that he will support Niño's work and recognizes that his filial link in some way makes it easier for him to approach.
He insists that the Executive chose the best option.
“I don't know who made the decision, but everyone in the government knew that hard work was being done through us in the area of influence of these groups, the high commissioner clearly understood that,” he adds.
EL PAÍS contacted the Peace Commissioner, Danilo Rueda, who did not give details about the role of spokesman for Niño.
He says that he has not communicated with the lawyer since that visit to La Picota prison in April.
"He doesn't work with me," he emphasizes by text message to explain that Niño is not part of his office payroll.
Although he did not confirm or deny the veracity of the document revealed by
El Tiempo
, he said that each armed group with whom he dialogues agrees on his spokespersons and that all of them "have specific and confidential responsibilities."
The resolution explicitly states that its content is reserved.
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