A bold proposal or a shot in the foot.
The announcement by President Gustavo Petro of a bilateral cessation with five very diverse armed groups has the military and communities that suffer violence perplexed and expectant.
Although it has been presented as unprecedented, multiple negotiations have already been tested in the country at the height of the drug war.
Former President Belisario Betancourt attempted negotiations with different insurgencies at the same time;
while Cesar Gaviria opened multiple negotiation scenarios including the submission to justice of the Medellín cartel and the self-defense groups of Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha and the Guerrilla Coordinator.
However, as the analyst of the conflict, Luis Fernando Trejos, points out, this time the novelty is the quantity and diverse nature of them.
"It is also new insofar as it would be the first experience of a multilateral ceasefire because before they had been unilateral and bilateral," he says.
But that itself may be his biggest challenge.
These are the five groups with which the Petro government intends to finalize a cessation.
The Gulf Clan
They are known as the Clan del Golfo or the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
They arose in the area of Urabá and Córdoba, a historical stronghold of paramilitary groups.
His name became known among national opinion when entire areas of the north of the country were paralyzed for four days and due to the cinematographic arrest and extradition of his former boss Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel.
But in the rural areas of those regions its impact and violence were already known for a long time.
The Clan de Golfo has, according to intelligence reports from the previous government, some 1,200 men under arms and "is dedicated exclusively to the drug-trafficking business."
Other figures speak of 3,300 men.
At the end of 2021, the same document said, it was seeking to expand from the department of Meta to Casanare, in the center of the country.
After the extradition of Othniel,
Before leaving, he revealed to the court that his group had relations with members of the public force and with local politicians, Jesús Ávila Villadiego, alias Chiquito Malo, remained in charge.
It is not clear if he, whose history is merely military and not political, is the one with whom the total peace proposed by the government of Gustavo Petro is being negotiated.
The Clan del Golfo has open wars with different groups such as the ELN and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, in Chocó and in the Colombian Caribbean, among others.
And for analysts like Trejos and Reynell Badillo, from the UNCaribe Thought Center, it is not a drug cartel understood in the traditional way, but a kind of "crime cluster."
“More than a drug cartel, they are a logistics operator, a cocaine cluster, with a portfolio of illegal income,” says Trejos.
That, in addition to its urban presence and its extortion capacity, can be one of the most serious challenges in monitoring a ceasefire.
They also claim that they are misunderstood as successors of the paramilitaries,
Self-defense groups of the Sierra Nevada
If the Clan del Golfo is the most renowned nationally, the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada are perhaps the most unknown to a large part of the country.
However, it is an armed group with a deep-rooted presence on the Atlantic coast, specifically in the Sierra Nevada and, unlike the other groups, it is a family clan linked to former paramilitary chief Hernán Giraldo.
With four decades it is, together with the ELN, the oldest organization with which the Government would negotiate.
It has changed its name, first it was the Tayrona resistance, the Caribbean branch of the Envigado hit man office, then a paramilitary group.
According to analysts from the UNCaribe Thought Center, their politicization is relatively recent and today they present themselves as self-defense groups.
It is estimated that there are about 150 in arms, but that figure does not take into account the people they hire outsourced.
They also provide logistical services for drug transport and route protection and are the biggest extortionists of all kinds of companies in the Troncal del Caribe area, which is why they have a fight to the death with the Clan del Golfo for control of the port of Santa Martha.
From prison, Hernán Giraldo has sent letters from prison offering himself as a mediator.
Nor is it clear whether the Petro government accepts Giraldo, convicted not only of paramilitarism but also of rape of minors, to participate in a negotiation process.
THE N
Although it denied the ceasefire announced by the government, to date it is the only armed group sitting officially at a negotiating table.
It is the last active guerrilla in the country after the disarmament of the extinct FARC and, according to the latest figures from the Army, in 2021 it had 2,350 combatants.
Its presence and violence in regions such as Catatumbo and Arauca, in the northeast of the country;
As well as in Nariño and Chocó, in the west, a ceasefire and humanitarian relief are key.
Also, as an intelligence document from the government of Iván Duque indicates, they have a strong presence in Venezuela.
"It is known that in different States of Venezuela more than 1,100 members of the structures of the organized armed group ELN remain," indicated the intelligence document from the beginning of 2022, which added that 60% of its structures are dedicated to drug trafficking as a source of financing and that three heads of the Central Command, eight of the National Directorate, 17 of war fronts and 21 of fronts and companies remained in Venezuelan territory.
The ELN is usually a tough nut to crack in negotiations.
This is the sixth time that a government has attempted to disarm them.
The current one is going through its most critical moment.
That is one of the challenges in finalizing a termination with that group.
It is a federated structure in which the substructures do not necessarily abide by the orders of the table in Caracas and are in dispute with the Clan del Golfo in Chocó.
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has even identified at least 6 fronts that could ruin the talks.
The Second Marquetalia
It was officially born from an event that shook Colombia.
On August 29, 2019, Iván Márquez, former FARC chief negotiator in Havana, announced through a video that he was taking up arms again along with other former commanders such as Jesús Santrich.
He called it Segunda Marquetalia and now, despite the criticism against President Petro for talking with those who renounced the peace process, he is among the groups with which there would be a cessation.
According to the Ideas for Peace Foundation “it is still far from having the dimensions and capabilities of the old FARC.
Although it seeks to evoke this guerrilla, it is more like an eclectic combination of armed factions that aspire to have greater levels of autonomy and that seek economic support or gain ideological support.
According to the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, the group claims to have 1,500 men under arms and the IFJ points out that the Second Marquetalis is made up of "Colombian and Venezuelan recruits with little training and political indoctrination."
Central Staff
It is the name that has recently been given to the so-called FARC dissidents, grouped under the figure of Gentil Duarte and Iván Mordisco, who reappeared after being presumed dead by President Iván Duque.
They move in Cauca and have communities in the western part of the country in check with the assassinations of social leaders.
During the government of Iván Duque they were considered Residual Armed Groups (GAOR), but with the arrival of the new Executive they have become politicized.
“Names are changed, they are politicized to generate the idea that they are the FARC-EP, but they are criminal federations,” explains Trejos.
With this group, the risk is that what happened during the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia in 2004 would happen:
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