The ambitious commitment to total peace by Gustavo Petro's Government is like an octopus that has several of its tentacles at risk.
Of seven dialogues initiated with different illegal structures, those concentrated in Medellín, Quibdó and Buenaventura are betting on achieving peace with urban gangs dedicated to extortion and micro-trafficking.
However, the initial impulse of these so-called socio-legal dialogues has lost strength between the legal limbo in which the submission to justice for criminal groups that have no political purpose is and the priority that the Government has given to other dialogues.
In the three cities, social organizations demand greater commitment from local and national administrations to protect what has already been achieved, which includes rapprochements and truces.
This is the panorama of urban peace a year and a half after its start.
Buenaventura: the pilot who started strong, but ran aground
The hardest blow that total urban peace has received was in the country's largest port, where a truce had been achieved between the two main gangs and which had been extended several times, the most recent until next May.
This Wednesday Los Espartanos, one of the two groups, published a statement announcing that they are leaving the table indefinitely.
Among the reasons for not continuing is possibly the non-compliance with commitments by Los Shottas, the rival group, the absence of a legal framework for the process and the absence from the table of armed groups that operate in the rural area of the district. , pointing to an alliance of the National Liberation Army (ELN) with its enemies.
For Francisco Javier Daza, coordinator of the Territorial Peace and Human Rights line of the PARES Foundation and who has closely followed that space, the decision was not surprising.
Crosses on the divider of an avenue in Buenaventura, in July 2023, while dialogue tables between gangs were taking place. Ernesto Guzmán (EFE)
A day before that setback, the investigator said that the situation in the port, despite the truce, was tense in a city that has come to have one of the highest homicide rates in the country.
According to Daza and other social leaders in the area, the high commissioner for Peace, Otty Patiño, has not gone to the city, and that has left the Church, social organizations and some Government delegates the task of maintaining the truces. .
Furthermore, the concern about the legal framework that ensures a result of these dialogues has not been fundamentally resolved, as reflected in the writing of Los Espartanos.
“It becomes unsustainable to maintain a truce without there being a basis of socio-legal guarantees for these groups to join the total peace,” says Daza.
Two days after the initial statement, another document also signed by Los Espartanos circulated last Friday, which emphasizes this problem while, in contradiction to the previous document, announcing that the truce continues.
The Government sought to reduce doubt with the so-called Total Peace Law, which left in its hands the definition of the requirements and conditions of the submission of these bands.
But last December the Constitutional Court declared those sections of the norm unenforceable and clarified that the Legislature cannot delegate those guidelines to the Executive.
For this reason, the Government has announced a law that regulates the point, but has not made progress on it.
Precisely, for Dennis Huffington, PARES field researcher, the decision of Los Espartanos is “above all, pressure on the Government to obtain the law of submission.”
Aburrá Valley: a new local government that antagonizes urban peace
In Medellín the talks are still going on, but in an atmosphere of uncertainty.
At the beginning of February, several NGOs warned of the stagnation of the table and promoted a
Manifesto for urban peace
in which they announced “the creation of a promotion committee with the purpose of contributing through dialogue to the formulation and construction of a civil society agenda to achieve urban peace.
Two weeks later, the high peace commissioner traveled to the capital of Antioquia for the first time.
There he met with civil society organizations and Church delegates in an event promoted by the Ideas for Peace Foundation.
It was not revealed whether he went to the Itagüí prison, where the majority of leaders of the illegal gangs that operate in the metropolitan area are held.
In any case, the difficulties go beyond the National Government.
“The change of local and regional leaders meant seeing if the administrations are committed to this issue,” explains Carlos Zapata, director of the Popular Training Institute, one of the NGOs that participated in the meetings and signed the manifesto.
For Zapata, in Antioquia the scenario is adverse to the so-called total peace.
He recalls that the new governor, Uribista Andrés Julián Rendón, has on multiple occasions spoken out against this policy, calling it “a blunder,” “a deception,” and “a trick.”
The mayor of Medellín and former right-wing presidential candidate, Federico Gutiérrez, has not been left behind.
“What agreements are they making there (in prison)?
Only you know because they enter
his house like Pedro
,” he said at a recent meeting of Antioquian congressmen.
“From various sectors we have made calls not to leave this lying around, to take advantage of the fact that the members of these groups have shown will,” recalls Zapata, who highlights that in 2023 homicides decreased by 10% compared to 2022, with a trend that continues to decline.
“Civil society organizations are betting on a negotiated socio-legal treatment, and above all on these gangs committing to never take up arms again, abandoning extortion and the places of vice,” he adds.
Quibdó: in total hermeticism
Knowing what is happening at the Quibdó dialogue table seems like quite a challenge.
A local journalist explains to this medium that the negotiations are surrounded by absolute confidentiality.
“Neither the Police, nor the Mayor's Office, nor the Diocese, which has encouraged the process, no one gives information about how it is progressing, what the agreements are.
The truth is that acts of violence and murders have been occurring in the municipality since the end of 2023, which shows that there is indeed a crack within these dialogue tables,” he expresses by telephone.
This reality is reflected in the impossibility of obtaining information from table participants.
One of the Government delegates in it, former indigenous senator Luis Evelis Andrade, assured this newspaper that he is not authorized to give statements.
The press office of another of the Executive delegates, House representative David Racero, did not respond to questions until the time of publishing this note.
Another one, journalist Juan Diego Restrepo, resigned from that role for personal projects.
Vera Grabe, Iván Cepeda and María José Pizarro, together with the governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, at the dialogue tables with the ELN in Quibdó, on February 17. Government of Colombia
While mystery surrounds the talks, the capital of Chocó has seen several murders in the last three months.
The most recent event was a massacre that left four dead and three injured last Sunday in the Las Palmas neighborhood.
According to authorities, it was due to a settling of scores between criminal gangs.
Milton Andrés Santos Moreno, alias Gordo
, who belongs to the Los Zeta gang,
was captured for the crime .
That group announced in September its interest in participating in the urban peace process.
They were the last to sit at a table where Los Mexicanos, Los Locos Yam, and the band RPS already had seats.
Despite the history of recent months, according to data from the National Police, in 2023 homicides in the capital of Chocó decreased by
37.5% compared to 2022.
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