General Federico Mejía, commander of the national Army in Cauca, defines El Plateado, a district of Argelia, south of the department, as ‘the Wall Street’ of the illegal economy of the FARC dissidents; That is, the most important area and with the greatest criminal presence in southwestern Colombia.
This territory, which is besieged with rapid-detonation explosives and others remotely, cameras that record the slightest movement and a strategic location with the civilian population as a human shield, is almost a medieval fortress in which not even the public force can enter. The terrorists of the Carlos Patiño front, former associates of Iván Mordisco, control everything.
El Plateado is submerged between the imposing mountains of the Micay canyon and for several decades it has been an obligatory step to take the tons of drugs that are produced in the massif towards the Cauca Pacific. The porous routes lead to ports such as Guapi, Timbiquí, López de Micay, which in turn connect with Tumaco to the south, if the destination is Ecuador, and Buenaventura to the north, if the route is directly to Central America.
The FARC dissidents made that place their criminal niche after the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016. Their power grew rapidly; They instrumentalized the civilian population, forced them to remove the Army with a couple of raids, and when they already had absolute control, they were dispatched with a sense of barbarism only comparable to the darkest periods of the Colombian conflict.
The peak of violence in El Plateado was experienced in 2020, when the Carlos Patiño front began a witch hunt in the township. They searched house by house and removed those they considered traitors for betting on the substitution of illicit crops and brutally murdered them. According to official data, since the signing of the Peace Agreement in this area, 17 social leaders and ten signatories who did not want to return to violent dynamics have been murdered.
“Here they have killed people out of suspicion, and lately they (the dissidents) are paranoid, they feel that they are on their heels, so they attack the civilian population, they kill people in the main square and then take them to the mountains ( …) And here is someone who complains to, if the law is themselves,” added the professor. Even the director of the Police, General William Salamanca, acknowledged in a discouraging message to the civilian population that his uniformed officers could not enter that district because “there are no security guarantees.”
“When there are guarantees for the life, safety and well-being of the police, we will be in El Plateado,” said General Salamanca. And he added: “There are adverse situations; The first is that we do not have a Police command in place for our police officers to reach the site. The second, we do not have the health conditions, and I am referring to some health offers in case a police officer needs to be treated. And the third is that we do not have the conditions of well-being.”
The truth is that although they are uncomfortable, the general’s words are true. SEMANA reached Algeria, an hour by road from El Plateado, and was able to verify that there is no presence of public forces in the area. The road to get to this place is unpaved for much of the way, in every corner there are messages alluding to the FARC dissidents and in a certain section there is a notice “forbidden to enter without permission.”
The owners of everything
“The Silver One is ‘the Wall Street’ of the illegal economies in Cauca; Given this scenario, they have had an area occupied for many years, until now we managed to advance to the vicinity of El Plateado, from there to there they are very well organized. They placed about 4,000 minefields in the upper parts, because they are not going to allow anyone to reach them through the upper parts. The entrances to the urban area are monitored by security cameras. The three vehicle entrances are full of remote-controlled explosives. ”, General Federico Mejía explained to SEMANA.
“In their desire to continue shielding El Plateado, what they did was set up five camps in the upper part, which was the ones we attacked; one of them is in the aqueduct, which is the one that supplies drinking water to more than 8,000 people in the town, and they try to use all these areas where it is impossible to enter because they place camps next to the school, next to the houses, launching platforms for parabolic firing weapons near the plots of the houses within the hamlet,” the senior officer pointed out.
And he added: “Imagine that scenario where I enter there? Can you imagine the warlike scenario that can be experienced among the civilian population? They have displaced people from the homes to be able to strategically locate themselves in this town.
“All this makes our operation difficult.” El Plataado is, then, an almost impenetrable fortress because it has a kind of imaginary walls full of explosives, a camouflage between the civilian population and cameras with the capacity to record all movements.
At the time, this town was in the eye of the hurricane because the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, recognized that an agreement had been made with the FARC dissidents so that the Army could enter, ahead of the regional elections last October, but that after the votes the military had to leave the area.
General Mejía insists that to recover El Plateado a robust plan is needed, a union of all possible forces. “A lot of commitment is needed here, because it’s not just me going in there and going to war with them, but it requires a very robust social component that allows me to give the farmers what they have been requesting for many years, and that is an opportunity for programs and projects offered by the Government. The solution is not only war, if that were the case we would have ended the war in Colombia a long time ago.”
The FARC fort is also a concentration camp for the worst criminal practices, where no one can enter or leave without the permission of the terrorists of the Carlos Patiño front.
, the ‘hell’ of the FARC that not even the Public Force can enter. The place is full of explosives){kind=link}