The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, assured in a message on his X account that “the offensive against the Central General Staff (EMC) in Cauca must be total,” after four days of intense clashes between the Army and dissidents the FARC in the southwest of the country, where the escalation of violence has called into question the Government’s total peace policy and the future of negotiations with that armed group.
Petro described this FARC dissident group as “murderers of the people and traffickers,” to which the EMC responded that with the announcement of a “total offensive it closes the doors of dialogue and peace.”
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“His true face is not far from that of previous governments. ‘The devil pays poorly to those who serve him well,’” the guerrillas indicated in a writing published on their X account.
The fighting between the Army and the Carlos Patiño group of FARC dissidents began on Thursday after the military killed three guerrillas and detained five others in the municipality of Argelia, Cauca.
In those combats, soldiers Jorge David Fuentes, Javier Sosa Ballesteros and Camilo Andrés Molina died, while three others were injured. One of them, soldier Jairo Urrego David, died in a hospital in the area, bringing the total number of soldiers killed in these clashes to four.
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The deceased have been the subject of reproaches between both parties: the armed group denounced that the bodies had been abandoned by the authorities in the combat zone, while the Army reported on Sunday that they had already been recovered after the weather conditions improved. but that they had been “desecrated” by the dissidents.
A “predictable” escalation
For months now, Cauca has become a constant escalation of tension, so these clashes and the resurgence of violence were “foreseeable,” explains political scientist from the National University Alejo Vargas.
“If there is no policy of seeking agreements through negotiation, but accompanied by a strengthening of the security policy, then obviously the result is that these irregular groups at any time consider that they can make any type of expression of violence and not nothing happens,” adds the professor.
The Micay canyon and townships such as El Plateado, in the municipality of Argelia, have become one of the stumbling blocks in the peace negotiations between the Government and the EMC.
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This is an area, like many others in the country, where the presence of the State is symbolic, not only militarily, but socially and economically, which is why armed groups have gained power and have established themselves as territorial authority.
“Of course (it is necessary) a greater presence of troops, but with greater capacity for play,” for example helicopters, but also “an important presence of social policy in that territory, because the presence of the State is not only the military presence, it is also the civil presence” to “dispute the legitimacy of these illegal groups in the territory,” says Vargas.
