06:00 AM
After the rifle bursts and the detonation of the mortars, silence rules in Argelia, Cauca. That municipality, embedded in the Micay Canyon, is currently the scene of an armed confrontation between the Public Force and the dissidents of the Central General Staff of the FARC (EMC). The civilian population remained in half.
“What happens is that here people prefer to remain silent and not speak because they live in half of the armed groups,” a resident of that municipality told this newspaper.
Read More: “They let us die”: the heartbreaking audios of soldiers asking for help while they are attacked by dissidents in Cauca
On the night of May 3, the last violent clash was recorded in that area. Fifteen uniformed Army personnel reached the township of Bolivia and managed to capture five EMC dissidents.
And when they were preparing the ground to be extracted by helicopter, they were ambushed by 150 dissidents. The soldiers resisted the guerrilla attack for several hours.
The confrontation was broadcast almost live. The soldiers asked for help through audio clips that spread quickly. Air support was the one that took a while to arrive due to bad weather conditions.
Find out: The serious situation of public order in Cauca: what really happened to the bodies of the soldiers?
“Herrera, they let us die, dude. We have been in very hard combat for three hours. “They let us die,” said one of the uniformed men.
Three soldiers died that night in the middle of the clashes with the illegals. Another died on the morning of Saturday, May 4, due to the severity of his injuries.
The dead soldiers are the professional soldiers Jorge David Fuentes, César Javier Sosa Ballesteros, Camilo Andrés Molina and Jairo Urrego David. Their bodies were turned into the epicenter of a symbolic war.
Clash of versions
“We found bodies of the pimps and 40 pieces of equipment. The equipment remains for us, but what do we do with the bodies?” is heard in an audio that the EMC published on social networks and which was accompanied by a request for a humanitarian commission to arrive in the area.
The General Command of the Military Forces immediately published a statement in which it denied the subversives.
“It is not true that the dead uniformed soldiers have been abandoned. These are difficult and complex times, but a commando never leaves behind a fallen comrade,” the Public Force said in a statement on Saturday.
The EMC dissidents – documented by the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation – are present in 41 of the 42 municipalities of Cauca. In addition to the conflict with the Public Force, they are facing the Second Marquetalia and the ELN for control of illicit income.
The illegals, in a response to the military forces, dared to publish photographs of the dead soldiers and their badges. They reiterated that the bodies were in their possession and that they would be handed over to a humanitarian commission.
In fact, the El Plateado Aregelia Cauca Humanitarian Committee – a civil organization from that municipality – went to the site of the confrontation to collect the bodies of the dead soldiers.
After an hour on the road, the Humanitarian Commission van arrived with the bodies at the municipal sports center (see photo) and delivered the remains to members of the Army.
For the authorities, the person responsible for this attack against the official force is the leader alias “Dumar” or “Chito”, one of the commanding men of the Carlos Patiño Front.
In fact, General Helder Giraldo Bonilla, commander of the Military Forces, published an audio in which the leader asked his guerrillas to “behead” the uniformed men.
This Sunday, when weather conditions permitted, an Army helicopter managed to evacuate the dead soldiers from the urban center of Algeria to the Legal Medicine headquarters in Popayán.
The Army acknowledged that the bodies were hidden and accused the dissidents of desecrating them.
“The most difficult decision was made: to leave the bodies of our murdered men hidden. This is in order to continue protecting the lives of the five captured terrorists and the three wounded soldiers,” said General Erick Rodríguez Aparicio, Commander of the Southwest Joint Command N2.
The officer added that the bodies were disrespected by the illegals.
“What they did was loot the bodies of our heroes, they stole their belongings and desecrated them because they took them from the place where they were and left them there,” Rodríguez pointed out.
Cauca has been – since last March 17 – the scene of an escalation of the conflict after President Gustavo Petro’s decision to suspend the ceasefire with that group.
“In this area of Cauca there is a limitation on the Public Force to gain permanent and stable control of the territory. (…) The fact that they could not take care of the bodies while there is space to evacuate them shows how incessant the actions of the Carlos Patiño Front have been,” analyzed Francisco Javier Daza, Peace and Post-Conflict coordinator of the Pares Foundation.
Meanwhile, the latest report from the Government of Cauca indicated that 170 families remain confined in the town of Bolivia due to fear of being caught in the middle of a new combat.
“The offensive against the General Staff in Cauca must be total. They are murderers of the people and traffickers. If the president has to go, the president will go,” said Head of State Gustavo Petro in a public statement. However, he continues the negotiation with a part of that illegal group (see help).
This is the dialogue with the General Staff
The FARC Central General Staff is divided. On one side are those who obey the warlike line of alias Iván Mordisco and on the other extreme are those who trust in a negotiated solution with the Government.
In fact, while the president called for a “total offensive” against the EMC dissidents, delegates from the Government and the guerrilla met in Caquetá to begin a phase of dialogue with the communities.
The Government, now, will play both sides: it will negotiate with the dissident faction that is willing and promised to increase the operations that try to carry out blows against the warriors.
