Violence intensifies in southwestern Colombia with simultaneous attacks on the police in Popayán and Jamundí

This Friday, in broad daylight, two attacks with explosives overshadowed a quiet afternoon in the southwest of the country. In Popayán, the capital of the department of Cauca, a handmade explosive cylinder, called tatuco, exploded inside the facilities of a Police command. There were six cylinders with which alleged members of the extinct FARC dissidents sought to attack the police headquarters, but in the end only one exploded.

The police managed to detect a suspicious red dump truck in time, those involved fled and the single explosion only left material damage, although one of the uniformed officers suffered minor injuries as a result of the shock wave. In Jamundí, 166 kilometers to the north, in the neighboring department of Valle del Cauca, another attack was reported at 4:30 pm. A Hyundai Tucson van exploded in the corner of the main park of the Robles district, one street from the station. police. There were no injuries or fatalities.

The two events seem to be the realization of the warning made two months ago by the main umbrella group of dissident groups of the extinct FARC. On April 7, the so-called Central General Staff (EMC), in which he is alias Ivan Mordisco and which operates in Cauca, published a statement that warned of possible attacks against the Public Force. The text, which showed apparent respect for civilians, advised them to stay at least 500 meters from patrols, battalions and police stations. It also recommended not traveling through abandoned guerrilla camps, with the implicit warning that there could be antipersonnel mines.

The Secretary of Coexistence and Security of Valle del Cauca, Ana María Sanclemente, assured in statements to the media that the explosion in Jamundí, a municipality in that department that borders Cali and at the same time with Cauca, is the work of the so-called Jaime Martínez front. This is a group that operates in the region and which the Government holds responsible for the constant attacks in Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño, together with its ally, the Dagoberto Ramos front, both affiliated with the Central General Staff.

Violence has been intensifying in these three contiguous departments since March 17, when President Gustavo Petro decided to end the bilateral ceasefire and suspend dialogues with the EMC following its attacks against indigenous people and the Public Force. Since then, the attacks have resumed from both sides.

In Cauca, although the authorities still do not speak by name of the Jaime Martínez column, a municipal and departmental security council will be held this Friday night. “We want results,” said the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, of Payanese origin, from there, sending a message to the Military Forces.

“What is happening in Cauca is because we are at war with those organizations. There is no ceasefire there. There is a war there, and we are touching them in their areas; “The Micay area had not been touched for decades,” he stated in an interview with Noticias Caracol. However, he acknowledged that it is worrying that the dissidents had managed to bring a dump truck so close to a police headquarters. The vehicle was located at a strategic point, between the station and the vicinity of the local Popayán airport, so the Police have the theory that they were also seeking to hit some aircraft and helicopters.

Jorge Antonio Urquijo Sandoval, general of the Police, has been in charge of the institution’s spokesperson regarding the attacks. He has stated that those responsible fled and that is why they did not manage to activate the other five explosives that they had prepared. “These criminals do not confront the authorities decisively, but rather through these cowardly and treacherous acts. “They use the population as a shield,” he declared upon arriving at the scene. The images, with destroyed windows and the community in fear, show a return to the climate of violence prior to the signing of the Peace Agreement with the FARC.

The background is complex: in the north of Cauca and the south of the Valley, a historic corridor for the entry of weapons and the exit of drugs to the Pacific has been maintained, in an area with a strong presence of indigenous communities that resist giving them control. territorial to dissidents. It was precisely the attacks by these factions against indigenous people in different places that caused the two most visible crises in the dialogues with the now divided Central General Staff. The statement issued by the Presidency on Friday night does not tone down. He reiterates support for the Military Forces and says that the Government will not cease in its “effort to dismantle these criminal organizations that, wrongly, chose war over peace.”

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