Today we woke up to news that, unfortunately, is becoming common in Colombia: motorbike bomb, car bomb or an attack against a police station. Today, again, Jamundí was hit by a motorcycle bomb from the FARC, the terrorist group led by alias Iván Mordisco.
Preliminary information now speaks of a sergeant and a patrol officer who were killed in that cruel attack. Jamundí is just a few minutes from the city of Cali and has not been the only target of attacks in Valle del Cauca. It has happened in Tuluá, in Palmira, and the alerts are on in the city of Cali. Colombia seems to be losing the war again against these terrorist groups that remember the worst times that the country lived through approximately 25 years ago.
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The response of the public force has been insufficient, not because of the inabilities of the military and police establishment, but because the Colombian Armed Forces as a whole are confused, decimated, with low morale, without tools to combat, without sufficient capacity to intelligence, defense, air and even naval supremacy. Thus, throughout the country, Colombia is failing to defend its more than 1,100 municipalities from threats from illegal groups that are multiplying more and more.
Not only is what is happening in Valle del Cauca terrifying for its inhabitants and the uniformed officers who are there, but also because a possible terrorist escalation by this group has not been ruled out. Worse still, with international events in the coming months such as the Women’s Football World Cup and the COP 16 World Summit.
What will happen when international organizations come to carry out security evaluations? What is the national government going to do? Find a kind of truce to pretend that nothing is happening and that everything is at peace? Or as the Minister of the Environment mentioned in a private meeting, would it be better for the Indigenous Guard to protect and not for international security agents to be deployed?
The threats have been serious and the reality is, we insist, rocky. Lives are being lost with each attack and it seems that the State does not react, it does not know what is happening. It seems to be easier to keep track of the deaths in the Gaza Strip than in Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Arauca or Catatumbo.
Hopefully the regional leaders have the ability to demand strong responses from the National Government immediately and can protect Cali, the surrounding municipalities, and the entire department from more attacks like these. It is inconceivable that there is no intelligence work in this area of the country that helps prevent these types of old-fashioned terrorist attacks.
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