The EMC guerrilla, one of the main dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, on Saturday asked delegations not to attend the COP16 on biodiversity which begins October 21 in Cali, in southwestern Colombia, after the outbreak of a military offensive.
“Faced with the war with which [les autorités] respond to our desire for peace for COP16, we invite delegates from the national and international community to refrain from attending this event,” declared the guerrilla of the Central Staff (EMC) on the social network x.
Representatives of some 200 countries and 12,000 people are expected in this vast diplomatic and economic forum to stimulate the still timid implementation of a road map for safeguarding nature by 2030, the result of a historic agreement. taken in Montreal in 2022.
“COP16 is a fiasco”, estimated the EMC on security.
Bogotá intends to use this 16e conference of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity to take the lead in the global mobilization for nature, while itself grappling with the ravages of deforestation linked to cocaine trafficking.
The EMC’s announcement comes after the launch on Saturday of a military operation against the EMC.
Called “Perseo”, the operation began at dawn in El Plateado, in a region transformed into an “international cocaine exchange” by the EMC, according to President Gustavo Petro.
The fighting left at least 17 injured, according to a statement on X from the Colombian Ombudsman, the state entity that monitors human rights in the country.
El Plateado is one of the main strongholds of the EMC in the Micay Canyon region, a mountainous complex where coca leaf crops abound and a strategic location for cocaine production.