(Bogota) The Colombian government announced on Tuesday that it would double the rewards offered for the capture of the country’s main guerrilla leaders, “symbols of evil” from which Colombia must be “liberated”.
More than ten days after the capture of Colombian cocaine trafficking baron Dairo Antonio Usuga, aka Otoniel, Defense Minister Diego Molano presented an updated list of the country’s most wanted people.
“We are going to double the rewards for these symbols of evil from different criminal organizations,” the minister said on a television broadcast, deeming “the rewards policy” effective.
This list includes the names of the main leaders of the National Liberation Army (ELN, Guévariste) and of the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Marxists and signatories of the historic peace agreement of 2016).
The government promises to pay up to 4 billion pesos (roughly $ 1 million) to anyone who assists in the capture of Nicolas Rodriguez, aka “Gabino,” the ELN’s top leader until mid-2021.
Considered the last active guerrilla in Colombia after the disarmament of the FARC, the ELN announced that Gabino, 71, had been relieved of his duties for health reasons and that Antonio Garcia, until then in charge of military operations, had succeeded him. The government is also offering $ 1 million for Garcia’s capture.
The reward for locating Ivan Marquez, a former FARC peace negotiator who took up arms in 2019, amounts to $ 790,000.
Gabino and Marquez are outside Colombian territory, in Cuba and Venezuela respectively, according to Colombian military intelligence.
The list presented on Tuesday shows the photos of the leaders of the three great Colombian cartels of Clan del Golfo, Los Pelusos and Los Caparros, crossed out with the words “captured” or “neutralized”.
Otoniel, boss of the Clan del Golfo, 50, was captured on October 23 during a military operation in the northwest of the country.
He was until then the most wanted Colombian drug trafficker by Bogota and Washington. He is being held in a Bogota prison awaiting extradition to the United States.
The new list does not confirm the name of his possible successor, while two of his relatives, “Chiquito Malo” and “Siopas”, are usually cited by experts
Since coming to power in 2018, Conservative President Ivan Duque has set himself a goal of capturing the leaders of the still-armed rebel groups, as well as the country’s biggest cocaine traffickers.