(Bogotá) Colombia’s largest splinter FARC guerrilla faction, which had rejected the 2016 peace accord, has announced the suspension of its attacks on security forces in order to achieve a bilateral ceasefire .
Posted yesterday at 3:22 p.m.
In a video broadcast this Friday, the leader of the self-proclaimed dissident faction “Central Staff of the FARC-EP” spoke alongside about fifteen fighters in camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles.
“All FARC-EP guerrilla units have been ordered to avoid clashes with public forces as much as possible until we are attacked,” said the man, who did not identify himself.
This is, according to the Colombian daily El Tiempoof Ivan Mordisco, yet given for dead last July by former President Ivan Duque during an army operation.
The cessation of hostilities is the starting point for “creating a favorable climate and initiating with the national government agreements and mechanisms for a bilateral ceasefire”, adds the guerrilla, who assures that the video was shot on September 22.
The new left-wing president Gustavo Petro, in power since the beginning of August, has multiplied calls for negotiations for the disarmament of the various armed groups in the country to end the violence as part of his policy of “total peace”.
Government delegates notably met last Saturday in the department of Caqueta (south) with members of this same FARC-EP faction to initiate this dialogue.
In the video published this Friday, the rebel leader affirms that he too is ready to start “frank discussions to seek a way out of the social and armed conflict” which has lasted for more than 50 years in the country.
With around 2,000 fighters, according to the Indepaz research center, the “Central Staff of the FARC-EP”, also known as the “South-Eastern Bloc”, is the most important dissident group of the FARC in Colombia.
It operates mainly in the Amazon rainforest and on the border with Venezuela, profiting from drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.
Other FARC splinter groups have also expressed their willingness to dialogue with the new government.
On Thursday, Mr. Petro also informed that negotiations with the Guevarist ELN, the last constituted guerrilla group still active in the country, would begin “in a few days”.