Peace talk between Colombia’s government and multiple illegal armed groups entered a crisis after prosecutors arrested a guerrilla commander after suspending a warrant for his arrest.
Guerrilla leader Geovany Andres Rojas, a.k.a. “Araña,” was arrested in the capital Bogota ahead of a press conference on progress in negotiations between “Comandos de la Frontera” and the government.
Araña, whose group controls much of the southern border with Ecuador, has been negotiating a possible peace deal with government for over a year.
Colombia’s Prosecutor General Luz Adriana Camargo suspended the warrant for his arrest in April last year to facilitate the talks.
In a message on social media platform X, the prosecution confirmed having suspended the arrest warrant, but said the suspension doesn’t “cover Interpol Red Notices” like the on the guerrilla leader.
The prosecution suggested that the United States Government, which issued the international arrest warrant in 2017, had updated the notice with an accusation about “a recent shipment of cocaine to the United States.”
The red notice was not available on the Interpol website, which is unusual.
The arrest was a “mortal blow” to talks with Araña’s group, said the “Comuneros del Sur,” a guerrilla group from southwest Colombia that is engaged in similar talks.
The ELN dissident group warned that “if there is no judicial security for the peace processes, we will continue in the same way.”
A peace process with the FARC, a predecessor of the Comandos de la Frontera, partially failed after the prosecution arrested a demobilized former guerrilla commander accused of fabricated American drug trafficking charges.
One of Araña’s former superiors, “Ivan Marquez,” was the main negotiator of the FARC peace deal, which was signed in 2016.
Otty Patiño, the government’s peace process coordinator, told the prosecutors were “cheating” the peace process with Araña and his group.
Other illegal armed groups that have been negotiating peace with the government did not immediately respond to the controversial arrest.
