Recent attacks against Bogota, supposedly executed by former FARC soldiers, cast doubt on the success of Colombia’s demobilization program, the city’s mayor told Caracol Radio Monday.
Police have arrested a suspect for the car bomb that killed two and injured dozens more in Bogota on May 15, and two more for attempted attacks. All three men participated in Colombia’s reintegration program for former guerrillas and paramilitary members who have laid down their arms and pledged to permanently demobilize.
Gustavo Petro, Bogota’s mayor, questioned whether FARC was now employing supposedly demobilized members as plants.
“Do they still belong to the FARC?” Petro asked, after a meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos Monday. “Has FARC used them, and the reintegration process, to infiltrate the city?”
Petro said he would let police authorities answer those questions.
In a statement issued Monday, the Colombian Agency for Reintegration said that crimes committed by its program participants “stigmatize, segregate, and exclude…many demobilized soldiers who are genuinely seeking a second chance at civilian life.”
But “we must adhere to reintegration policies in order to achieve peace in this country,” the agency’s release concluded, “despite the criminal acts committed in the process.”
