The government agreed to leave the control of a major drug trafficking route in southwestern Colombia to guerrilla group EMC, according to newspaper El Espectador.
The agreement that was reportedly signed by government and guerrilla representatives would be against the law, legal experts told the newspaper.
In the provisional pact, the EMC’s Carlos Patiño unit allowed members of the military to enter El Plateado, a village in the Micay Valley, ahead of last month’s local elections.
In return, the government agreed to pull out soldiers from the village before midnight on October 31, according to El Espectador.
El Plateado lies in the heart of the Micay Valley, which is allegedly one of the FARC dissidents’ main drug trafficking routes in southwest Colombia.
The National Army’s decision to remain in the village triggered a suspension of peace talks between the government and the EMC, regional guerrilla commander “Sebastian Martinez” told Blu Radio last week.
The government’s Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda has failed to either confirm or deny the existence of the agreement despite requests.
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Conflict investigator Jorge Mantilla told El Espectador that the agreement would be against the law as the security forces can’t legally agree to grant an illegal armed group control over territory.
The message that is being sent is very complex. One of the protocols that were released on October 16… plus everything that has happened in that area shows that the dissidents are the ones in charge, the ones who decide who enters and who leaves. It is understood that there are areas where this happens all the time, but this is one thing and another thing to sign a document explicitly renouncing the control of territory.
Jorge Mantilla
Furthermore, the confirmation of the existence of the document implies that the guerrillas’ claim that the government has broken agreements is accurate.
The crisis caused by this led to the breakdown of talks that are supposed to lead to the dismantling of the EMC, which was founded by former FARC guerrillas in opposition to a peace process in 2016.
