Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has revived the possibility of negotiations with the AGC to demobilize the paramilitary organization.
During a visit of the northwestern Uraba region, the stomping ground of the AGC, Petro said that he would be willing to negotiate with the paramilitaries.
If they are willing to abandon the illegal businesses, with the migrants, with the extortion, with the drug trafficking, we talk.
President Gustavo Petro
The president added that “the one with the ball in their court is the Clan del Golfo,” the name given to the paramilitary organization by the authorities.
Within hours, AGC attorney Ricardo Giraldo published a statement by the AGC in which the paramilitaries said that they “accept the invitation made by the president.”
We are ready to go wherever indicated, through the people we have designated for this purpose some time ago. As the president himself points out, this is a very difficult and complex road, which we are willing to travel together with the communities.
AGC
The renewed interest comes a year after the government suspended a bilateral ceasefire with the group on claims the paramilitaries were behind violent miners’ protests in the Antioquia province.
Since then, attempts to include them in the government’s “Total Peace” policy, which seeks to demobilize multiple illegal armed groups, have remained frozen.
The AGC, was formed during a peace process that followed the demobilization of the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC in the first decade of this century.
Since then, the AGC has become Colombia’s largest illegal armed group with many thousands of members in arms.
The paramilitary organization and its organized crime associates have almost absolute control over drug trafficking activity on Colombia’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts.
