Colombian Government and Medellin Gangs to Begin Disarmament Talks for Total Peace

The Colombian government and gangs in the city of Medellin, one of the country’s crime hotspots, will open peace talks next week to disarm thousands of members of these groups.

“Today we want to announce the public commitment that armed structures have made to take a step towards ‘total peace'”the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, told the press on Friday April 28, on a visit to a town near Medellin, claiming to have observed “through various channels, the will of certain armed groups in Medellin and its region” to move forward in this direction. “For eight months, we have endeavored to corroborate this desire”he underlined, referring to a “new step towards a phase of dialogue”.

As part of an ambitious plan to “total peace” for Colombia, the left-wing president Gustavo Petro, elected in the summer of 2022, has been trying for several months to negotiate with the guerrillas and other armed groups active in the country’s provinces, often linked to drug trafficking: Guevarist ELN, dissidents of former FARC who reject the peace agreement signed in 2016 with this Marxist guerrilla, paramilitary groups, but also criminal groups such as the Clan del Golfo.

In a letter made public on Friday, and relayed by the Commissioner for Peace, the leaders of criminal groups in Medellin and its region expressed their support for “the objective of the national government (…) to build total peace”. They said “the suspension of all hostilities, confrontations or disputes”according to this document signed “Illegal Armed Structures of Medellin and the Abura Valley”.

Gang leaders jailed overseas

Mr. Rueda on Friday visited a prison in Itagui, near Medellin, where several leaders of these dangerous criminal gangs, most involved in drug trafficking and large-scale extortion, are imprisoned. These mafias, like the fearsome Oficina de Envigado, are the heirs of the famous drug baron Pablo Escobar, killed by the police in 1993 in his stronghold of Medellin.

Mr. Rueda did not specify the exact date of the start of the negotiations or the groups concerned. He did not rule out the possibility of talking to gang leaders imprisoned outside Colombia. If he “is necessary to speak in prisons abroad, this will be done according to the appropriate diplomatic procedures and with the countries to which it is appropriate to address”he added.