International
Colombia government weakened by ‘truce’ mishap: analysts
January 6th | By AFP |
In announcing a “bilateral” ceasefire before it existed, Colombian President Gustavo Petro may have weakened his government in ongoing peace talks with armed groups, experts say.
Petro’s New Year’s Eve declaration was hailed by the United Nations and others as a step towards the “total peace” Colombia’s first-ever leftist president has vowed to bring to the country.
But the ELN guerrilla group poured cold water all over Petro’s declaration just three days later, denying the group had entered into any such deal, and the government conceded that nothing was signed.
Whether a calculated ploy to pile pressure on the ELN or mere miscommunication, Petro’s move was a “mistake” that harmed “the legitimacy of the peace negotiations,” conflict expert Laura Barrios of Rosario University told AFP.
“The biggest challenge here will be how the government will regain the trust of the ELN,” she said.
For analyst Felipe Botero of the University of The Andes in Bogota, the events “revealed inexperience and political clumsiness.”
It was a “setback for the government,” said Botero, but would not necessarily compromise the talks themselves.
‘Renewed hope’
On December 31, Petro announced that a ceasefire had been agreed with the country’s five largest armed groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN), from January 1 to June 30.
The government subsequently said the ceasefire would be monitored by the United Nations, Colombia’s human rights ombudsman and the Catholic Church.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the supposed deal brought “renewed hope for comprehensive peace to the Colombian people as the New Year dawns.”
But then on Tuesday, the ELN said it had “not discussed any bilateral ceasefire with the Gustavo Petro government, therefore no such agreement exists.”
The group added that “a unilateral government decree cannot be accepted as an agreement.”
This prompted the government to concede Tuesday that a proposed ceasefire decree had not been signed, and the following day to announce a suspension of a truce that never existed in the first place.
Petro, an active social media user, has been quiet in recent days.
‘More expensive’
Both the government and ELN have said the question of a ceasefire will be raised again in Mexico when talks resume later this month.
Negotiations between the government and the ELN, the country’s last recognized rebel group, have been underway since November.
A first round of peace talks since Petro came to power in August concluded in Caracas, Venezuela on December 12 without a truce being agreed.
The ELN has already accused Petro of acting just like former “traditional governments” with which previous attempts at peace negotiations had failed.
Political commentator Andres Mejia Vergnaud said a ceasefire agreement has just become “more expensive.”
“The government needs it a lot more, and the other side will get more in return,” he said.
Petro’s announcement had also included two dissident splinter factions of the disbanded FARC guerrilla group, the Gulf Clan narcotics outfit and the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada, a right-wing paramilitary group.
The ELN, which has an estimated 3,500 members, is the only group to have refuted the existence of a truce, though the others will be watching closely what happens next.
“We can imagine a scenario in which these actors say ‘look at what they’ve done with the ELN, we’d better take a break,’” in negotiations, said Barrios.
‘Lies’
Colombia’s right-wing opposition, still reeling from electoral defeat last year, has meanwhile jumped on Petro’s apparent misstep.
Petro’s “lies put Colombians in danger,” charged Senator Miguel Uribe of the Democratic Center party.
For his part, defeated conservative presidential candidate Federico “Fico” Gutierrez said Petro’s announcement of something that was “not true” was a blow for security in a country in the grip of decades of violence.
“The most serious aspect of this is that the government has manacled the security forces and the civilian population is defenseless,” tweeted Gutierrez. “This is delivering the country to criminal groups.”
For Leon Valencia, director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation think tank, the apparent blunder has given the opposition a “huge” opening for hammering the executive.
“The opposition can say with reason that ‘these people are very disorganized, they are not on the same page,’ and that harms the image of the government,” he said.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
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