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Colombia and FARC dissidents agree on ceasefire protocol

Colombia and FARC dissidents agree on ceasefire protocol
Photo: AP

February 9th |

The Colombian government announced on Wednesday that it had achieved a protocol that will make it possible to verify the ceasefire agreed with a faction of the dissidents of the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), which did not adhere to the peace agreement signed by the guerrillas and the state in 2016.

The protocol was an essential missing element in the bilateral ceasefire with the self-styled FARC-EP Central General Staff dissidents, which went into effect from January 1 until June 30, 2023, according to the Colombian government.

The government also agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with the Segunda Marquetalia – another faction of FARC dissidents -, the Autodefensas de la Sierra Nevada and the Clan del Golfo cartel, however, the protocols that will apply to these armed groups have not been disclosed.

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In a communiqué, the government detailed that the protocol with the FARC-EP Central General Staff “prohibits the transit or permanence” of the illegal armed group in the head towns of the municipalities, rural areas and primary roads to avoid “any affectation to the life and physical integrity of the civilian population”.

In the urban areas of several municipalities of the country, the presence of groups of armed men dressed in camouflaged suits has been registered in the last year, walking through the streets intimidating the population and without being immediately stopped by the public forces. The last of these happened a week ago in Yarumal, in the northwest of the country, where armed men entered a school and interacted with the children.

The ceasefire verification and monitoring mechanism will include delegates from the Ministry of Defense, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace and an international component, which was not detailed by the government. It will also be accompanied by members of civil society, the Catholic Church and other religious communities.

This mechanism, the government explained, will issue technical concepts and elaborate recommendations to prevent and address possible incidents or non-compliance.

“The Public Force will continue to exercise its national security and defense obligations,” the official communiqué stressed.

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The bilateral ceasefires are part of a strategy of President Gustavo Petro – the first leftist in the country and a guerrilla militant in his youth – to achieve “total peace”, which in practice consists of rapprochements and peace talks with multiple armed groups operating in the country and maintaining confrontations.

The state Ombudsman’s Office documented in a recent report that between January 1 and 20 several illegal groups carried out armed actions in the framework of the ceasefire, including harassment against police stations and the kidnapping of several soldiers, who were later released.

Petro said on Wednesday from Yarumal, at the end of a security council, that ceasefires in Colombia could not consist only in the suspension of hostilities between two armies, given that although statistics have shown in recent weeks a decrease in the number of wounded and dead, other crimes such as extortion, drug trafficking and smuggling may be on the rise.

For the president, the ceasefire must include an end to hostility against the civilian population so that there are no massacres, murders of human rights defenders, displacements, confinements or anti-personnel mines.

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On the candidacy of the governor of the state Zulia, Manuel Rosales, Machado avoided responding at the press conference and insisted on various occasions that his candidate and that of the PUD is still Corina Yoris, despite the fact that he could not register in the CNE system.

“At this moment, the country is processing a huge disappointment, people feel violated in all the effort (of the primaries) of October 22 and what I want to say is that our struggle continues, we are not going to leave an electoral route where Venezuelans can choose freely, for whoever they want, not for whoever the regime imposes,” he said.

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Putin asks the Prosecutor’s Office that the jihadist terrorists of the Moscow attack receive a “fair punishment”

Russian President Vladimir Putin today asked the Prosecutor’s Office to impose a “fair punishment” on the terrorists who perpetrated on Friday the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, in which 139 people were killed.

“I am confident that prosecutors within the framework of their powers, including when presenting state accusations during the judicial process, will do everything necessary for criminals to receive a fair punishment as required by Russian legislation,” Putin said when addressing members of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office.

Putin reminded those present that, “as a result of the bloody attack in the Moscow region,” “children, adolescents and women” died, among others.

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For his part, the Attorney General, Igor Krasnov, admitted that the attack committed in the Crocus City Hall “is a new challenge for the entire system of security services” and called on the prosecutors present to take “all measures to prevent the repetition of the tragedy.”

In addition, he also urged to activate the work to minimize the extremist and terrorist threat, and recalled the recent explosions of violence in the Muslim-majority republics of Dagestan and Bashkiria.

Putin suggested on Monday the existence of a black Ukrainian hand in the attack, despite the fact that the attack was immediately claimed by the Islamic State.

“And the Nazis, as is well known, have never had reservations about using the dirtiest and most inhumane means to achieve their objectives,” he said during a meeting with members of the Government and the security forces that was broadcast live on television.

Putin refused to accept the hypothesis presented by Western intelligence services that the attack is the work of the Islamic State of the Province of the Province of Khorasan (ISPK).

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The Basmanni Court of Moscow today decreed two-month preventive detention for an eighth suspect involved in the terrorist attack.

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Petro threatens to break relations with Israel if it does not comply with the UN resolution

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, threatened on Tuesday to break diplomatic relations with Israel if that country does not comply with the resolution to cease-fire in Gaza requested on Monday by the UN Security Council.

“If Israel does not comply with the United Nations resolution of a ceasefire, we will break diplomatic relations with Israel,” the president, a defender of the cause of Palestine, said in his account of X.

This message comes a day after the president called on the international community to break off relations with Israel if the truce that, for the first time, demanded by the UN Security Council for the Gaza war, in which more than 32,000 people have already died in almost six months, is not established.

“A ceasefire resolution in Gaza is finally coming out of the United Nations Council unanimously (sic)” – despite the abstention of the United States in the vote on the resolution -, Petro said on Monday.

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In fact, last February Petro announced that Colombia suspended “all purchases of weapons from Israel” in response to the attack it launched during the distribution of food and humanitarian aid in Gaza City, where more than a hundred people died and another 700 were injured.

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