The global suspension of USAID funding is shuttering peace and anti-gang programs in Colombia's most impoverished places, endangering the implementation of the country's 2016 peace deal with leftist FARC rebels. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/03/19/world/politics/usaid-colombia-farc-peace-deal/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #politics #usaid #colombia #farc #us
Death of Andrés Patiño, Commander of the FARC-EP: Colombia
Óscar Eduardo Sandoval, known as El Mocho or Andrés Patiño, has died. He was one of the most senior commanders of the Colombian FARC-EP and also one of the most wanted. The death of Andrés Patiño was confirmed on Monday, January 27 by the Colombian authorities and the FARC-EP.>He commanded the FARC-EP in southwestern Colombia. Commander Andrés Patiño, along with Paisa Marrano, and two other members of the FARC-EP died in an accident with a car loaded with explosives in the province of Cauca on their way to an operation in the region.
Total Peace is More Military Than Political — ELN
Public statement from the central command of the National Liberation Army – ELN, on the events in Catatumbo and the falsehoods of the intelligence services and the large media.
The National Government and the Communication Companies that are functional to the political regime have installed a matrix of opinion to demonize the ELN, because it questions its mistaken peace policies that do nothing but recycle violence, with the creation of new paramilitary groups made up of demobilized people and the oxygenation of the old ones like the Clan del Golfo.
All these expressions of paramilitarism are the most active actors in the State’s counterinsurgency plan, within the Doctrine of proxy wars, which are financed by drug trafficking.
For 33 years, the ELN has maintained continuous dialogues with the respective governments. With some, more progress has been made than with others, but there has been a lack of continuity on their part, as there is no true State peace policy that goes beyond their belief or doctrine, limited to achieving the demobilization and disarmament of the guerrillas, while maintaining the social, political and economic structures that reproduce injustice, exclusion and political persecution, which is ultimately the original cause of the armed conflict and continues to reproduce it.
We have been clear when we point out that peace means changes that benefit all Colombians, and that society as a whole must participate in the formulation of said changes. There we will be able to appreciate that what we point out, as the aspiration of the majority of the country, is also the aspiration of the ELN.
For the above, the ELN will never accept submission or surrender as a peace policy.
“Total Peace” has been a Petro policy that has allowed paramilitary gangs and groups a certain “political status” to carry out coordinated actions with the State and its Armed Forces within its counterinsurgency plan, which seeks among its fundamental objectives to surrender and subdue the ELN.
This plan has been carried out in Cauca, Arauca, Chocó and has been developing in a latent manner in Catatumbo. The basis for the configuration of these new expressions of paramilitarism has been the demobilized members of the Ex-FARC activated and supported by the Military Forces.
In Catatumbo, a plan against the ELN was being configured with the purpose of annihilating the Northeastern War Front, in an alliance between the Colombian State and the Ex-FARC Gangs, in addition to destabilizing the border by carrying out false flag operations.
For this reason, when they carried out the murder of Miguel Ángel, his wife and his small son, to blame it on the ELN, the alarms went off and the National Directorate and the ELN General Staff gave the order to begin military operations against the self-proclaimed “Front 33” of the Ex-Farc.
At no time have actions been carried out against the civilian population or for simply being signatories of the peace, but rather for being armed and active under a military command in plans against the ELN and the communities of Catatumbo.
So far no commander or combatant has moved from Arauca to Catatumbo, it has not been necessary, but when there have been other types of threats, the ELN troops are of a national character and the Central Command has the mandate and authority to do so. In this, military intelligence is lying to the country, because they know it very well, there is bad intention to distort reality and thus take advantage.
The actions of the Military Forces in all these regions where they confront old and new paramilitarism are based on permanent cooperation and coordination, and they follow the counterinsurgency plan. What is new is that now they do it openly and when they are fought by us they protect them, and it also seems that this is the nation they claim to protect.
ELN
Kämpfe im Norden Kolumbiens treiben Tausende Menschen in die Flucht
Kämpfe in Kolumbien haben tausende Menschen vertrieben. Viele sind ins benachbarte Venezuela geflohen. Die kolumbianische Regierung wirft der Rebellengruppe ELN Kriegsverbrechen vor und hat Gespräche mit ihr abgebrochen.
Viele Tote durch Kämpfe zwischen kolumbianischen Rebellengruppen
Durch Kämpfe zwischen rivalisierenden Rebellengruppen sind in Kolumbien mehr als 60 Menschen ums Leben gekommen. Die Regierung hat die Friedensverhandlungen mit der an der Gewalt beteiligten ELN-Guerilla abgebrochen.
Colombia: Six FARC members Captured by the Army
On December 26th, the Colombian army announced that it had captured six FARC members, including “Arley”, one of the FARC’s leaders. The guerrillas were part of the FARC’s Segunda Marquetalia (one of the groups that refused to lay down its arms in 2016). One of its members died during the operation in the municipality of Acevedo, department of Huila.
Approximately one year ago FARC’s Segunda Marquetalia and the ELN took steps towards creating a united front announcing joint coordination in the southwest of the country, in the province of Narino that has long been a revolutionary stronghold.
Demand for FARC Political Prisoner Simón Trinidad’s Release Grows
A few weeks ago, media reports revealed that requests have been made of President Biden to pardon Simón Trinidad, a former Colombian guerrilla fighter who was sentenced to 60 years in prison in the United States after being captured in Ecuador in 2004 when he was on his way to meet with a United Nations delegate.
According to the Colombian Executive, Trinidad’s release would contribute to building a reconciled Colombia after decades of civil war. It was even known that the Colombian ambassador in Washington, Daniel García, sent a note to the US government requesting the pardon. For Rodrigo Londoño, former guerrilla and current leader of the Comunes Party, Trinidad’s repatriation could help the reparation of the victims of the armed conflict.
This is because, they argue, Trinidad has not been interrogated by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), an institution created from the Havana Agreements in 2016 for the clarification of the responsibilities of guerrillas, public forces and third parties who participated in the armed conflict. In this regard, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Rojas, stated that Trinidad’s release is a humanitarian matter, inasmuch as the group to which he belonged already signed peace with the Colombian State. During the dialogue process between the FARC and the government of Juan Manuel Santos that led to the Havana Agreements, Trinidad’s release was a central issue.
According to Christian Arias, member of the International Relations Office of the Political and Social Coordination of Marcha Patriótica, “What the Colombian government is presenting to the United States is the request for clemency and pardon that President Biden can offer to favor the peace process, to favor the process of [clarification] of the truth about the facts of the [armed] conflict in Colombia.”
In this sense, Arias believes that Trinidad’s release “would undoubtedly help the peace process in Colombia. On the one hand, it would demonstrate that the Colombian State is capable of complying with the agreements and transmit a sign of confidence to the guerrilla organizations and other armed groups with which Petro’s government is dialoguing and negotiating at the same time…[It is] the guarantee for the government to advance in what it has called ‘Total Peace Policy’, a public policy of solution to these conflicts (a very ambitious policy), is the total compliance with the 2016 Peace Agreement.”
In addition, upon his return to Colombia, Arias continues, Trinidad will have to testify before the special peace tribunals, and explain what his participation in the events of the armed conflict truly was; in this way, Arias says, true reparations could be given to the victims of the armed conflict.
Who is Simón Trinidad?
Simón Trinidad is the alias of Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda, a Colombian born in Valledupar, Department of Cesar, in 1950. From a wealthy family, Palmera studied economics in Bogota and, legend has it, completed a postgraduate degree at Harvard University.
He then worked for the government of the Department of Cesar as a financial advisor to the public institution called Caja Agraria while supervising work on his family’s farms. Shortly thereafter he dedicated himself to university teaching at the Universidad Popular del Cesar, where he taught Economic History of Colombia. While working there he was arrested in 1979 for five days, accused of being a guerrilla fighter and then quickly released.
In 1981, Palmera, together with Jaime Sierra, Tomás Agudelo and Federico Palacios, founded a Marxist-Lenin political group called “Los Independientes”, which in 1985 supported the Patriotic Union (UP), a leftist Colombian political movement that sought to transform Colombian society through electoral means. According to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, 5,195 of the UP’s militants and leaders were assassinated, constituting one of the most infamous political massacres in history.
At this time, Palmera, who was a militant of the UP, decided to abandon the legal path and join the ranks of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1985. When there, he rose politically in a meteoric fashion after several military operations in less than ten years, and was then one of the main people responsible for the propaganda of the insurgent group. It was then that he assumed his nickname, Simón Trinidad, in honor of Simón Bolívar.
In 2000, he was the FARC spokesman in the peace talks of San Vicente del Caguán that this group held with the Colombian government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002); it is then that his figure acquired national and international media relevance. In 2004, he was captured in Quito, Ecuador, by the local police.
In November 2004, the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice approved his extradition, although the then president himself, Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), had to personally approve the extradition. As expected, the then Colombian President authorized his deportation on December 17 of the same year, although he stated that he could cancel the extradition if the FARC would release the prisoners under its control. The insurgent group rejected the proposal and Trinidad, who said he would use the opportunity to protest against the Uribe government, was deported on December 31, 2004.
What crimes is he accused of?
Trinidad faced two judicial processes in the United States. In the first, he was accused of participating in the kidnapping of three US citizens in Colombia, who were held for almost five years until their release in 2008 as part of Operation Jaque. The trial lasted four weeks and he was found guilty. The judge in charge of the case sentenced him to 60 years in prison. In the second trial, he was accused of being involved in drug trafficking activities, but the trial was unsuccessful because, according to Arias, Trinidad was able to demonstrate that the prosecutor’s arguments were not true.
Arias adds that Trinidad could not have been involved in the kidnapping of the three US citizens (who, according to Arias, “were three retired military officers who provided intelligence services through private companies”), because he was hundreds of kilometers away from the event and did not belong to the FARC front that carried out the kidnapping.
Trinidad is currently being held in the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado (also known as the “Alcatraz of the Rocky Mountains”), in a small cell with the lights always on, without access to reading or the ability to write. In a 2019 video, Trinidad explains that his stay in prison takes place in isolation that has lasted several years: “I am chained…I have chains on my feet, a belt on my leg with a battery of thousands of volts that, in the judgment of the jailers, can trigger the mechanism and produce a strong electrical charge in me. I have been in total isolation for more than five years, unable to converse with anyone because I do not speak the language. I have not even been allowed to study [English].”
In this regard, Arias comments that Trinidad is being detained “in inhumanly special conditions. He is in almost total isolation, [in a cell] underground and with a limited amount of sunlight per day. He has a restricted visiting regime, with the possibility of receiving correspondence only through his lawyers in the United States. In other words, he has permanent control over the relationships he can have with other people; not just anyone can visit him.”
So far there have been no favorable signs that the US government wants to release Trinidad, despite the efforts of the Colombian government for several years. According to Christian Arias, the refusal to release him has to do with “a way for the United States to teach a lesson to rebel and revolutionary groups…Many times, the national security advisors themselves have stated that they are not aware of the issue or that they do not see a release as possible.”
Nevertheless, the campaign for his release continues as a fundamental piece for a complete peace in Colombia. This is recognized by several political sectors in Colombia that aim to strengthen the 2016 peace accords, such as the American Coordinating Committee for the Rights of Peoples and Victims of Political Imprisonment, which has requested that the Biden administration grant Trinidad a pardon before the end of his term on January 20, 2025. An open letter signed by more than 300 individuals and human rights organizations asks that “the pertinent and necessary legal measures be taken to repatriate Ricardo Palmera to Colombia, as soon as possible, so that he can participate in the development of the Total Peace Plan. That until Palmera is repatriated to Colombia, he be allowed to participate in virtual sessions with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).”
Armed groups and gangs are making it harder for scientists to study wildlife in Columbia, where a wealth of new species have been discovered since a 2016 peace deal. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2024/10/28/wildlife/colombia-peace-wildlife-violence/ #environment #wildlife #colombia #wildlife #farc #deforestation #animals
@OccuWorld If I recall correctly the political wing of #FARC sold out the armed wing and after the government was finished killing armed wing members FARC politicians became the target.
#España da marcha atrás y extraditará a #EEUU el exjefe de Inteligencia venezolano
Hugo #Carvajal, aliado del presidente de #Venezuela Hugo #Chávez, está acusado por #EEUU de colaborar con las #FARC para introducir cocaína en el país norteamericano.
Más información https://t.me/elOJOen/13971
US banana giant ordered to pay $38m to families of Colombian men killed by death squads https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/11/chiquita-banana-deaths-lawsuit-colombia #Humanrights #Colombia #Americas #Business #Law(US) #Florida #USnews #Farc
US banana giant ordered to pay $38m to families of Colombian men killed by death squads https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/11/chiquita-banana-deaths-lawsuit-colombia #Humanrights #Colombia #Americas #Business #Law(US) #Florida #USnews #Farc
As I said in one of the last interviews with me, a true peace process is reflected in the cessation of political persecution. And if the Government does not show the will to release or at least listen to the political prisoners, how can we be confident that we are going through a real transition to peace?
Antonio Garcia ELN
Over the past week, a Colombian army operation reportedly left eight FARC dissidents in the Cauca region dead and 17 wounded. The fighting took place in the Canyon del Micay, a landlocked mountain territory in the department of Cauca and one of the strongholds of the Central General Staff, the main FARC dissident group rejecting the 2016 peace deal. On 17 March, the government announced the suspension of the truce with the group in three departments of the country, after several incidents involving the EMC. Over the weekend, the army announced the launch of a major offensive, dubbed “Operation Mantus”, involving the deployment of 32,000 troops to the three neighbouring departments affected by the end of the truce, all three along the Pacific coast.
Source: Secours Rouge
Disidencias de FARC atacan al pueblo indígena Nasa en Colombia, provocando la muerte de la lideresa Carmelina Yule Paví 
https://avispa.org/?p=113565 
On Sunday the Colombian government suspended, in three departments, the bilateral ceasefire with the Central General Staff (CGS), the main dissident organization of the FARC, accusing them of an attack on Satuday.
Ivan Velasquez, the Minister of Defense ordered by decree that he would “suspend the Bilateral and Temporary National Ceasefire with Territorial Impact (CFBTNT) between the National Government and the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP in the departments of Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca.”
The decree ruled “the resumption of offensive military operations and police operations from 00:00 on March 20, 2024 against the structures of the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP present in the Departments of Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca.”
Since last year, the Government and the EMC have been conducting a peace negotiation, the result of which on 17 October they initiated a bilateral and temporary ceasefire, which was extended for six months in January until 15 July.
Saturday’s attack was allegedly perpetrated by the insurgent column Dagoberto Ramos in the village of La Bodega, in Toribío (Cauca).
The Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, described what happened as a violation of the bilateral ceasefire, while the guerrillas have yet to issue a public statement.
Colombia is currently undergoing a historic process in which the government is attempting to negotiate with all active guerrilla groups simultaneously for the first time. The mega-project of the country’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, is reliving the limelight of the political-military struggle in the Latin American country, one of the oldest armed conflicts in the world. Who are the guerrillas still active in Colombia?
The National Liberation Army (ELN) was founded in 1964. The ELN initially sought to emulate the tactics of the Cuban Revolution. However, in 1989, it abandoned this approach in favor of adopting the “Poder Popular” (People’s Power) as its political program with the “aim of destroying the oligarchy while building self-government for the masses.”
The ELN defines itself as a political-military organization with Leninist principles but refrains from aligning with any political party. It boasts an estimated 6000 fighters, making it the largest Colombian guerrilla organization, characterized by a horizontal organizational structure.
The FARC-EP Segunda Marquetalia (SM) is faction that split from the main FARC organization. Once Colombia’s most significant guerrilla group, the FARC-EP laid down its weapons in 2016 as part of a peace treaty that has since faltered. In 2019, a faction of high ranking ex-FARC commanders led by the iconic Ivan Marquez resumed armed struggle under the banner of Segunda Marquetalia.
SM professes allegiance to the Marxist and Bolivarian principles of the “old” FARC but claims to purse a defensive military strategy. It encompasses guerrilla units, popular militias, a clandestine communist party, and civilian mass organizations.
FARC-EP Central Staff (EMC) is another faction that emerged during the peace process. EMC aimed to consolidate scattered “dissidents” under one federation. EMC wields significant military power with over 3500 active fighters spread across 173 communities in 22 provinces.
The EMC has less political clout than the Segunda Marquetalia and does not have a communist party but is militarily more powerful. It also draws on the legacy of the “old” FARC but differs significantly from its organizational model.
The Popular Liberation Army (EPL) is Colombia’s smallest active guerrilla group. The EPL traces its roots to the armed wing of the Maoist split of the Colombian Communist Party established in 1967. In 1991, a substantial portion of the EPL demobilized following a peace agreement, while a splinter faction retained its arms.
Facing internal turmoil, the EPL grappled with two competing command structures: one focused on drug trafficking, and the other committed to political-military struggle. In 2020, the political faction emerged victorious, eliminating its rival leadership, proclaiming in a communqiue that communists “retook control.” The EPL is the only guerrilla refusing negotiations with the state.
source: the Red Stream
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/13/who-are-the-colombian-guerrillas/
