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Researchers from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation visited, in the department of Cauca, one of the camps of the illegal groups that abandoned the peace process with the FARC.
The attack on Senator Feliciano Valencia had just happened and, the next day, we prepared to enter the same conflict zone: the Cauca mountains. A territory in which several illegal armed groups exercise control, one of the strongest made up of men and women who were part of the Farc’s 1st and 7th fronts. The dissidents of Gentil Duarte and Iván Mordisco who, according to the Ministry of Defense, call themselves the Western Coordinating Command, “the true resistance” of the Farc, a qualifier in which they emphasized throughout the interview to make clear their rejection of the Agreement achieved in Havana. (The X-ray of the dissidents, according to the JEP file revealed by El Espectador).
To get to them, you have to go around many times, go through many paths and make many stations, traveling along a route where you see more FARC graffiti on the walls than Army soldiers on the roads. At one point you have to go into the mountains. Ariel Ávila, deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, travels with me. We have been months after this interview and the closest we got was last October 9, the day we were in the mountains of the Valley when the Jamundí massacre was committed. And, as we were close to the sidewalk, that day we learned what fear was in the regions and what the new war in southwestern Colombia is like.
The group that receives us is mixed. There are more than 15 people and they all wear camouflage, but the bibs they carry on their arms have different names. Some say “Columna Móvil Dagoberto Ramos”, in others it reads “Columna Jaime Martínez”, the same names that appear painted on the walls of some towns in northern Cauca. The command that is going to attend us prefers not to give his name, he says that it is enough to announce that he is “commander of the Western Coordinating Command of the Farc-Ep.” The interview is given with his face uncovered, in front of a camera, and adds: “Those who have to know my name, well they already know it, we better leave it at that.”
It’s alias Jonnier, a man of short stature, thick body, dark, slow. His face and his way of speaking reveal the years he has been in the war, more than 30. The Peace Agreement has just been signed, thought centers such as the FIP and Peace and Reconciliation, as well as official sources such as the Prosecutor’s Office, the Army and the Ministry of Defense assigned to “the dissidents” a figure of between 1,100 and 1,450 people, but they have already grown. The commander refuses to say how many there are, “it is a military secret”, and adds that they increased by 50 or 60%. Today it has eight armed structures: columns Dagoberto Ramos, Jaime Martínez, Franco Benavides and Urías Rondón; fronts Rafael Aguilera, Carlos Patiño and Ismael Ruiz, and the Adán Izquierdo company.
The eight structures operate in the southwest of Colombia, but, according to the commander, they also have communication with the structures of the same origin in Catatumbo and others that operate in different departments. They seek “to return to being the same Farc as before. And there we are growing ”. In pursuing this as a goal, you can imagine them trying to contact the former commanders who, although they signed the Agreement, became dissidents and rearmed: Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich, el Paisa, Romaña, The Second Marquetalia. But no. There are no agreements, they have no dialogue and, on the contrary, the only thing that remained between them is an open armed confrontation.
“They came out and we thought they were coming to continue the fight that we are leading, but when we arrived Ivan Marquez, very arrogant, he wanted to continue being commander-in-chief and, in an authoritarian way, he took out the agenda and said: ‘Well, we are going to organize how the units are: some troops in command of the Oscar Paisa, others in command of Romagna, others in command of Aldinever, others in command of Walter Mendoza‘. Then Comrade Iván told him: ‘No, comrade, it is that you were not called to hand over the troops, here what we want is for you to explain what they did with the Farc, what happened to the combatants who were executed for not going to the process ‘. There was no possibility of dialogue and they said they were continuing to neighboring lands ”.
The commander assures that several combatants and some commanders, “as the Donkey Wílmer , from the 14th front ”, were“ executed ”, that is, assassinated, for not agreeing and“ not wanting to go to the peace process ”. Also name the case of the Mojoso and says that he died at the hands of “Teófilo Forero, in command of the Oscar Paisa”. Then he explains that they did not reach any consensus and that they asked La Segunda Marquetalia to go to other territories, because in the lands that they already are “there is no room for two Farc.” Apparently they already had armed confrontations over the territory, although in the area it is evident that the strongest group is commanded Ivan Bite Y Gentil Duarte.
It is not the only territorial dispute in Cauca. They are also at war with the ELN, the new expression of paramilitarism that signs as Agc, small groups like the Contadores or the Oliver Sinisterra front and, obviously, with the Army and the Police. How are these wars financed? The commander says that they are still subject to the regulations of the old FARC: “Tax on economies”, and the most buoyant economies are mining and drug trafficking. For every kilo of cocaine that leaves Cauca they charge “the drug trafficker” between $ 100,000, $ 250,000 and $ 300,000, depending on the territory. He also assures that they do not have crystallization sites and explains that a similar logic prevails over mining.
We did not see soldiers on the road, but they say that “the area is militarized” by the recent attack suffered by the senator, representative of the indigenous community, Feliciano Valencia. I look at the rest of the guerrillas, all young, and they look carefree. In the distance a couple of boys are seen standing guard. A little further on, at the edge of a nearby river, another pair is visible. And both in the commander and in the young people, you can see the tranquility and security of someone who knows himself as an authority in the territory, even if the Army is close. The peasants have had to get used to this, to obey those who in practice have the mandate in the region and not those who should have it in theory.
Ariel Ávila asks if they have killed ex-combatants who signed the Peace Agreement, and the commander answers yes, but only in a confrontational scenario. I ask what happens to the ex-combatants who are designated as “informants” of the Public Force, and the man answers that in those cases they are asked to leave the territory. Then he adds: “They want to blame us for everything, assassination of leaders, former combatants, massacres, but here there are many groups and there are strong confrontations.” Faced with the excess violence that plagues Cauca, he adds that it is due to the retaking of territories: “We are not negotiating with gangs, or they withdraw by persuasion or we are decimating them through the use of arms.”
Near us there is a young guerrilla, I guess underage. We ask about the recruitment of minors and the command responds that the FARC regulations allow incorporation from the age of 15. Regarding the recruitment of ex-combatants, he says that they have been invited, but that they are the ones who are looking for them. The topics to talk were many, the entire interview was recorded on video. But before we go, we ask, what happened to Senator Feliciano Valencia? “Apparently there was a checkpoint, the senator did not stop and some boys fired shots at them. It is necessary to verify well if it was our personnel or someone fishing in a troubled river ”.
When entering and leaving these territories of Cauca we did not see checkpoints, but we did identify their men scattered at different points on the route that we traveled. The control of the territory is undeniable, it is even the norm that from a certain point you have to go in vehicles with the windows down. Versions of an alleged alliance between Eln, Agc, La Segunda Marquetalia and even members of the Army are already circulating to “remove the dissidents from Gentil Duarte”Of the area. The versions come from the community, from close people and even from the guerrilla commander who received us. A source even told me, “if you believe that what you are seeing in Cauca is violence, it is because you have not seen anything yet.” According to this, it appears that only darker days await Cauca.
* Contributor to El Espectador. Journalist for the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. * Read here Ariel Ávila’s analysis after this trip and the most recent research by Fundación Pares.
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