Colombia’s peace commissioner asked the prosecution to suspend the arrest warrants of the commander and 28 members of paramilitary organization EGC to facilitate the group’s eventual demobilization and disarmament.
The lifting of the arrest warrants would allow EGC commander Jobanis Avila, a.k.a. “Chiquito Malo,” and his subordinates to travel to two demobilization sites in northwestern Colombia on June 25.
The government has been preparing the EGC demobilization sites, or “Temporary Location Zones” (ZUT), since December as part of efforts to demobilize and disarm the country’s largest illegal armed group.
These sites will be set up in the rural parts of Belen de Bajira, Unguia and Tierralta, three municipalities in and around the Uraba region where the EGC and its predecessor, paramilitary organization AUC, were founded.
The government hopes that the ZUT’s will eventually facilitate the demobilization and disarmament of the EGC’s estimated 9,000 members, including more than 3,000 fighters.
The ZUT’s will additionally allow authorities to identify EGC members and facilitate their eventual prosecution as member of an illegal armed group.
EGC members who participate in the demobilization process will be shielded from US extradition requests, which considers the group a “narcoterrorist” organization.
The EGC plays a major role in Colombia’s cocaine trade and illegal mining sector, and has been linked to numerous assassinations.
The AUC successor group is also believed to have captured parts of the State through the corruption of local government officials, prosecutors and members of the security forces.
The EGC has long claimed that its existence is due to failures in the process to demobilize the AUC between 2003 and 2006, and can count on significant social support in regions where they effectively control public life.
EGC negotiators have been talking to government representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar, for months and have said they want to demobilize since President Gustavo Petro took office in August of 2022.
