President Gustavo Petro authorized a “socio-judicial conversation” with the EGC, Colombia’s largest paramilitary organization.
According to a presidential decree, this conversation seeks to convince the EGC’s top commanders of the need to demobilize their forces and submit to justice.
In order to facilitate the talks, Petro asked Peace Commissioner Otty Patiño to seek a suspension of the arrest warrants of the EGC’s commander, “Chiquito Malo,” and five of his lieutenants.
The EGC’s defense attorney, Ricardo Giraldo, said that his clients reject any submission to justice because of the failure of similar processes in the past.
In fact, some of the EGC’s top leaders have taken part in multiple demobilization processes.
Instead, the paramilitaries want to negotiate a transitional justice system similar to the one agreed with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC during peace talks that were held between 2012 and 2016.
They have been very clear about that. In fact, the supreme commander of the Gaitanista Army said it loudly about 15 days ago, that they want transitional justice, because submission is not going to guarantee that there will be pacification of the territories, because they come from several processes of submission that have completely failed. So, this is not going to be the real solution for peace in Colombia and the resolution is clear.
Ricardo Giraldo
The EGC, or Gaitanista Army of Colombia, was formed by rearming members of the AUC in response to major failures to effectively demobilize the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC between 2002 and 2006.
The AUC dissidents have since formed a new armed group that is estimated to have between 5,000 and 9,000 armed members and thousands of unarmed associates.
The government has insisted that the EGC is a drug trafficking organizations, but the paramilitaries have stressed that they play a major role in politics and the communities where they are active.