Colombia’s defense minister said Tuesday that the military will resume operations against guerrilla group EMC.
Instead, the government agreed to a regional ceasefire that is limited to areas where dissident EMC units that have agreed to peace talks operate, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez said at a press conference.
The decision will likely most affect communities in the southeast and east of Colombia, where the ceasefire that came into force in October last year has come to an end.
Fighting in the southwest resumed in February already after President Gustavo Petro ordered a suspension of the ceasefire in that part of the country.
The units that have split from EMC commander “Ivan Mordisco” and will continue peace talks are mainly active in northern and central Colombia.
In order to prevent fighting with these units, the government plans to negotiate geographic limits to the EMC dissidents’ territorial claims, said Velasquez.
The government will also renegotiate the terms of the ceasefire with the EMC dissidents in order to prevent and respond to alleged violations, according to the defense minister.
Dissident EMC units have been accused of threatening demobilized members of the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC and attacking army units over the past few months.
Despite these accusations, the government last week said that it would resume peace talks with the guerrilla dissidents.
Colombia resumes peace talks with dissident EMC faction
Mordisco and other mid-level FARC commanders formed the EMC in 2016 in opposition to a peace process with the FARC.
Since then, the group has tried to recover territories that were abandoned by the FARC as part of this peace process.
The group is estimated to have more than 3,300 members and assumed some level of control in more than 10% of Colombia’s municipalities.
This is considerably less than the FARC, which effectively controlled one third of Colombia when its main leaders agreed to demobilize and disarm.