Colombia’s army killed 19 guerrillas of FARC dissident group EMC in a major operation in southern Colombia, according to the defense minister.
The military operation was carried out in Guaviare, a province on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday on social media platform X.
Sanchez said that another three guerrillas were arrested and that three minors were rescued.
Operation San Oriel leaves people of alias “Mordisco” neutralized in Calamar, Guaviare… This operation represents the fifth blow to Mordisco’s criminal command in the last eight months… With this blow, we are breaking the terrorist coordination capacity and preventing planned actions against the civilian population and our security forces.
Pedro Sanchez
The operation started on Monday after President Gustavo Petro ordered the “bombing and military dissolution” of EMC units on the border between the Eastern Plains and the jungle.
San Oriel is the deadliest operation carried out during the Petro administration, which has prioritized negotiations with illegal armed groups as part of its so-called “Total Peace” policy.
Mordisco is the commander of the oldest of at least four guerrilla organizations that were formed in opposition to a peace deal that was signed by the FARC and former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.
The EMC controls significant swathes of territory in the southeast of Colombia, where the group was founded, and in the southwest, where the guerrillas play a major role in the production and export of cocaine.
Peace talks between Mordisco’s group and the Petro administration fell apart in April of last year because of the EMC units’ alleged failure to uphold a ceasefire in the southwest of Colombia.
Since then, the military has been trying to weaken the guerrillas’ grip on coca-growing regions in the southwestern Cauca province and has been trying to take out Mordisco in jungle operations, so far without success.
The EMC commander has been a member of Colombia’s insurgencies for almost 30 years and is an expert in financing illegal armed groups through extortion and other organized crime activity.
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