The leaders of Colombia’s largest paramilitary organization asked President Gustavo Petro to suspend the warrants for their arrest in order to negotiate peace.
In an open letter to the president, the top commanders of the EGC, formerly AGC, said that the suspension of arrest warrants and extradition requests was necessary to negotiate with the government.
The letter came weeks after the EGC’s defense attorney, Ricardo Giraldo, asked Petro to secure the suspension of the paramilitary commanders’ arrest warrants and extradition requests.
According to the paramilitaries’ lawyer, negotiations between the EGC and the government were “completely impossible” without these suspensions.
Both the paramilitaries and the president have expressed their interest in negotiations that would allow the demobilization and disarmament of the EGC since Petro took office in August of 2022.
Attempts to formalize negotiations failed in March of last year, however, over the EGC’s alleged involvement in violent miner protests in the northwestern Antioquia protest.
The paramilitaries’ latest request is a response to a renewed invitation to talk extended by the president in March.
Petro proposes negotiations with Colombia’s paramilitaries
Since then, no visible progress has been made that would allow talks between the government and the armed group that has an estimated 9,000 armed members.
The AGC controls much of Colombia’s Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, and is allegedly one of the country’s main drug trafficking organizations.
The EGC was formed in 2006 by dissident former members of the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC, and has assumed territorial control along much of Colombia’s Caribbean and Pacific coastlines.
According to the government, the paramilitary organization is one of Colombia’s largest organized crime groups with major interests in the drug trade and illegal mining.
The paramilitaries claim to act on behalf of the people living in the coastal regions that have historically been neglected by the State.