The commander of Colombia’s largest FARC dissident group EMC claimed that his guerrillas supported President Gustavo Petro’s election campaign in 2022.
In a post on social media platform X, EMC chief “Ivan Mordisco” responded to an derogatory remark by the president, who accused the EMC of being gangsters.
Petro accuses me of being a gangster… When we supported him during the campaign we weren’t gangsters. On top of betraying us, he betrayed the people who supported him for his progressive and peace discourse.
Ivan Mordisco
In response, Petro called on the security forces to “get Ivan Mordisco alive” in order to “go to prison to talk.”
The exchange is part of an escalation of tensions between the the president and the EMC over alleged guerrilla violations of a bilateral ceasefire.
Days before Mordisco’s social media post, Petro ordered the military to suspend a bilateral ceasefire with the guerrillas in southwest Colombia.
The ceasefire had been in place since January of 2022 in support of peace talks between the government and the group formed by dissident members of the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC.
Following multiple setbacks, formal peace talks in which the government seeks the EMC’s demobilization began in July of 2023.
The guerrillas who refused to lay down arms with the rest of the FARC have yet to agree to an eventual demobilization and disarmament of the group.
Since its formation, the EMC has occupied many territories that used to be considered FARC territories in Colombia’s countryside.
