Silvia Corredor RodriguezEditor Colombia +20
The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace is advancing in the rapprochement phase with Los Mexicanos, RPS and Locos Yam, three criminal gangs from Quibdó. The participation of the communities or socio-legal talks for peace have not yet been agreed upon.
The expansion of the AGC and the ELN puts 129,237 inhabitants in Quibdó at risk. Photo: Jose Vargas Esguerra; The… – Jose Vargas EsguerraListen to this article0:00 / 10:301XBeyondWords
On December 16, 2022, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (OACP) issued a statement on the progress of peace in Quibdó, following messages of unilateral ceasefire in neighborhoods of the city by armed groups.
“To the RPS Armed Forces – Cartel Norte [conocidas en Quibdó como RPS] and to the Mexican Revolutionary Forces [conocidas como Los Mexicanos] We reiterate that, through the mediation of the Church or its own spokespersons, the government of President Gustavo Petro is willing, through this Office of Paz, to start a rapprochement process. We are ready for a direct encounter”. dead and five wounded leave attacks in Gaza | The viewer
Two months later, the OACP confirmed that on February 9 and 10 they met with representatives of Los Mexicanos, RPS, and Locos Yam (another of the armed groups that operates in the city, together with the Catholic Church and the MAPP-OEA). The United Nations Verification Mission and the Ombudsman’s Office have also accompanied the process.
“The groups have stated that they remain in their intention of urban peace and progress has been made in generating protective community environments, not only for the participants in the process but also for the communities,” explained Luis Enrique Murillo, regional ombudsman. collidedin an interview with Colombia +20.
Murillo also highlighted the positive effects that this phase of rapprochement has generated in Quibdó. “There is a commitment to stop killing, injuring, kidnapping and it is measurable. In this quarter, the issue of homicides in Quibdócompared to the same period last year.
According to figures from the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, in the first quarter of 2022 there were 99 homicides in Quibdó, but this year 57 cases have been registered; that is, a 42% decrease was generated.
Although the ethno-territorial organizations and the church of the collided They look favorably on these approaches, alerting them to the reality that young people are experiencing.
“In Quibdó people died when they were old, today they die when they are young because they are killing each other. Men and women are being killed, tied up and thrown into the river. The Atrato, instead of generating life, is a cemetery. They involved us in a war that did not belong to us, what we are experiencing came from outside,” said Quibdo’s leaders consulted.
The Single Registry of Victims shows that homicide is the victimizing event that most affects the population of Quibdówith 55,145 victims until March 31, 2023.
Young people have been involved in the urban dynamics of the conflict due to the lack of opportunities and job offers. This is how Elideisa Córdoba Rubiano, a young leader of the department, explained it: “We have a lot of unemployment and violation of rights, we feel stagnant and frustrated. Many end up in illegal armed groups because they don’t have a job or study.”
According to DANE records, in March 2023 Quibdó topped the list of cities and metropolitan areas with the highest unemployment rate, with 29.7%.
The call made by the Community Action Boards of the neighborhoods of Quibdó It is that companies are set up, public services and access to rights such as education and health are guaranteed to curb violence.
How do criminal gangs operate in Quibdó?
In the capital of collided Five groups operate: Los Zetas, Los Mexicanos, RPS, Locos Yam and Nuevo Renacer. These have been created in response to the dynamics of territorial expansion of the Clan del Golfo (or AGC) and the ELN in the urban area of Quibdó.
Some of these gangs are related to these armed groups, through “outsourcing,” as explained by the regional ombudsman of the collided. This situation has been alerted since December 5, 2019, when the Ombudsman’s Office issued early warning No. 049-19 on the risk situation to which the population of Quibdó By this situation. The Ombudsman estimates that 129,237 inhabitants of the capital are at risk.
This alert is still in force because since the pandemic confrontation and territorial control have increased. “People live with anxiety. If there is confinement in the countryside, here in Quibdó there is something more complicated: you experience blackmail, they tell you “silver or lead”. A lot of people are leaving QuibdóAround 300 businesses have been closed,” explained the ethnic-territorial organizations and the Chocó church.
“The Mexicans are the largest structure in Quibdó, with about 300 young people who were in charge of extortion and hit men. However, now they maintain that they are firm in the intention of peace and have stopped criminal activities”, highlighted the Ombudsman.
According to early warning, since 2019 there have been records of the control of AGC in the six communes of Quibdó, mainly in the northern zone. Some of its inhabitants told this newsroom that the invisible borders and the poverty experienced in the neighborhoods of the northern zone contribute to the cooptation of young people for the war.
The struggle of the Community Action Boards so that this is not the case has meant threats and attacks on the leaders who raise their voices to confront the violence. Four years ago, on May 3, 2019, a social leader from the La Victoria neighborhood of commune one received a death threat. “You are meddling a lot in matters that do not matter to you, be very careful”said part of the threat, as documented by the Ombudsman.
The leader had already been the victim of an attack in 2017 for his social work in the neighborhood and since then he has had a security plan. Colombia +20 visited it to find out how much the panorama has changed since then. “Now he is calm; Here everyone respects everyone. But there are problems and the conflict continues, armed people pass by, they fire shots, but they don’t hit the people in the neighborhood. They have control over the entire northern zone,” he explained. This sector of Quibdó It has been made up of displaced population from the department and other parts of the country, especially indigenous people and Afro-descendants. For example, in the Obreros Part Alta neighborhood of Quibdó is the Villanueva indigenous settlement of the Wounaan people, which has been in the territory since 2008 and is now inhabited by 115 people. Although they state that they have been able to mobilize outside the neighborhood for a year, they commented that there were times when mobility was very difficult due to the criminal situation and the confrontation between illegal armed groups.
In the case of the ELN, the Ombudsman documented the repositioning of the fronts Manuel Hernández El Boche and Cimarrón Resistance of this guerrilla, after the departure of the FARC with the signing of the Peace Agreement. Although in 2019 the presence of the ELN was not as significant in the urban area of Quibdó, the Ombudsman does point to its progressive expansion.
“Regarding the dynamics of the ELN in the urban area of Quibdó, it is appropriate to point out that said guerrilla has a comparatively smaller presence than that of the AGC there. Their actions in the neighborhoods and communes of the city are expressed in the clandestine presence of militiamen dedicated to intelligence activities”, reads the early warning.
In the midst of the armed confrontation, the youth of Quibdó have been forced to join a group to preserve their lives. The New Image in Union Association of Displaced Youth (Ajodeniu), which has been working for this population in Quibdó for more than 20 years, explained to this newsroom the pressure that children and young people in the capital live under.
“Violence in Quibdó is getting worse and it is the young people who are at risk. They make them choose: you are from here or from there. Many times the boys stand in the line and say no, but they are killed”.
This situation has also generated displacements between neighborhoods or outside Quibdó. “People have to leave one neighborhood to another, to other municipalities because here it is very small and the controls extend from one neighborhood to another,” emphasized defender Murillo.
According to UNHCR figures, 91,608 people have been internally displaced in collided after the signing of the Peace Agreement, in 2016.
Peace commissioner confirms progress towards urban peace in Quibdó
The high commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda confirmed to Colombia+20 that in this phase of rapprochement and trust building the armed structures of Quibdó They have demonstrated their commitment to peace and to building a different future for their communities.
He assured that the greatest challenge is “to form a scenario for socio-legal dialogue of construction of peace with the competition of the quibdoseña communityof its social, community, political and economic sectors, which allows building a certain future of peace for adolescents and young people who are members of these structures, their families and their communities”.
The official had an intense schedule in April in the capital of the collided listening to mothers, caregivers and leaders who call for an end to violence against young people. However, in later days, the murder of four young people and the death of Suil Bejarano Robledo, a peace signatory, were recorded in Río Quito.