The Minister of the Interior of Colombia, Alfonso Prada, on behalf of the Government, assured this Monday that The first month of the bilateral ceasefire with four armed groups has raised the average “life saving” in the regions where these criminal organizations operate.
“We have very consolidated figures that show us a very high average percentage of lives saved as a result of this bilateral cessation in the regions where the structures with which we have entered into a peace dialogue or in a socio-legal conversation with a view to its dismantling”Prada said in a statement after a security council at the Casa de Nariño, headquarters of the Executive.
On December 31, after the announcement by President Gustavo Petro on social networks of a ceasefire with five armed groups -which finally remained at four, after the withdrawal of the guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN)- the government issued a decree.
This document indicates that from January 1 to June 30 a bilateral ceasefire is in force with the objective of “suspend the humanitarian impact of the population in general” and “suspend offensive actions and avoid armed incidents between the Public Force” and these organizations.
The decree included four FARC dissidents and established the suspension of operations of the public force and estimated that the ceasefire protocols “will be reserved”in addition to establishing a system of oversight and monitoring through the Government, dissidents, social organizations and the Church, to which the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS) could be added.
However, the ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, asked the government for “rules” and “commitments” to determine what it means to respect the ceasefire.
DEATHS DECREASE
Prada assured that the attacks, affectations, murders, homicides and injuries of our Armed Forces have been substantially reduced and the death of civilians in the midst of this conflict in the territories has also been substantially reduced by a very high percentage. most affected by the violence originated by the groups with which the bilateral cessation has been decreed”.
“A first figure shows us that for the same period of the first 30 days of 2022, there were three deaths and 40 injuries. For this period that figure is 12 affected, three people dead -two from the Army and one from the Navy- and nine people injured”he explained.
Meanwhile, there was a decrease in homicides in the departments of “Antioquia 12%, in Norte de Santander 2.6%, in Cauca 13.4%, in Nariño 9.4%, in Magdalena 36.6%, in Arauca 66.1%, in Córdoba 51.6%, in La Guajira 16.7%”.
As for the massacres, he said, they were reduced by 50% throughout the country in the first 30 days of the year.