Between 2020 and 2023, the Ombudsman’s Office has been able to demonstrate the accelerated expansion of the self-styled Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC-Clan del Golfo), which already has a presence in 20 departments and Bogotá.
This was stated by the Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo Assis, when warning that, “as a State we allow ourselves to take advantage of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia – Clan del Golfo. They have been demonstrating their power and their ability to paralyze various departments”.
Carlos Camargo Assis recalled that, from the Early Warning System (SAT), between 2017 and 2023 the Ombudsman’s Office has issued 162 Early Warnings that warn of risks due to the presence and actions of the AGC-Clan del Golfo in most of the National territory. Although it maintains its hegemony in Antioquia, Chocó, Bolívar, Córdoba and Meta, its expansive power extends to the entire Pacific Region and the Caribbean Region, including the Coffee Region, San Andrés and Bogotá.
For the Ombudsman, it is particularly worrying that its dynamics are similar to a crime holding company, which manages various criminal activities such as drug trafficking and illegal mining; that it subcontracts organized crime structures for activities such as micro-trafficking and extortion; and whose structure allows him to have command and control to block and paralyze the life of the communities, as he has recently demonstrated. In this dynamic, not in all regions it makes itself seen as AGC or Clan del Golfo, but rather it operates through local criminal organizations such as Los Boyacos’ in the case of the country’s capital.
In this sense, Carlos Camargo Assis recalled that the AGC-Clan del Golfo and other armed groups have been betraying the desire for peace of Colombians, as evidenced in the third follow-up bulletin to said cessation prepared by the Ombudsman’s Office.
The official points out that the government shook hands and the groups have joined hands. For this reason, the decision of the President of the Republic to end the ceasefire with the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC – Clan del Golfo) is also an ultimatum for the other armed groups.
Such is the expansive capacity of the AGC-Clan del Golfo that it has managed to corner the ELN in Chocó, and gradually take it to the south of the department. In this territorial dispute, the most affected have been the communities, which in the last year have experienced permanent phenomena of forced displacement and confinement.
During 2022, a total of 33 events of forced displacement were registered in Chocó, generated mainly by those arranged between the ELN and the AGC-Clan del Golfo, which affected 20 indigenous communities, 13 Afro-Colombians, a total of 1,235 families and 4,380 people. In the same way, 95 confinements were presented, of which 70 were indigenous population, 25 Afro-Colombian, violating 7,833 families and 34,114 people.
Source: Ombudsman