In recent days, the President of the country, Gustavo Petro, chaired a meeting of the National Security Guarantees Committee in Casa de Nariño, with the aim of strengthening protection measures for social leaders and signatories of peace, especially in the territories of the 170 municipalities that make up the Development Program with Territorial Approach (PDET).
As Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo explained, the first objective of the secret meeting attended by several senior officials was to promote a more rapid transformation in those places where the greatest number of murders of ex-combatants and social leaders occur.
He added that the second option is to give priority to those areas where the figures show a more sensitive situation and which require the intervention of all entities of the Colombian state to measure the progress made in restoring security levels.
Christo revealed that in order to monitor the situation, an assessment of violence indicators in PDET areas will be conducted every three months.
Although the number of murders of peace signatories and social leaders decreased during the first two years of Petro’s government compared to the same period of his predecessor Iván Duque’s administration (2018-2022), this figure remains worrying.
According to data from the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), in the middle of Duque’s term, 475 social leaders were killed, 121 more than in the same period under Petro.
In the case of both sites, the decrease in deaths resulting from government-to-government violence was 64 during the first 24 months.
As of August 19, according to the same source, 109 social leaders in Colombia have already been registered as victims of murder and 20 as signatories of peace.
Another issue that threatens the well-being of former FARC-EP members relates to conflicts arising from territorial disputes between different armed groups.
On August 20, the Reintegration and Normalization Agency (ARN) reported that approximately 80 peace signatory families living in the Oscar Mondragón de Miravalle Regional Training and Reintegration Area (ETCR), in the south of San Vicente del Caguan, were transferred to another community for security reasons.
These people have been temporarily transferred to the ETCR San José, in the municipality of Doncillo, in the same department of Caqueta, until a permanent property is found for them that suits all their needs, according to ARN.
This action, announced last July, was due to the entry of units of the Central General Staff (EMC) into the area in sectors where territorial conflicts with the self-proclaimed Second Marquitalia had begun.
Added to this is the direct threat from EMC, which has given residents of the area 40 days to leave the site.
Although the transfer was indeed upsetting for those who lived in San Vicente del Caguan, one aspect that those who reintegrated into civilian life regret is having to leave behind the projects they had been able to develop.
In Miravalle, former combatants and their families ran the Kaguan Expeditions tour agency and a rafting team called Rimando por la Paz, which became their livelihood.
Days after being threatened to leave, the businessmen said they were forced to leave their land, leaving “in the middle of a ridiculous conflict that has affected the transformation of the region and the peacebuilding” they had been involved in. The stakes were high indeed.
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