While one part of the Central General Staff (EMC) is sitting at a negotiating table with the Colombian government, another is militarily besieging the public force and the civilian population in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca.
This Monday, members of that FARC dissident attacked the police station in the municipality of Morales, Caucaand they killed to two patrol cars and two people who were detained thereaccording to the Ministry of Defense.
Two other municipalities also suffered violent attacks (without fatalities).
Three days earlier, an explosive in the same region had caused the death of a 12-year-old boy, according to the authorities in a failed attempt also by an EMC structure to attack the public force.
President Gustavo Petro described the actions as “terrorist attacks” and stated that “the offensive against the EMC in Cauca is total”.
More than a single dissident, the EMC is a network of several local structures that operate with relative autonomy and claim to be “the true FARC,” in opposition to the majorities of that guerrilla that demobilized with the Havana agreement.
It is made up, according to the most recent official figures known, about 3,500 members.
Since 2023, it is one of the groups with which the government has sought to advance negotiations, as part of its total peace policy.
The fragility of the EMC unit, however, became evident in April of this year, when split into two factions: one led by alias Iván Mordisco, who left the negotiating table with the government, and another led by alias Calarcá, who continues negotiating.
According to Juanita Vélez, researcher and co-founder of the CORE Foundation, the recent violent actions of the EMC are “a sign that they are in a bid to expand and gain more territorial control” and that “with the faction that left the negotiation “What is going to follow is military confrontation.”
The evolution of dissidence
The Central General Staff is the most evolved facet of the FARC dissidents that They were born during the Havana negotiations.
Months before the agreement between the guerrilla and the government was signed in 2016, the first front of the FARC, made up of about 400 members and commanded by alias Iván Mordisco, announced that it would not demobilize. It was the seed of dissidence.
Then, the FARC leadership sent aliases Gentle Duarte, who had been in the guerrilla for almost 40 years and was participating in the negotiations, to reestablish discipline on that front; that is, to align it with the rest of the FARC in the decision to lay down its weapons.
But Duarte also ended up abandoning the peace process, joining Mordisco and bringing his people to the project of creating a dissidence.
Since then, the dissidents (which had not yet acquired the name of the Central General Staff) began to expand and consolidate, nourished by both former FARC combatants and former members of other armed groups. and new recruits.
Mordisco and Duarte managed to build a network with national reach, “although, more than a unified command, there was co-government and almost total autonomy at the regional level and local”, indicates an investigation by the Ideas for Peace Foundation.
According to the same research, “the growth and strengthening of the EMC is closely related to the financial resources of economies such as he drug trafficking, extortion and illegal mining.”
The EMC sees itself as the legitimate heir to the FARC, and defends that those who laid down their weapons betrayed the revolution.
In 2019, aka Ivan Marquezwho was the second in command of the FARC and chief negotiator of the Havana agreement, announced his return to arms and the creation of another dissident: the Second Marquetalia.
Since their genesis, however, the EMC and the Second Marquetalia have been enemy dissidents, because Duarte and Mordisco were not willing to cede their power to Iván Márquez.
Although the Second Marquetalia included influential commanders of the extinct guerrilla such as alias Jesús Santrich, alias Romaña and alias El Paisa, the EMC is to this day superior in number and capacity.
Gentil Duarte died in Venezuela in 2022, and from then until the recent split, Iván Mordisco was the sole and maximum commander.
A dissidence with political status
Gustavo Petro became president with the proposal of seeking a total peace.
This proposal consists of advancing peace negotiations with all armed groups with political status in the country, on the one hand, and, on the other, processes of submission to justice of criminal organizations that do not have that status.
The Havana peace agreement contemplated that FARC combatants who abandoned the process and continued committing crimes would face the full weight of the law.
In the words of former President Santos, those who did not accept the process would be forcefully fought and “would end up in jail or a grave.”
But that was left behind when in October 2023, after a year of exploratory talks that began, The Petro government announced that it would officially sit at a negotiating table with the EMC.
That implied two things: that the government saw this dissidence as orsingle structure and that considered it as an actor with political status.
According to researcher Juanita Vélez, it was in the exploratory phase of the negotiations when these dissidents named themselves as Central General Staffthe same name as a decision-making body in the extinct FARC, which reinforced their discourse that they are heirs of the former guerrilla.
However, the expectation that the government would be able to negotiate with the EMC as a whole was short-lived.
In March 2024, a front of this dissidence broke the ceasefire that had been agreed with the government by attacking an indigenous community in Cauca.
In response, President Gustavo Petro suspended the bilateral ceasefire in the departments of Cauca, Nariño and Valle del Cauca and described Iván Mordisco as “traqueto (drug trafficker) dressed as a revolutionary”.
The outcome of that was that Iván Mordisco stood up from the table, taking with him more than half of the EMC structure.
In the words of Juanita Vélez, “the state decided to unite them to be able to negotiate more easily, but what has ended up happening with the peace process is that have become more fragmented”.
The EMC attacks in Cauca and Valle del Cauca against the public forces show that the war between the faction that rose from the table and the State has resumed.
These attacks have been attributed to Western Block Jacobo Arenas, which operates in Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño and is the most powerful militarily and economically of the EMC, according to military sources. More than half of all members of the organization belong to this block.
The tentacles of the EMC
In addition to the Western Bloc, when Iván Mordisco left the negotiation with the government, the Amazon Blockhe Central Block,and the Eastern Joint Command.
In total, the threads of the EMC faction that is outside the negotiations extend through 14 of the 32 departments of the country.
Since the ceasefire with the EMC was broken, violent actions have multiplied in that area of the country.
The authorities have reported attacks on military headquarters, kidnappings and an increase in forced recruitment.
The EMC is also responsible for many of the murders of peace signatories (former FARC guerrillas who did accept the process), which amount to more than 400 since the signing of the agreement.
The faction that remains at the table is smaller in size and military capacity. It operates in eight departments.
However, Juanita Vélez explains that, for example, although it does not have the same military and economic power as the Western Bloc, the Jorge Suárez Bloc, one of the two that continues negotiating, “controls and governs over its territories.”
On the other hand, “in Nariño and Cauca it is more unclear who dominates because the EMC is competing with other groups,” adds Vélez.
Because of how fragmented it is, The EMC maintains different, and even opposing, relationships with other armed groups In each region.
For example, in Magdalena Medio it is allied with ELN fronts to confront the Gulf Clan, while in Valle del Cauca it is in conflict with the ELN.
Despite the forceful violent actions, which the government has described as “barbarism” and “terrorism,” researcher Juanita Vélez affirms that “clearly They do not have the level of magnitude, scope, or power that the FARC had.”.
“In 2002, which was when the FARC reached its best military moment, they had more than 20,000 men and women in arms, more than 100 structures and activity in more than half of the country’s municipalities, according to military intelligence of the time. . What we see today with the EMC is something of a much lower level,” he adds.
Since Monday’s attacks, the government has sent the message that the military superiority of the State over the EMC units in Cauca is indisputable.
“Their only form of expression is to resort to terrorist attacks, because They do not have the capacity to sustain a confrontation with the Military Forces and the Police,” stated the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez.
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