Colombian government announces peace dialogue with AGC

In a move that could potentially shake up Colombia’s criminal landscape, the government has announced that it will open negotiations with the country’s most powerful drug trafficking organization, the AGC.

President Gustavo Petro authorized, by presidential decree of July 8, 2024, the creation of a “Socio-Legal Dialogue Space” with the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), also known as Gaitanistas or Clan del Golfo. The document, made public on August 5, marks the first step in a new round of negotiations with the group.

On July 22, the government recognized six members of the AGC as representatives of the dialogue and asked the authorities to suspend their arrest warrants. Among them was the group’s main leader, Jobanis de Jesús Ávila Villadiego, alias “Chiquito Malo,” wanted for drug trafficking in the United States.

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“The Socio-Legal Dialogue Space aims to verify the group’s willingness to make the transition to the rule of law and to establish the conditions for its submission to justice as permitted by law,” the decree states.

The decree appears to imply that any new negotiations with the AGC would follow the same approach as previous attempts, i.e. that they would be conducted on the basis of “Law of Sometimiento(Submission Act) in which the group surrenders or lays down its arms in exchange for legal benefits, such as reduced sentences.

This new attempt at peace with the AGC comes as the government’s negotiations with other armed groups are in a critical state. Petro’s flagship policy, Total Peace, through which the government seeks to reach demobilization agreements with criminal and armed groups throughout Colombia, has become a revolving door for groups to enter and exit negotiations.

The Central General Staff (EMC), one of the most powerful armed groups in Colombia, a confederation of dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla group now demobilized, has split into two factions. One, led by Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco,” has abandoned negotiations. The other, led by Alexander Díaz Mendoza, alias “Calarcá,” continues to negotiate.

The central process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) is frozen after the two sides failed to reach an agreement to extend a ceasefire that expired on August 3.

If negotiations continue, the AGC will join Total Peace, having previously participated in one. The group agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government in January 2023, but in March Petro ended that ceasefire, accusing the group of inciting violence during a mining strike in northwestern Antioquia that left at least 18 people dead.

InSight Crime Analysis

The announcement of the creation of the Socio-Legal Dialogue Space with the AGC could have a considerable impact on the Colombian criminal panorama.

Even before the negotiations officially begin, the parties already appear to be at odds over the legal framework that would be used in any potential negotiations.

One of the main points of contention is the government’s categorization of the AGC. Currently, there is no legal framework for the demobilization of armed groups that the government does not recognize as “political” actors. The AGC is considered by the Colombian government to be a “high-impact organized crime armed group,” meaning that under current legislation, the government would only be allowed to negotiate through the Submission Law.

But in an August 6 interview with Colombian news outlet BluRadio, Ricardo Giraldo, the AGC’s lawyer, said the group was demanding “transitional justice” – a key aspect of past negotiations with groups the government has labeled rebels – rather than using the law of submission to reach an agreement. The EMC and the ELN were granted that political status.

“(The AGC) is the result of several completely failed submission processes, so it will not be the real solution to achieve peace in Colombia,” Giraldo said.

Without legislation passed by Congress approving new legal frameworks that would allow non-political actors to negotiate surrender without the submission law, the only option would be to grant the AGC the political status it seeks.

SEE ALSO: Total peace in Colombia hangs by a thread after the expiration of the ceasefire with the ELN

The government has opened several spaces for socio-legal dialogue with other criminal groups, including the urban criminal groups of Valle de Aburrá, Buenaventura and Quibdó. But these discussions have been hampered by the lack of a legal framework that would allow these groups to demobilize without the submission law.

If negotiations between the government and the AGC continue, a possible ceasefire would likely give the group an advantage in its territorial conflicts with other criminal actors in key areas of the country. This is a reversal of what was happening just six months ago, when the ELN and EMC had bilateral ceasefires with the governments, while the AGC had not.

The AGC’s main criminal conflict is in the department of Chocó, where the group has been involved in a war with the ELN for control of drug trafficking and illegal mining routes since 2018. In Bolívar, a hotbed of illegal mining and a cocaine highway across the country, the AGC has been involved in a conflict with the ELN and the EMC’s Magdalena Medio Bloc – which remains in negotiations with the government – since late 2021.

And in Norte de Santander, the AGC has been trying for years to reconquer lost territory and penetrate the Catatumbo region, one of Colombia’s coca-producing enclaves and a key transit route.

A possible ceasefire would give the AGC an advantage over the ELN, its main criminal competitor in these key areas, while undermining Operation Agamenón, the government’s renewed military strategy to dismantle the AGC, the most recent phase of which was announced in February.

Main image: A Colombian soldier walks in front of a building with the words “AGC” written on it. Credit: Joaquin Sarmiento (AFP).