MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombia: Rebels demand ceasefire honored, or else...

“It is necessary to reestablish the bilateral and national ceasefire,” the guerrillas insisted

A dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Sunday asked President Gustavo Pedtro's administration to reestablish a nationwide ceasefire or else Colombian Army facilities would be attacked. The rebel Central General Staff (EMC) also asked civilians to stay away from military and police officers.

The move came just a few days after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called for special agreements to be adopted as part of negotiations with armed groups.

The rogue faction also denounced continuous attacks despite the declaration of the cessation of hostilities and promised to retaliate.

“With deep patriotic pain, we must inform the people of Colombia that, given the current conditions in which the Government has prioritized military actions against civilized dialogue,” a statement from the guerrillas on X read.

The Colombian Armed Forces launched numerous attacks last year and the guerrillas claim that they “have only responded.”

”On the part of the Government, it should put an end to the attacks, [and] not give the opportunity to the enemies of peace and of its Government to aggravate the war. But against all logic, not only have the generalized attacks continued (...), but it also orders operations against the area of the Jacobo Arenas Western Bloc and the Isaías Pardo Central Bloc and other units at the national level,“ the manifesto went on.

The EMC also urged the population to stay away from ”military patrols, battalions, police stations or any other Government armed unit“ and ”not to sleep in these places, not to get on military transports (...), not to be less than 500 meters from these installations, not to transit through abandoned guerrilla camps.“

The guerrillas also called on police and military officers to disobey orders to attack dissidents and unite ”against the oligarchy that does not allow the changes that the country needs.“

”We tell the Colombian people to understand that we have put our efforts to build peace with social justice. We have made efforts to build a civilized dialogue with the Government, but military aggression closes the doors... To Petro we say that only with the silence of the weapons we cannot listen and for this it is necessary to reestablish the bilateral and national ceasefire,“ the guerrillas insisted.

According to the ICRC, thousands of civilians went missing, were displaced, suffered sexual violence, or were wounded by explosive weapons or confined to their homes because of the risks of crossfire, anti-personnel mines, and threats from armed groups as a consequence of Colombia’s eight ongoing armed conflicts last year.

”Despite the ongoing efforts to find a negotiated end to the armed conflicts, the humanitarian situation in Colombia continues to cause concern. Last year, territorial disputes between armed actors intensified, which changed the situation in several parts of the country and created new humanitarian challenges,” the ICRC also said in a statement.

“The Colombian state and armed groups must place humanitarian concerns at the heart of their peace talks. Special agreements could be struck during these negotiations that would help relieve the suffering of people affected by these armed conflicts and strengthen the obligations that the parties to the conflicts have under international humanitarian law (IHL). These obligations must be upheld whether peace talks are taking place or not,” said Lorenzo Caraffi, the head of the delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Colombia.