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Weekly Report - 14 April 2016 (WR-16-14)

COLOMBIA: Increased attacks by ELN, Clan Úsuga threaten to hinder peace process

Despite the announcement by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Colombia’s second-largest leftist guerrilla group, that it will soon engage in formal peace negotiations with the government, it has launched a military offensive in recent weeks, prompting a counter-offensive by the armed forces. The decision by Clan Úsuga, the country’s largest emerging criminal organisation (Bacrim), to initiate a new campaign of violence in repudiation of the government’s peace negotiations with the guerrillas [WR-16-13] is also a factor in the upsurge of violence in the country. All of this is sparking fears that the peace process being conducted by the Juan Manuel Santos administration could become seriously hindered.

Since announcing on 30 March that it had agreed a six-point formal peace talks’ agenda with the government, the ELN has launched a series of attacks in different parts of the country. On 6 April ELN guerrillas kidnapped two bus drivers after stopping them on a highway linking the north-western departments of Chocó and Risaralda. The guerrillas set fire to their victims’ buses as well as six other private vehicles before making their escape. General Javier Díaz, the commander of the ‘Titán’ military task force charged with combating criminal groups in the area, said that the bus drivers were presumably taken after refusing to pay an extortion fee demanded by the ELN.

General Díaz condemned the incident. He noted that while the government and the ELN had been clear that they would conduct the peace negotiations without declaring a bilateral ceasefire (as the Santos government agreed with the main guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia [Farc]), one of the conditions set by Santos for engaging in peace talks with the ELN was for the latter to release all of its kidnap victims and refrain from targeting the civilian population.

In the wake of the Chocó kidnapping, Colombia’s national congress’s peace commissions called on the ELN to declare a ceasefire in support of the formal peace talks, as the Farc has done, in order to reduce the intensity of the armed conflict. But the ELN ignored this, launching instead a series of attacks targeting the armed forces. This after on 7 April Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas confirmed that ELN commander ‘Alejandro’ had been killed during a 30 March navy operation in Juradó, Chocó department. ‘Alejandro’ was the third ELN commander killed by the armed forces in March after ‘Zorillo’, the leader of the ‘Alfredo Gómez Quiñones’ front, was killed in the north-eastern department of Bolívar and ‘Danilo’, the leader of the ELN’s northern front, was killed in the northern La Guajira department. Villegas said that the operation that resulted in Alejandro’s death was part of the offensive ordered by President Santos against the ELN to expedite the peace negotiations. Villegas then demanded the release of the kidnapped bus drivers.

But the ELN opted to strike back. On 10 April ELN guerrillas ambushed an army patrol in the El Tambo municipality of the south-western Cauca department. One soldier was killed and another was wounded in the attack, which General Juan Vicente Trujillo, the commander of the ‘Apolo’ task force, described as “a violation of international humanitarian law and human rights”. General Trujillo explained that at the time of the attack, the patrol was “in a state of indefence” and that their attackers were dressed as civilians.

Clan Úsuga joins the fray

As the clashes between the armed forces and the ELN intensified, the guerrillas also began targeting the Clan Úsuga which was set up by demobilised paramilitary groups and recently began calling itself the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC). This led the Farc and the ELN to denounce it as new paramilitary threat and to call on the government to dismantle it so as to ensure the viability of the peace process. On 12 April Colombia’s ombudsman’s office denounced that Clan Úsuga members had been involved in armed clashes with ELN and Farc guerrillas the previous day in Antioquia department.

According to the ombudsman’s report, the clashes took place when “dozens of heavily armed members wearing Farc and ELN badges” entered the municipality of El Bagre, “with the aim of attacking members of Clan Úsuga”. Gun battles between the guerrillas and the criminals broke out, in which three civilians were injured. The report goes on to say that soon afterwards the armed forces arrived in the area, killed two “members of the criminal organisations and wounded another two”, without providing further details. The ombudsman’s office said that the incident was a “clear infringement of international humanitarian law”, adding that it would monitor closely the situation in the area as “the local community is concerned that this new conflict dynamic could lead to a recrudescence of violence in the area”.

The incident at El Bagre came after six Colombian civil-society organisations formally denounced the emergence of a “new phase of paramilitarism” in Colombia led by the Clan Úsuga before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The complaint, which was filed on 5 April, states that 28 people were killed in February-March in suspected paramilitary activity carried out by the Clan Úsuga. According to the complaint, 13 of these people were social and human-rights activists, while the others were victims of a suspected “social cleansing” exercise designed to instil fear. The Santos government responded by condemning the deaths of all social and human-rights activists; promised to clear up the cases and punish all those responsible; and intensify its efforts to combat the Bacrims, especially the Clan Úsuga (see sidebar). Amid the growing concerns about the resurgence of paramilitarism and its impact on the peace process, the government is under pressure to achieve these goals.

  • ELN moots May as possible start of peace negotiations

On 7 April Miguel Atalay, who has identified himself as a spokesperson for Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrillas, announced through Twitter that the ELN had agreed to hold the first formal peace negotiating rounds with Colombian government representatives in May. “The ELN announces to Colombia and the international community that the first public [negotiating] table will be installed in Ecuador in May”, Atalay’s tweet reads. The announcement has not been confirmed nor denied by the government or the ELN leadership.

  • Taking the fight to Clan Úsuga

On 11 April President Santos announced that the government would redouble its efforts to combat the country’s Bacrims, in particular the Clan Úsuga. “We are going after the leaders of this Clan, including its maximum leader ‘Otoniel’ [Dairo Antonio Úsuga David]…we are redoubling our efforts”, Santos said before announcing that the reward for any information leading to Úsuga David’s arrest had increased to Col$3bn (US$983,000) from the Col$1.5bn (US$492,00) offered last month. “It is imperative to strengthen actions against all kinds of criminality, but especially criminal organisations…successors of paramilitarism”, Santos added. A week earlier, on 7 April, Santos had announced the arrests of 39 Clan Úsuga members as part of an operation targeting the Bacrim’s leaders.

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