Weekly Report - 20 April 2023 (WR-23-16)

With its ‘total peace’ project at risk of unravelling, Colombia’s government has turned for advice to former commanders of the right-wing paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), which demobilised in 2006. Peace commissioner Danilo Rueda met the AUC’s old guard to hear their account of the successes and failures of the paramilitary demobilisation, and he said that they had agreed to further such discussions. Three days later, President Gustavo Petro’s government received a significant boost when the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), the largest grouping of dissident units of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group, announced that it would participate in peace talks.