Stop “torturing, disappearing and murdering”, the commitment for peace of criminal groups in Medellín, according to the government

(CNN Spanish) — The Government of Colombia announced this week that the armed groups of Medellín promised to stop “torturing, disappearing and murdering” as part of the “urban peace” process, a process of submission with criminal gangs and armed organizations whose negotiation is in charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (OACP).

The process —which is part of the commitment of the government of President Gustavo Petro for Total Peace— began four months ago and until now they have been in the “approach” phase. According to the statementthis phase “has been absolutely discreet, with confidential communication and interaction mechanisms to facilitate trust, and with verifiable agreements that the facilitators recognized by the OACP have complied with responsibility, discretion and commitment.”

The rapprochement phase has been carried out with more than 12 criminal groups in Medellín and its metropolitan area, made up of 10 neighboring municipalities. According to the OACP, the urban peace process is governed by judicial cooperation agreements, for which reason it ruled out “promises of reduced sentences, non-extradition or the release of leaders of structures.”

Violence and crime in Medellín

Historically, Medellín has been hit by violence and drug trafficking dating back to the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, the city came to be considered the most dangerous city in the world due to the violence, drug trafficking, and gang wars that plagued the city, with Pablo Escobar at the helm. And although its image has radically changed in recent years —since 2015 it has not been part of the 50 most violent cities in the world, according to the Mayor’s Office—, it is still bleeding due to the strong criminal violence of armed groups and organized crime.

“After the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) mobilization process, many of those leaders who signed a demobilization agreement, who handed over weapons, who entered into negotiations, stopped complying with that process and became leaders of new organizations. criminals to be able to co-opt all this market of crime and illegality that occurs both in Medellín and in the municipalities of the Metropolitan Area,” Isaac Morales, coordinator of the citizen security line of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, PARES, a study center based in Bogotá.

Two of the large criminal organizations that are present there are “La Oficina” and the “Clan del Golfo”, which according to the 2021 PARES report, “Organized crime in urban agglomerations”, have transferred the dynamics of violence to other rural territories. from the country.

And then there are several criminal groups that are organized under the logic of “criminal sourcing,” according to Morales, “which includes a lot of compounds from criminal organizations that are already less far-reaching,” but which are part of the violent panorama of the city.

The criminal organization The Office is made up of some 3,600 criminals and 39 organized common criminal groups (GDCOs); The Clan del Golfo, which operates in the Valle de Aburrá and Medellín, is made up of some 2,600 criminals and 5 GDCOs, according to official data from the Medellín Mayor’s Office shared with CNN.

In Medellín, authorities have identified 73 GDCOs and 5 organized criminal groups (GDOs), according to the city’s Unified Criminal Inventory, from the Medellín Secretariat for Security and Coexistence, the Sectional Prosecutor’s Office and the Metropolitan Police.

The Medellín mayor’s office says that since 2020 more than 1,500 members of these criminal structures and 56 leaders have been captured. And to combat these criminal gangs, it has a reward program ranging from 20 to 200 million pesos (between US$4,300 and US$43,000).

Lthe local press reports that some of those criminal gangs behind the violence in Medellín are the Picacho, Caicedo, La Unión, Trianón, Los Triana, Pachelly, Los Chatas, La Terraza, Robledo, La Sierra.

The criminal actions of these groups are hitmen, ‘drop by drop’ extortion, and other crimes such as disappearances, homicides and torture of which small businessmen are victims who do not accede to the pressures of these criminal groups and “end up being even murdered in part of this same logic of what illegal economies mean,” Morales said.

According to the PARES report, since 2018 “the existence of at least 12 foreign mafias in Antioquia has been alerted, which indicates a scenario of possible alliances or disputes between local organizations and international trafficking networks.”

The High Commissioner for Peace has not identified the gangs with which it is making approaches to maintain the confidentiality of the process.

Doubts about “urban peace”

Returning to the negotiation with the criminal groups of Medellín, for Morales, a key concept in this week’s government statement was “urban peace”, since from there a concept begins to be outlined that is still not clear about the scope of the peace process with criminal groups.

“It’s like these lights are beginning to emerge in what an idea of ​​’Total Peace’ means, but also within an urban or public security context, especially focused on the security of cities,” Morales said. The analyst proposes that an idea of ​​urban peace should aim to “reduce the hostilities and criminal confrontations that exist in these gangs, and reduce their repertoire of action and violence.”

With Total Peace, the Petro government has bet on two fronts: the first, a peace negotiation with a political agenda only with the ELN guerrilla. On the other hand, processes of submission to justice with criminal organizations, which do not have a political agenda. What is sought with these criminal groups in Medellín and its metropolitan area is submission to justice.

Although the current government’s commitment to peace is great and novel in the face of organized crime, it is still very incipient since there are no known guidelines for its subjugation.

“Although there is submission, there is also a lot of uncertainty regarding how this process is going to take place and how this approach is taking place with criminal reactions,” said Morales, who insists that the government has a giant challenge to the time to give clarity to the process in matters of submission and recidivism.