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New President Petro, a member of the M-19 guerrillas, has resumed talks with the ELN rebels.
New President Petro has promised to restore “complete peace” through talks.
The government is in talks with the promise of less punishment for the surrender of guerrillas and drug gangs.
bogota, Eight police officers were killed in an explosive attack in western Colombia on Friday. It is the deadliest attack on security forces since the inauguration of new President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to end nearly 60 years of conflict in the country. While the new President Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrillas, has promised to restore ‘complete peace’ by resuming talks with the left-wing ELN rebels.
According to a report by news agency Reuters, the government signed a peace deal with the FARC guerrillas in 2016. Which is now being denied by the guerrilla organization. The government is still negotiating the surrender of guerrillas and gangs involved in drug-related crimes, with a promise to enforce that peace deal and reduce punishment. President Petro said on Twitter that ‘I strongly condemn the explosive attack in San Luis, Huila, where eight policemen were killed. Solidarity with their families. This is an absolutely clear attempt to undermine efforts for complete peace. I told the officials to go to the area and investigate.’
It is being told that 8 police officers died due to explosives in the vehicle in which the policemen were traveling. President Petro did not name the perpetrators of the attack, but according to security sources, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are active in the so-called dissident area. According to the government, the dissident guerrilla group FARC rejects peace agreements made by its former leaders and claims to have around 2,400 guerrillas in its ranks.
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Several prominent dissident guerrilla commanders have recently been killed and many are fighting across the border with Venezuela. Clashes between the government, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing militias and drug-trafficking gangs in violence-stricken Colombia have killed at least 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018 alone.
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Tags: killed, police, South America
First Published: September 03, 2022, 07:34 IST
