The communities of Cauca have prevented the operational development of the public force

In the afternoon of Monday March 20, two new cases of interruption of the work of the public force by the community were known. Both events happened in Cauca and practically simultaneously.

According to the first versions, the authorities would have tried to capture a man who transported nearly a ton of marijuana in a private vehicle. However, the community prevented the arrest and also did not allow the detected drugs to be seized.

Similarly, men in uniform were reportedly expelled during a riot led by residents of this area. For their part, in the Hueisitó district of El Tambo, the National Army troops were unable to complete their patrol work because members of the Peasant Guard prevented them from doing so on the grounds that they wanted to avoid clashes with illegal armed groups.

In this order, they also declared that they did not want civilians to be injured as a result of these clashes. For this reason, the soldiers were taken to the corregimiento Crucero de Pandiguando, in the same municipality.

Regarding these two actions, the municipal representative Luis Fernando Vergara announced that with the Secretariat of the Government of El Tambo they will carry out a humanitarian mission to intervene in the release of soldiers detained in this area and thus guarantee respect for human rights.

In addition to this, the Secretary of the Government of Cauca, Diego Aguilar, explained that Both events occurred “in a broad context of illegal economiesa situation that makes it necessary to carry out comprehensive intervention actions in the territories” as an alternative to mitigate the violence in this region of southwestern Colombia.

Both actions were also registered in the announcement by President Petro to lift the ceasefire with the Clan del Golfo, thus allowing the public force to confront this illegal structure with armed means.

The Head of State’s announcement comes on the night of Sunday March 19, after several armed actions carried out by this illegal structure against the public force and civilians. Two of the most recent occurred, precisely, on Sunday 19 and Monday 20, both in Antioquia.

In a first action, four freight vehicles and two other public transport buses were set on fire in the Troncal de Occidente, between the municipalities Valdivia there Caucasian. In addition, there have been rifle attacks in this area. The governor of this department, Hannibal Gaviriawas one of the first to denounce and reject this fact.

On Sunday 20, a few hours before the arrival of President Petro in the Caucasus to lead a security council in this municipality, another rifle assault took place on the Tarazá-Valdivia highway.

After the council, the Head of State rejected the said acts of violence and reiterated that both the National Army and the Police have the power to be present in this region of the country.

“The public force today has the order, in all its weapons, to seize the territory and not to abandon it; even extend this activity to the whole of the Colombian northwest”, underlined the president. He also said that the Clan del Golfo has instrumentalized the population to save interests outside those who represent small mining; i.e. “large scale illegal mining”.

On the other hand, he underlined that the government is not against the small mining activity and proposed the construction of a district for the development of this activity. He also summoned the National Mining Summit and an inventory of the mechanisms for formalizing small-scale mining activity “even with titling, if possible”.

“The state has an alliance with small production -mining- so that it can have space in Colombia”, declared the president after the security council.