Colombian insurgent group begins handing over arms to authorities – DW

[ad_1] Colombian armed group Comuneros del Sur (Commoners of the South) handed over struggle materiel and signed two agreements with President Gustavo Petro, either side mentioned on Saturday.

"It is a historic second," Protection Minister Pedro Sanchez mentioned at a ceremony within the metropolis of Pasto within the southwestern Andean area.

He mentioned that previously two days, the group has handed over land mines, grenades and rockets to a military unit that's destroying them.

"We contemplate that the armed combat is out of date, that there are new instances and new wants. We refuse to return to struggle," mentioned Royer Garzon, one of many leaders of the group.

The transfer paves the best way for the eventual disarmament and reintegration into civilian lifetime of some 300 Comuneros del Sur rebels.

Till final Could, the Comuneros del Sur had been a part of the leftist Nationwide Liberation Military (ELN), which has about 6,000 fighters and continues to be combating the Colombian authorities.

When the Comuneros del Sur broke away from the ELN and commenced peace talks with the Petro administration, it angered the ELN management and stalled its negotiations with the Colombian authorities.

Troublesome peace course of in Colombia

In 2016, Colombia signed a peace cope with the nation's largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), during which greater than 13,000 fighters laid down their arms.

However the FARC's withdrawal from some rural areas has created an influence vacuum that smaller teams have tried to fill.

Petro's authorities has held peace talks with 9 totally different insurgent teams and drug trafficking gangs in Colombia underneath a method referred to as "whole peace."

Most of those negotiations have failed to reduce violence , and to date solely the Comuneros del Sur have agreed to start a transition to civilian life.

The Colombian authorities is now struggling to supply safety in distant rural areas the place different groups fight over drug trafficking routes and natural resources , whereas forcibly recruiting minors and taxing native companies to boost funds.

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