“We invite delegates from the national and international community to refrain from attending COP16.” This is what the Central General Staff (EMC) guerrilla, a dissident faction of the FARC, wrote on X. A thinly veiled warning issued to the 12,000 participants from 200 countries expected in Cali on Monday, October 21.
A Broken Truce
The EMC and Colombian security forces regularly engage in confrontations. But the guerrillas had initially announced a truce in their military operations to ensure the smooth running of the COP.
The gathering organized in the rain and with our feet in the mud, on a remote farm in the savannah, had the appearance of the high masses of the communist maquis of the second half of the 20th century. — © Ernesto Guzman / keystone-sda.ch
It was an operation by Colombian forces that made the organization change its mind. On Saturday, October 12, the Colombian army launched a military offensive in one of the EMC’s main strongholds. Named “Perseo”, the operation began at dawn in El Plateado (southwest), in a region transformed into an “international cocaine exchange” by the EMC, according to the country’s president Gustavo Petro. The fighting left at least 17 people injured, according to a press release on X from the Colombian ombudsman, the state entity that monitors human rights in the country.
President wants to be reassuring
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on October 8, 2024 in Bogota, Colombia. (COLOMBIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFF / AFP)
Faced with the threat of guerrillas against the UN conference on biodiversity, the Colombian president wanted to be reassuring: “the security of the COP is guaranteed,” he declared. Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-wing president, would like to lead the global mobilization for nature. Colombia itself is struggling with the ravages of deforestation, due in part to cocaine trafficking.
Français 
English (Canada)