At least 10 armed groups in Colombia, including former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels who reject the country’s peace deal and the Clan del Golfo crime gang, have agreed to participate in unilateral ceasefires, the government said on Wednesday.
President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August, has promised to seek "total peace" with armed groups, fully implementing a 2016 peace accord with the FARC and meeting with dissidents and gangs.
"Each group with its own identity, nature, and motivation is expressing its disposition to be part of a total peace,;in this exploration phase we've asked them not to kill, not to disappear people, and not to torture," Danilo Rueda, the government's high peace commissioner, told journalists at an impromptu press conference.
Among the groups are two FARC dissident groups—the Estado Mayor Central and Segunda Marquetalia—as well as the Clan del Golfo, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Auto-Defenses, and others the government's high peace commissioner did not name.
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