BOGOTA, Colombia, June 25, (AP): Colombia launched peace talks with the Second Marquetalia rebel group on Monday as the administration of leftist President Gustavo Petro tries to pacify rural areas of the country that have seen rising violence despite efforts to broker ceasefires with various armed groups.
The talks were announced in Caracas, Venezuela in a ceremony that included government delegates and rebel leaders who signed a 2016 peace deal but later took up arms again after saying they had become disillusioned with the implementation of the deal.
"We want to participate in politics without resorting to the use of weapons,” said the Second Marquetalia’s lead negotiator Walter Mendoza. "The condition for that will be for the government to fulfill its side of the accords.”
With an estimated 2,000 fighters, the Second Marquetalia is one of the nation’s smaller rebel outfits. The government’s decision to begin peace talks with the group has been criticized by Colombian opposition leaders who accuse Petro of being soft on crime.
Negotiations with the Second Marquetalia are controversial because the group is led by members of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who signed the peace deal but took up arms again, as some of them faced drug trafficking investigations.
"For the sake of peace I wish good luck to these talks,” Humberto de la Calle, a senator who was the government’s chief negotiator in the 2016 peace talks with the FARC, wrote on the social media platform X. "But this sends an awful message to society: which is that cheaters and those who do not keep their word can get ahead.”