Request to Investigate Alleged Guerrilla Participation in Petro’s Campaign

Colombia’s conservative opposition has called for an investigation into the alleged participation of the guerrilla group called Central General Staff (EMC), a dissident group of the extinct FARC, in the electoral campaign of President Gustavo Petro in 2022. This comes after a week of dialectical confrontation between the leader of this illegal armed group, alias Ivan Mordisco, and the Colombian head of state, due to the rupture of the bilateral ceasefire.

In response to the accusations of the current head of state, in which he called the guerrilla leader a “drug dealer disguised as a revolutionary,” Ivan Mordisco stated that when they supported the president in his campaign, Petro did not consider them drug dealers.

This announcement of alleged participation in the 2022 campaign in favor of the then-candidate of the Historical Pact has prompted the right-wing party, Democratic Center, to ask for a clarification of the facts and to launch all kinds of suspicions about corruption and illegal financing of Gustavo Petro’s presidential campaign.

Ammunition for the opposition

Christian Garcés, representative of the opposition party, addressed a communication to the president of the Commission of Accusations of the Congress, the representative of the Conservative Party, Wadith Manzur, asking him to establish the alleged support, as well as the type of contribution that this illegal organization would have made to the campaign.

Garcés’ petition requests “that it be investigated if the FARC dissidents participated in the presidential campaign of Gustavo Petro, both in the coercion of the civilian population to vote, as well as in the illegal financing of his campaign. If evidence is found, the corresponding accusation should be made.”

Campaign under suspicion

In addition to the alleged case of illicit financing that links the president’s son, Nicolas Petro, to the entry of drug money into the presidential campaign of the current head of state, suspicions of other irregularities hover over the elections that in 2022 gave the Colombian presidency to a leftist politician for the first time.

Maria Fernanda Cabal, also a representative of the Democratic Center, has been in charge of sowing doubts once again. Cabal assured that these manifestations of alias Ivan Mordisco “ratified that the La Picota pact did exist”, about the alleged agreement between the candidacy of Gustavo Petro and crime leaders in which “social pardon” was offered in exchange for electoral support. The accusation was made at the time by Federico Gutierrez, also a candidate, who is now the conservative mayor of Medellin.

“That billions were indeed moved, which is also demonstrated by the figures of the votes in Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, and Valle del Cauca itself; in some cases, they exceeded 80% of voters for Gustavo Petro,” affirmed Senator Cabal, who assures, without providing any evidence for now, that several criminal groups could have supported Gustavo Petro’s campaign.

Escalation in the confrontation with dissidents

The context is one of escalating confrontation between the government of President Petro and the dissident armed group of the former FARC, commanded by alias Ivan Mordisco. According to Colombian intelligence reports, this group is preparing drone attacks, a threat that has been met with a massive deployment of military troops in the regions where the illegal armed group operates, Cauca and Nariño.

While the war intensified in the face of the failure of the dialogue that had been advancing for months with serious difficulties, peasant and indigenous communities were the main victims of the violence.

According to the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, alias Ivan Mordisco, is a dangerous character “to be feared”. In recent years in the ranks of the now demobilized FARC, he was responsible for the forced recruitment of minors. Pares assures that “he knew very little about ideology”, but that he managed to command a column of 400 members.

His life as a guerrilla outlaw began in 2003, as a sniper and explosives specialist. Pares affirms that Mordisco never believed in the peace process that the state managed to successfully conclude in 2016 with the FARC. Until then, however, Mordisco was “a second in command” in the guerrillas. Proof of this is that he did not occupy the leadership of the new armed group that was created as a dissident of the Havana peace accords from the outset. The guerrillas of the Central General Staff were initially commanded by Gentil Duarte. It was only after Duarte died in 2022 that Ivan Mordisco took over as leader of the illegal organization.

Warlord and drug trafficker

Under the leadership of Ivan Mordisco, in less than two years, the area of the municipality of Argelia, in the department of Cauca, became a huge field of coca plantations, controlled by his illegal armed group.

According to InSight Crime, Mordisco knows his way around the major coca transport corridors. Hez controls and has increased illicit coca cultivation and cocaine production under the control of the EMC, benefiting from the drug corridors through Guaviare, Vaupes, Vichada, and southern Meta.

Mordisco is a confirmed warlord and drug trafficker, and experts in insurgent warfare rule out his having a present or future role in a supposed unification of armed group dissidents from the FARC. According to these voices, his explosive nature will not allow him to go beyond the role he now plays, as the head of a drug cartel with little or no political ideology.