Controversy in Colombia as Guerrillas Participate in Opening of Health Centre

Controversy in Colombia over the delivery of a health post and an ambulance, financed in part by the guerrillas in the municipality of El Tambo, department of Cauca. The group called Central General Staff (EMC), a dissident guerrillas of the extinct FARC-EP, participated in the inauguration ceremony of this medical clinic, in one of the areas most historically abandoned by the State.

Although the health post was coordinated by the neighborhood council, the participation of Nelson Ríos, alias Gafas, a member of the illegal armed group, in charge of cutting the ribbon, has generated all kinds of political backlash. In fact, the Minister of Defense, Ivan Velasquez, described the event as a “blow to institutionality”.

According to local media, the event was fěted with three days of “community celebration”. The initiative arose as a response to the “state abandonment” in the region and was carried out through voluntary contributions from the community. Apparently, the guerrillas also participated in its realization, which gave them the right to participate in the inauguration.

Replacing the State

Cauca is a conflictive region in the south of the country where various armed groups are present. Given the state’s inability to impose its authority, this is not the first time that illegal gangs have acted as a parallel power that challenges the public functions of the Colombian state.

This situation is not new, since when the now defunct FARC-EP guerrillas were active, they acted as the State in a large part of the territories where they often assumed the sole authority, usurping the role of Colombian public institutions.

The demobilization of this powerful armed group, in 2016, has failed to ensure the presence of the State throughout the Colombian national territory. Cauca is a complex department, in the Pacific zone, where various armed groups dispute territorial control, with the State unable to impose its authority. In this sense, it is not strange that armed groups act in the way the EMC is doing now..

Regarding the health post in El Tambo, social leaders of the region justify their actions, in the face of the public neglect of which they are victims. “It means a real triumph and this way we can show the government that we are capable of this and many other things (…) We know that what we have achieved is with our own effort”, said Agripina Aguirre, a local neighborhood leader.

Recent similar events

In November last year, the same illegal armed group participated in the inauguration of the paving of a road in Santa Rosa, in the neighboring department of Nariño, where the guerrilla presence is also significant.

The event was presided over on that occasion by a priest and alias Esteban Gonzalez, head of the Franco Benavides front, which is part of the EMC and operates in the region.

The same controversy was caused a month before, during the local and regional elections of October 2023, when at the last minute, and after the scandal, the participation of members of this guerrilla group in the opening of a polling station in Cauca was suspended.

A similar case recently occured in San Vicente del Caguan (Caqueta), when the announcement of the inauguration in April of a school to be named after Gentil Duarte, a former guerrilla killed in Venezuela, caused controversy. Duarte was the first leader of the EMC armed group, before being replaced after his death by alias Ivan Mordisco.

Context of war escalation

All this occurs in the context of an escalation of the war, after the breakdown of the ceasefire that the State maintained with the EMC for months in that region in the south of the country. Tension has intensified after the increase of military operations in the municipality of Argelia. During the past weekend, heavy fighting broke out between the army and the guerrillas.

The military deployment of more than 30,000 troops had been ordered a few days before, in view of the foreseeable escalation of the situation, following the breaking of the ceasefire decreed by President Gustavo Petro. The entire access zone to the municipality of Argelia is plagued with anti-personnel mines, as reported by the security forces after their deployment in the area.

In declarations to RCN channel, the commander in the Cauca region, General Federico Mejia, assured that “they have installed a series of minefields at the entrances of the village, which endangers the civilian population”, in reference to the area of El Plateado in the same municipality of Argelia.

According to military intelligence information, guerrilla militiamen have camouflaged themselves in the houses of some neighbors, to be able to outwit the army and confront it more easily. So far, there have been eight armed confrontations with the armed forces, which have managed to arrest alias David, chief of finances of this guerrilla group in Cauca.