Governor of Arauca asks Petro for support to confront violence

He governor of the Colombian department of Arauca, border with Venezuela, Renson Martínez, asked the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to urgently intervene in the face of violence by armed groups that have murdered 27 people between January and March of this year.

This was expressed by Martínez in a letter to the head of state in which he expressed his concern about the recent murder of Luis Meléndez Torres and Graciel Mendoza, The latter occurred last Sunday in a rural area of ​​the town of Tame, after having been kidnapped.

These homicides violate human rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) “by involving the civilian population in the conflict, keeping it in a situation of permanent risk as to date, 27 murders have been recorded between January 1 and March 31, 2024.”

The letter details that 14 of those murders occurred in Tame and were committed by Organized Armed Groups (GAO) such as the Clan del Golfo, the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), Los Pelusos, who are dedicated to drug trafficking, extortion and illegal mining, among other crimes, but without any political motivation.

And organized armed groups such as Central General Staff (EMC, the largest dissident of the FARC), like the Second Marquetalia, which signed the peace agreement in 2016 but then abandoned it.

“This situation becomes even more complicated for the population given that between January 2022 and today, around 550 people have lost their lives in the context of the same conflict, among whom are peasant leaders, community leaders, indigenous people, peace signatories and civil population,” Martínez explained in his communication to President Petro.