“AGC”: here as elsewhere, the tags on the walls say who dominates the territory. In the northwest of Colombia, the powerful drug traffickers of the Clan del Golfo defy the government by trying to block a strategic axis in favor of a protest movement of miners.
Winding through a landscape of wooded savannahs and prosperous cattle farms, Route Nationale 25 connects the Caribbean coast to Medellin, the country’s second largest city. Usually congested with heavy goods vehicles, this road is an umbilical cord that guarantees a large part of the supply from northern Colombia. “This road holds the whole economy of the country,” says the boss of the army in the area, Brigadier General Roberto Arias Rojas, 49 years old.
A dozen assailants traveling on motorcycles, presumed members of the fearsome Clan del Golfo, set fire to it on Sunday, near the town of Taraza, two buses and four trucks, whose charred carcasses still lie at the edge of the road.
Since then, only convoys of dozens of vehicles, supervised and protected by the security forces, have been speeding along the long strip of tar: first a swarm of motorbikes, then an endless line of cars, and finally buses and heavy goods vehicles spewing thick black smoke. A police tank, light army Humvees and bikers with guns open and close the march of the deafening caravan.
“The situation is under control”, assures, before jumping into his Humvee, a soldier who leaves to join the device. Four convoys of this kind were able to circulate on the national on Tuesday, under the seemingly placid gaze of the inhabitants of the few villages and localities crossed.
Diana, the manager of a modest roadside restaurant, witnessed Sunday’s attack. On her cell phone, she gladly shows a video of the two flaming buses, but categorically refuses to speak. “Talking about the Clan is like putting the rope around your neck,” says another resident.
Painted roughly on the facades of the houses, the multiple acronyms AGC and other “Gaitanist self-defense groups always there!”, do not encourage chatter.
This region of Lower Cauca, linking the provinces of Antioquia and Cordoba, was in the years 1990-2000 a stronghold of these paramilitaries, whose memory of terror still haunts Colombians. After laying down their arms, they provided the bulk of the ranks of the Clan del Golfo, converting into the lucrative business of producing and exporting cocaine.
On December 31, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, as part of his ambitious “total peace” plan, announced a bilateral ceasefire with this cartel, among other guerrillas and armed groups. But on Sunday he announced the “reactivation” of military operations against the cartel, accusing it of secretly stoking acts of vandalism by illegal miners, who have been protesting in the region since early March against the destruction by the army. dredging machines used to extract gold from rivers.
A prosperous agricultural region, the Bajo Cauca has experienced in recent years (with the combined rise in prices and the dollar) a mad gold rush. The precious metal has supplanted the cultivation of coca, boosted the entire local economy, and ravaged the landscape with diggers, dredges and mercury dumped in the rivers.
If the movement seems to be marking time or being in between, one of its leaders, in Taraza, Gumercindo Castillo Bolario, assures AFP that it is continuing and rejects the “stigmatizing accusations, relayed by the government “, of collusion with the men of the Clan del Golfo.
“There is a lot of information that indicates that the Clan del Golfo is behind” the movement of minors, however, advances a local journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. It “started against the government, but ended in the taking hostage of the population”, deplores this source.
“People couldn’t move, go out to buy food. Twenty days without work was like another pandemic,” said Faber, a local driver.
On the N25, the trees (nearly sixty, some centenarians) cut down by the protesters have been cleared. About 8,000 soldiers and police are deployed in the region, according to General Arias.
“Historically, the Bajo Cauca is in a difficult situation, with the presence of armed groups exploiting coca cultivation and gold mining illegally,” explains the officer. In addition to the AGC, two groups from the Guevarist ELN and four from the FARC dissident are also active there.
The Clan is federated locally, on a geographical basis, into four structures, each divided into an arm, financial and military. It would have a total of between 1,500 and 2,000 men.
Despite the police and military deployment, “the road remains under the control of the Clan del Golfo”, judges the local journalist, recalling that this axis was christened sinisterly a few years ago the “Bermuda triangle” because of the regularly missing and kidnapped found dead in the nearby river.
“This road has always been the envy of armed groups. For years, they burned vehicles there to show their presence”, details the same source. Over the past five years, 52 attacks or incidents have been recorded there.
Activity in the towns, it seems, has picked up slightly, with shops open at least in the morning, and a few bars-discotheques spitting out their decibels until late afternoon.
“But we’re still idling,” says Andres, manager of a restaurant next to a gas station. “For three days, they let us open,” he says, enigmatic. “Over here, we do what we are asked to do…”, admits the boss of a grocery store, in reference to the injunctions and threats relayed by the men of the Clan, in particular via WhatsApp messaging.
Continuation of the movement, resumption of hostilities… “We don’t know what will happen, it’s total uncertainty”, notes a hotelier, also on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. On Monday, a soldier on leave was murdered by men on motorcycles, suspected members of the Clan, according to the authorities.
03/22/2023 22:35:17 – Tarazá (Colombie) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP