Colombian gang leaders announce talks to address urban violence

Colombia’s government seeks to draw urban criminal networks into disarmament talks as it pursues ‘total peace’.



A funeral procession in 2013 files through Medellin, Colombia, after two children were killed amid gang violence in the neighbourhood of Comuna 13 [File: Luis Benavides/AP Photo]

By Christina Noriega
Published On 10 Jun 2023
10 Jun 2023

In the slopes overlooking downtown Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, gun-toting gangs reign over vast stretches of neighbourhoods, overseeing the local drug trade, demanding extortion fees from businesses and enforcing rules about who comes and goes on their turf.

Now, such gangs, which employ up to 14,000 people, have declared that they are ready to give it all up. On June 2, after nine months of secret meetings with officials, 16 gang leaders — imprisoned at a maximum security prison outside of Medellin — announced that they would officially begin dialogues with the government to discuss their disarmament and reintegration into society.

“We want to start down a different path: one of peace, of forgiveness and of reconciliation,” said Sebastian Murillo, a spokesperson for the gangs and a jailed leader of La Oficina, a drug-trafficking group originally founded as part of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.

Since the 1980s, Colombia has pursued talks with the politically motivated rebel and paramilitary groups that have fuelled a nearly six-decade-long conflict in the countryside. But for the first time, Colombia is now using a similar approach to dismantle urban gangs, seeking to end criminal rule in the cities.

More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/10/colombian-gang-leaders-announce-talks-to-address-urban-violence