“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, the National 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 supplies from northern Colombia.
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, including an ambulance and a hearse, 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.
– Rope around the neck –
“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 regarding 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 to 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 once morest the cartel, accusing it of secretly stoking acts of vandalism by illegal miners, who have been protesting in the region since early March once morest the destruction by the army. dredging machines used to extract gold from 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.
– Triangle des Bermudes –
“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 once morest the government, but ended in the taking hostage of the population”, deplores this source.
“People mightn’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 cut down by the protesters were cleared and 10,000 soldiers and police deployed in the region, according to the Ministry of Defense.
But “the road remains under the control of the Clan del Golfo”, judges the local journalist, also recalling the presence, more marginal, of the guerrillas of the Guévarist ELN on this same axis, baptized sinisterly a few years ago the “Bermuda triangle “because of the missing and kidnapped often found dead in the nearby river.
“For years, armed groups have burned vehicles on the road to show their presence. The practice had ceased for almost a year”, details the same source.
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 followingnoon.
“But we are still idling,” says Andres, owner of a Resto-Motel, next to a gas station. “For three days, + they + have 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.
