Jorge Enrique Botero

Correspondent

The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, July 11, 2024, p. 26

Bogotá. To the soundtrack of the attacks on Vice President Francia Márquez’s outpost, which occurred yesterday afternoon in Timba, in southwestern Colombia, Salvatore Mancuso, the most bloodthirsty former paramilitary leader of the counterinsurgency war of the 1980s and 1990s, regained his freedom after serving a 15-year sentence in the United States and spending the last four months in La Picota prison in this capital.

As Mancuso set foot on the streets, two trucks belonging to the vice president’s security detail received bursts of assault rifle fire that pierced the front of the vehicles.

Police spokesmen for the metropolitan police in Cali, the capital city closest to the site of the attack, said no one was injured and clarified that the senior official was not in the convoy. This time we have no facts to regret, but I reiterate my enormous concern for the department of Cauca and for the permanent tension that my people are experiencing every day throughout the region.the vice president, whose father was the victim of a similar attack on June 16, commented on X.

With more than 4 thousand charges for criminal actions, Mancuso will be able to begin working as a public prosecutor today. peace managera position that President Gustavo Petro offered him with the intention – he argued – that the country would become fully aware of the humanitarian tragedy that it experienced for more than 30 years, when President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) launched the policy of democratic security.

Conservatives are worried

Since Mancuso’s return to Colombia was announced last year, the most conservative political forces, as well as regional bosses and quite a few businessmen, have expressed their concern about what the man to whom they entrusted much of the dirty work for his country might say. put an end to the guerrillas: massacres of thousands of peasants, forced displacement of millions of people and selective killings.

In fact, Mancuso has already revealed details of his meetings with Uribe, then governor of Antioquia, to plan the scorched earth strategy that would then be implemented with the complicity of the military forces and the indolence of the municipal and judicial authorities.

Mancuso’s release also coincides with President Petro’s trip to New York, who will present to the United Nations Security Council a stark assessment of the implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2016 by the State and the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

According to the head of state, after the signing of the peace agreement, the governments of Juan Manuel Santos (2014-2018) and Iván Duque (2018-2022) sabotaged its implementation, paving the way with legal obstacles and institutional obstacles.

With Mancuso speaking across the country, in front of the most diverse audiences – local analysts believe – a great step could be taken in the process of healing the enormous wounds left by the gunpowder years, even when traditional forces strive to delegitimize the messenger under the premise that You can’t believe such a criminal.