BOGOTA, Colombia
\nColombia\u2019s government has agreed to a six-month ceasefire with the five largest armed groups operating in the country, President Gustavo Petro announced on New Year\u2019s Eve.
\nPetro, the country\u2019s first left-wing president, has pledged to end the Andean nation\u2019s internal conflict, which has run for almost six decades killing at least 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.
\n\u201cThis is a bold act,\u201d Petro wrote on Twitter. \u201cThe bilateral ceasefire obliges the armed organisations and the state to respect it. There will be a national and international verification mechanism.\u201d
\nAmong the groups are the leftist armed group the National Liberation Army (ELN) as well as dissident groups run by former members of the now-demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Segunda Marquetalia and Estado Mayor Central.
\nThe truce was the main objective of Petro\u2019s \u201ctotal peace\u201d policy aimed at ending the country\u2019s armed conflict, which has persisted despite the dissolution of FARC in 2017.
\nThe armed groups still operating in Colombia, the world\u2019s largest cocaine producer, are locked in deadly disputes over drug trafficking revenues and other illegal businesses, according to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), an independent think-tank.
\nDespite the government\u2019s efforts to negotiate with Colombia\u2019s various armed groups, which include a combined total of more than 10,000 fighters, it has so far failed to contain the spiral of violence engulfing the country. Indepaz recorded nearly 100 massacres last year.
\nThe ELN, the last recognised rebel group in the country, has been negotiating with the government since November.
\nThe Segunda Marquetalia and Estado Mayor Central groups \u2013 splinter factions of FARC which broke from the 2016 peace pact \u2013 have held separate talks with the government.
\nAGC, the country\u2019s largest drug gang, is made up of the remnants of extreme right-wing paramilitaries that demobilised in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOGOTA, Colombia Colombia\u2019s government has agreed to a six-month ceasefire with the five largest armed groups operating in the country, President Gustavo Petro announced on New Year\u2019s Eve. Petro, the country\u2019s first left-wing president, has pledged to end the Andean nation\u2019s internal conflict, which has run for almost six decades killing at least 450,000 people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-304894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n