Petro appoints former paramilitary commander as ‘peace manager’

President of Colombia, Gustavo Petroannounced this Sunday that he had decided to appoint the former head of paramilitary forces United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) Salvatore Mancuso “peace manager” to complete the peace process he considers incomplete with the paramilitary.

“The peace process between Uribe’s government and the paramilitaries is not yet complete, the whole truth is not yet known, the delivered haciendas were partly lost in the hands of the state, recycled by new groups that inherited the paramilitaries, many bodies of the victims have not yet been found (sic),” Petro announced on his Twitter.

For this reason, “in order to complete the process and achieve complete peace, I decided to call Salvatore Mancuso as a manager of peace,” he asserted.

The AUC, the group that committed the most murders during the armed conflict according to truth commissiondemobilized in 2006 after a negotiation process with Uribe’s government.

As part of the agreement, the former paramilitaries accepted Law on Justice and Peacewhich provided for sentences of up to eight years in prison in exchange for cooperation in solving crimes, but some leaders lost those benefits and many, including Mancuso, ended up being extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges.

There were many other paramilitary units that returned to arms, forming new groups such as Gulf clan.

Mancuso testified in May before JSpecial Competence for Peace (SPE) in a hearing in which he tries to be welcome before this special justice that considers non-custodial sentences in exchange for contributing to the truth.

During the four-day hearing there, he admitted the facts that were known, such as the connection between paramilitaries, politicians and companies, the crimes that were committed, and he also presented information that was not known, such as the existence of missing persons in Venezuela, where the bodies of those killed were taken so that they would not be found.

Petro recognized his work in providing information on atrocities committed by the AUC and is now working to ensure that the former paramilitary commander, who is in jail in Atlanta awaiting extradition to Colombia, can mediate to improve a peace process that the president feels has been mishandled.

His cooperation has already been requested to go to the area of ​​Venezuela where the AUC has allegedly disappeared, but the president believes that he could also help in the negotiation process with the bay clandespite the fact that this new paramilitary group denies that Mancuso has any commanding power.