The dissidents of the Farc would be seeking to cover the limits of Huila and Tolima by the sector of the Opita municipality of Villavieja. Some tourist guides, transporters and residents have indicated that in the Cucará sector they saw a group of armed people. “He has no information on the presence of irregular armed groups in the sector, but we are going to carry out intelligence and judicial police verifications,” said the commander of the Police in Huila, Colonel Gustavo Adolfo Camargo.
Rafael Rodríguez C.
The presumed presence of Farc dissidents in the rural area of the Huilense municipality of Villavieja, on the border with Tolima, set off the alarms in the authorities of both departments.
And it is that despite the fact that security organizations state that there is no presence in the area of illegal armed groups, strategies are already being designed to stop their entry into the limits of ‘Tolima Grande’.
“It seeks to increase military intelligence activities that allow supporting actions to prosecute criminal structures in rural and neighboring areas,” said the Secretary of the Government of Tolima, Javier Triana Parra.
The official’s statement came at the end of the technical security roundtable that took place at the end of last week in Villavieja, the cradle of the La Tatacoa desert, and in which delegates from the Army’s Sixth Brigade with headquarters also participated in the city of Ibagué.
For Huila, the Secretary of Government, Tania Peñafiel, was at the security meeting; the police commander, Gustavo Adolfo Camargo, and officers from the Army’s Ninth Brigade. “It was possible to obtain important advances in the security strategy in the border area. We are committed to continue working in a coordinated manner and strengthen security in this strategic area for the country’s development,” said the official.
Another of the conclusions of the technical table was the joint work of the security organizations in the analysis of criminal news to clarify the criminal acts. “We are going to analyze the criminal news, strengthen the investigative part of the cases that have been presented and make a more extensive presence with the Army and the Police,” said Colonel Camargo.
Spokesmen of the Sixth Brigade of the Army, pointed out that they will work together with the Ninth Brigade of the Army, to curb the presence of the dissidents of the Farc ‘Dagoberto Ramos’ and the ‘Dario Gutiérrez’ front, “who seek to recover those mobility corridors between Huíla and Tolima”.
Presence of armed men
At the time that the authorities advanced the technical table, to analyze the security of the region, inhabitants manifested about the presence, apparently, of Farc dissidents in the Cucará sector, via the Fortalecillas corregimiento in Neiva.
Some tour guides, transporters and residents pointed out that last week there were armed people, so they have restricted their exits at night.
In this regard, Colonel Gustado Adolfo Camargo stated that the Police are not aware of the presence of dissident groups in the Villavieja area. “We do not have information on the presence of irregular armed groups in the sector, but we are going to carry out intelligence and judicial police verifications.”
He added that there was the presence of ‘Ismael Ruiz’ in the northwest of Huila, on the border with Tolima”.
The presence of this group had been denounced in an early alert from the Ombudsman’s Office, on June 30, 2022. “The risk is configured by the presence, consolidation, realignment and transit of two dissident factions of the extinct FARC, attached to the Coordinated Command of the West and the Second Marquetalia”, stated the official document.
It added that the affected population were boys and girls; teenagers; youths; natives; farmers; human rights defenders, leaders and social leaders; people in the reincorporation process; merchants; public servers; ethnic government authorities; socially stigmatized population.
The early warning indicated that the behaviors displayed by the dissidents were “recruitment, use and use of children and adolescents, forced disappearance, forced displacement, extortion, massacre, sexual violence, threats, regulations on mobility, imposition of standards of conduct and patterns of behavior and selective homicide, among others”.
It should be remembered that the dissidents, the ‘Jorge Suárez Briceño’ block, under the command of ‘Cipriano Cortés’, would be making a presence with the ‘Darío Gutiérrez’ front, in the municipalities of Tello, Baraya, Colombia and the rural area of western Neiva, with the purpose of resuming the Meta-Huila-Caquetá mobility corridor.
