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Rodrigo Londoño, also known as Timochenko, leader of the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (FARC) party began a tour of the re-incorporation zones established through the peace accords signed in Havana in 2016.
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According to FARC Senator Carlos Antonio Lozada, Londoño’s visit has been organized to address the fact that former leaders of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have been leaving these zones.
The United Nations Verification Commission in Colombia confirmed Thursday that six former FARC leaders abandoned the reincorporation zones they were in, “failing to fulfill” the peace accords.
The U.N. announced the former guerrilla fighters left approximately 1,500 former combatants stranded and without a known destination.
Lozada stressed that the government has failed to implement the peace accords generating judicial insecurity and lack of socioeconomic opportunities for reincorporation.
Ivan Marquez, chief negotiator of the peace accords who had gained a seat in the Senate as a result of the accords did not take his seat in the Senate in July as a form of protest arguing there were no judicial guarantees for the demobilized guerrillas as demonstrated by the detention and possible extradition of FARC member Jesus Santrich.
For weeks, Marquez and other important FARC figures such as Hernan Velasquez, alias "El Paisa," and Henry Castellanos, alias "Romaña" have not appeared in public and their whereabouts remain unknown.
The government fears they might have joined dissident groups, but the FARC argues the crisis in the implementation of the peace process is behind their absences. Since the peace accords were signed over 60 former FARC members and hundreds of social leaders have been murdered.
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