The plenary sessions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of Colombia have ratified on Thursday the reform of the law of public order that gives legal framework to the ‘total peace’ and allows the Colombian government to dialogue with armed groups.
After being approved in four debates and its subsequent conciliation, the initiative will pass to presidential sanction to become law, as detailed by ‘El Colombiano’.
With this law, the Colombian government acquires the power to negotiate or demobilize armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) or dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, proposed during his electoral campaign for the Presidency to implement a ‘total peace’ that would promote the beginning of peace dialogues with armed and political organizations and end «the bloodbath» to which the country has been subjected for more than 50 years, as reported by ‘El Tiempo’.
However, once the law is sanctioned, peace talks with the ELN guerrilla will begin and it will be known who will be the representatives of the National Government at the dialogue table, which began during the Executive of Juan Manuel Santos, although they stalled in the administration of Iván Duque, among other things, after the attack on the General Santander Police School in which 22 soldiers were killed.
