This meeting which took place on 19/09/2022 preceded Petro’s declaration of the

FARC dissident’s willingness to a bilateral ceasefire:

The Government of Gustavo Petro and the FARC guerrilla dissidents had an
"exploratory meeting" to "assess the possibility of starting dialogues", which could
include a bilateral ceasefire.
This is one of the “total peace” strategies, an initiative by President Petro to negotiate
with the illegal groups that are still active in Colombia.
A delegation from the Government of Colombia and another from the "central staff" of
the FARC dissidents met in the department of Caquetá, located in the south of the
country, in order to analyze a possible start of peace talks with dissidents from the
FARC, FARC members that did not accept the Havana agreement in 2016.
Through a statement signed by the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, the
number two of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, Raúl Rosende, four dissidents
and a delegate from the Government of Norway, the parties claimed to be "ready and
need for these dialogues to be set by a bilateral ceasefire, the execution of which must
be verified".
"A central issue is the response of the Government in total peace to the substantial
binding citizen demands and the rights that must be guaranteed to transition to the
Social and Environmental State of Law," the joint statement added.
"Total peace" is the ambitious proposal of President Gustavo Petro, with which he seeks
to start dialogues and seek agreements for demobilization or delivery to justice with
groups outside the law of various types that operate in the country.
According to a recent report by the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace
(Indepaz), 20 groups currently hope to benefit from Petro's peace project.
Among those interested are traditional guerrillas such as the National Liberation Army
(ELN), dissidents of the former FARC guerrillas, such as the Second Marquetalia, led
by Iván Márquez, who abandoned the process, and also organized crime groups
dedicated to drug trafficking, such as Los Caparros, Los Costeños, Los Pachelly and
Los Shotas.
“The Petro government has shown that it is risking all the political capital it has to
promote what it has called total peace. Those dissident groups must enter there,” said
Daniela Garzón of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation in an interview for France
24.
The agreement seeks that those who take part in the process are not subjected to
ordinary justice, but rather that a special entity be created, as was done at the time with
the FARC.
Image of a dissident guerrilla poster of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) warning of a minefield in Catatumbo, department of Norte de Santander,
Colombia, taken on August 20, 2022. The Catatumbo region is home to the largest area
of illegal coca leaf crops used to make cocaine in the world, making it a hub for
organized crime.
The central staff of the dissidents said that for groups outside the law, "total peace"
means "the eradication of the causes that generate social and armed conflict" and asked
that the first step be an official declaration, together with a "bilateral ceasefire agreed by
the parties, thus avoiding more pain in the Colombian family".
Despite Gustavo Petro's intentions to seek peace, in July of this year the largest number
of attacks on the security forces in Colombia in the last 20 years was recorded,
registering 90 attacks in a single month, as reported by the Resource Center for Conflict
Analysis (Cerac).
A few days ago, Petro passed to Congress the modifications of the Public Order Law in
order to have a roadmap to advance the negotiations.
So far, the ELN has expressed its intentions to hold peace talks.
On August 20, the Colombian president announced the suspension of the arrest and
extradition orders against the ELN guerrilla negotiators, who have been in Cuba for
several years, without progress of any kind in the negotiation. The purpose is to resume
the peace talks with said group, which were previously suspended in 2018, when Iván
Duque assumed his position as president.
In pursuit of this objective, Gustavo Petro has designated Venezuela as the guarantor
country in the eventual negotiation that opens with the ELN and Nicolás Maduro
accepted the proposal.
With the suspension of the arrest warrants, Petro assured that he is seeking to "try to
build the path, hopefully quickly and expeditiously, where this organization ceases to be
an insurgent guerrilla in Colombia."

https://www.france24.com/es/am%C3%A9rica-latina/20220919-en-busca-de-la-paz-
total-gobierno-colombiano-se-re%C3%BAne-con-disidencias-de-las-farc