President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace Under Threat from AGC in Colombia

This article, produced by Henry Shuldiner, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

Photo: “El Mocho” of the AGC is one high-profile arrest by the Colombian police. (Credit: Policía Nacional de Colombia)

One of Colombia’s biggest criminal groups is expanding its reach, threatening to disrupt the government’s peace processes with other armed groups, a recent report found.

The report published by the International Crisis Group in March describes how the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC) has become the largest armed group not currently involved in formal negotiations under the banner of President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace (Paz Total) initiative. The report expressed concern that the AGC could interfere with and even sabotage other groups’ peace dialogues as they expand and fight for strategically valuable territory.

With about 9,000 members, the AGC is the largest group involved in drug trafficking in the country, earning additional income through arms trafficking, illegal mining, migrant smuggling, and extortion in many municipalities throughout Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Petro has managed to start talks with some of the country’s other main criminal groups, including the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) of the ex-FARC mafia. Recently, Petro announced negotiations with the Second Marquetalia (Segunda Marquetalia), another group of FARC dissidents.

Shortly after the report was published, Petro opened the door for a “legal negotiation” with the AGC, which the group publicly accepted under the condition that negotiations are a political process, similar to other groups involved in Paz Total, as opposed to a “sometimiento a la justicia” (submission to justice), which would potentially involve harsher criminal penalties.

InSight Crime spoke with the report’s author, Elizabeth Dickinson, about the potential for peace talks with the AGC as well as some of the report’s main findings:

InSight Crime (IC): Do you think the AGC is genuinely interested in participating in these dialogues?

Elizabeth Dickinson: Yes. The AGC has a disadvantage compared to other groups, as they remain outside ceasefire agreements. For example, in Sur de Bolívar, where the EMC, ELN, and AGC are fighting one another, the military is only targeting the AGC. This strategic constraint on the battlefield is probably their greatest short-term incentive to come to the table.

Two longer-term objectives are also driving the group’s willingness to enter talks. First, there’s a strong desire for legitimacy, which comes with having a seat at the negotiating table with the government. This group fundamentally does not understand why it is the only major armed group in Colombia outside the peace process. And considering the level of control and sophistication they’ve obtained in recent years, the leadership has a chip on its shoulder for not being included in these talks.

The second objective is judicial leniency. Successful peace talks could involve potentially reduced sentences in exchange for providing truthful testimony. Congress will need to establish the specific terms of this arrangement, but this proposition holds particular interest for members of the organization who are interested in finding a way out of this situation of perpetual violence.

The lower-level fighters within the group — young guys aged 18 to 24, who often joined seeking job opportunities — feel that the reality they’ve encountered is not what they anticipated. It is not necessarily a very happy life to live in the ranks of this group, exposed to violence, in difficult environments, and away from home.

That said, some level of noncompliance or criminal interests will continue among the “mandos medios,” the mid-level commanders, who may not have the same incentives to participate in the peace process.

IC: The AGC has perfected the practice of “monetizing territorial control” by profiting off all economic activity, licit and illicit, in areas where they are the dominant actor.  Where is the group trying to expand its control and why? 

Elizabeth Dickinson: If you look at a map, you can understand precisely why they’re expanding where they’re expanding. I would point to three areas.

The first one is the Pacific coast. This group is ambitious to control both coastlines because if one drug trafficking route is down, the other route is open, and there are many different international markets accessible from various routes. They also think this will dramatically increase their political leverage. From their stronghold in Urabá, Antioquia, they have expanded south through Chocó. They are now in Bajo Calima, across the bay from Buenaventura, and they will likely continue into Valle de Cauca, where their expansion is motivated by control of fluvial routes and access to extortion revenues from a very lucrative industrial economy outside of Cali, in Tulua and Buga.

The second focus is mining areas in Bolívar, Antioquia, and Cesar. These are very obviously linked to gold mining, a very attractive product for all armed groups in Colombia, particularly with the market for coca a little bit out of whack. They are systematically pushing the ELN out of its strongholds in mining areas in these places.

The last area of expansion, based on their strategic positioning, seems to be Catatumbo, Norte de Santander, home to the highest concentrations of coca crops, coal mining, palm oil production, and the vast numbers of crossings on the Colombia/Venezuela border. If they were to achieve that, they would dominate the corridor from the Venezuelan border, across the entire Atlantic coast, all the way down to the Pacific coast, an enormous strategic prize.

IC: In the report, you quote one AGC commander saying he envisioned the organization “maintaining its structure and illicit business activities, but just making them less violent.” How is that reconcilable with what the government wants in the long term?

Elizabeth Dickinson: In the short term, all armed groups in Colombia want to continue their armed control and their businesses while reducing violence. Under the previous peace commissioner, the government’s priority was reducing violence and dealing with the territorial control aspect at a later stage.

But if we’re demobilizing a group with as much territorial control as the AGC and as many roots in the economy, the state must be prepared to address the vacuums left behind. And today, that’s simply not possible. In negotiations with the various criminal groups, the planning must start now — from a military perspective, from an institutional perspective, and a services perspective.

IC: The AGC is one of several groups that split off from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC) when the coalition demobilized in 2006. What has made the AGC stronger and more resilient than other groups that emerged from that process, such as the Rastrojos?

Elizabeth Dickinson: To understand their expansion model, it is crucial to comprehend the organization’s structure. It comprises three branches: military, economic, and political. This structure goes down to the street level. In every town in AGC areas, the community can point to the guy who is the political head, the economic head, and so on. Their expansion involves building a social base, where they have a role in community organizations like the Community Action Boards (Juntas de Acción Comunal – JAC), and they control every aspect of the economy, with the threat of violence lingering in the background in case anyone doesn’t comply.

Another important factor was their relationship with the landowners. A portion of the political and economic classes prefer to live with this group rather than risk exposure to unknown actors, like the ELN, the EMC, or criminal organizations. Those landowner networks have been fundamental for this group’s survival because, in moments of economic scarcity, the landowners would step in and front AGC members’ salaries for a month or two while they got back on their feet.

The other thing that is quite different from groups like the Rastrojos or some urban gangs is that the AGC is not urban. This is a fundamentally rural organization. They have strategically chosen not to make cities their priority. This is not an organization inside Barranquilla. They’re sitting on the perimeter, letting the gangs in the city fight it out while they wait for a winner to decide who to work with. Existing mainly in the countryside has helped them avoid scrutiny and security operations.

IC: After the capture of Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias “Otoniel,” in 2021, the group’s new leader, Jobanis de Jesús Ávila Villadiego, alias “Chiquito Malo,” has tightened his grip on the organization, according to the report. How has the group’s structure changed with this change of leadership?

Elizabeth Dickinson: One way this group expanded was through a franchising model, which is still part of the organization’s DNA. At a local level, commanders have autonomy over extortion and low-revenue criminal economies, bringing in money for their specific bloc or front. But the big games like drug trafficking and mining are run by the Estado Mayor (central command).

When Otoniel was captured, there were some questions about whether this organization would even stay together. So Chiquito Malo took an aggressive stance towards consolidation, sending several envoys across the region to negotiate with the different fronts and bring them all on board. He’s also replaced local and mid-level commanders across the region in cases where the envoys were not enough to get them on board with the structure.

IC: The market for coca leaves remains inconsistent throughout Colombia, with prices varying considerably by region. However, the report found prices in AGC territory remained stable. How has the AGC achieved this despite falling prices in areas controlled by other groups? 

Elizabeth Dickinson: There are a few hypotheses. The buyer relationship is the most powerful explanation of what’s happening in the market. The AGC has a consistent buyer relationship with international cartels, principally the Sinaloa Cartel on the Atlantic coast, but also with European organized crime. In a situation of oversupply, like we now have in Colombia, where there is too much coca, it’s a buyer’s market, and the buyers get to choose who they work with. And the AGC has essentially won that buyer’s market.

The AGC has a few advantages that make it the obvious candidate. First, its territories are consolidated. They are the only ones participating in drug trafficking in areas they control. So, when traffickers enter an AGC area to buy coca or organize a shipment, they’re not worried, for example, about which group controls the exit routes that specific day. By contrast, in Nariño, one trafficker might have to pay four different extortion fees because there are so many groups present.

The second advantage they have is transportation. The infrastructure on the Atlantic coast is vastly superior to that in southern Colombia. The Atlantic coast has the Troncal del Caribe highway, significant ports in Barranquilla and Cartagena, and developed fluvial routes.

Third, the AGC has been able to penetrate security forces at a local level — and it’s very much at the local level, not systematic. We are talking about an organization that can buy off specific police and military officials, making them very consistent suppliers.

Fourth, because they’re so successful in the cocaine business, they have tons of capital. If a shipment gets lost, the AGC will guarantee payment to the buyer. This also helps explain why coca prices have been stable because even if the market price has dropped, the AGC has the money to say, we’ll just pay our coca growers slightly more because it will keep us popular in these areas.

This interview has been edited for clarity and fluidity.

This article, produced by Henry Shuldiner, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.