Colombian Attorney General Luz Camargo temporarily suspended arrest warrants for nine members of the illegal armed group Second Marquetalia Thursday in an effort to aid ongoing peace talks.

Camargo has this power under Resolution 65 of 2024, which emphasizes:

According to Article 2.1.6.3. of Decree number 1081 of 2015 the Attorney General of the Nation, acting as the competent authority, shall immediately suspend arrest warrants issued or to be issued against representative members of illegal armed organizations engaged in dialogues, negotiations, or peace agreements, for the strict term requested by the national Government.

The government is able to carry out two types of negotiation processes with illegal armed groups, according to Law 2272 of 2022, promoted by President Gustavo Petro:

(i) Negotiations with organized armed groups outside the law engaged in political dialogues to establish peace agreements. (ii) Approaches and discussions with organized armed groups or structured criminal organizations involved in high-impact crime, aiming to achieve their submission to justice and dismantlement.

The internal armed conflict in Columbia has persisted for almost six decades and has killed at least 260,000 people despite the peace agreement that was signed in 2016. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) indicated that “against the backdrop of the pandemic, the humanitarian consequences of armed conflict worsened, as did violence against civilians in some parts of Colombia. Many communities experienced greater levels of fear as their exposure to risk increased.”

The prosecution clarified that although the arrest warrants were temporarily suspended, the ongoing investigations would continue without interruption.