Colombia announces support for Paraguay in the fight against the Paraguayan People’s Army EEP

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombia will support Paraguay with intelligence information and military training in the fight against the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) guerrillas, President Iván Duque announced Sunday (Apr. 24, 2022) during a meeting with his counterpart Mario Abdo.

Bogotá will support Asunción to “succeed in wiping out this misnamed Paraguayan Popular Army, which is a terrorist group that has caused great damage,” Duque said in the Caribbean city of Cartagena.

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The conservative leader offered Abdo “intelligence and counterintelligence teams” and military “training schools” to fight the rebel group, which calls itself Marxist-Leninist. Duque praised the fact that during his tenure, more people than ever before have been captured and killed by this clandestine organization, which operates near the Brazilian border.

The EPP is a radical leftist group that has been blamed for kidnappings of cattle ranchers and hundreds of murders of soldiers, police and civilians. Documents found by Paraguayan authorities in 2010 revealed their ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which were demobilized thanks to the 2016 peace agreement that Duque is critical of.

In addition to reaffirming their “full support” in the fight against “organized crime,” Duque and Abdo talked about renewable energy and alliances between companies in both countries. “What we have sown today, what we have begun (…) will allow the future of Paraguay and Colombia to always be embraced,” responded Abdo, who was awarded the Cross of Boyacá, the country’s highest honorary award, by his counterpart.

The Colombian Armed Forces, which for six decades have been involved in an armed conflict that has victimized more than nine million people, most of them displaced, have a long experience in the fight against subversion.