Colombia: army general accused of links to drug gang disqualified

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A high-ranking Colombian army commander was removed from his post. His alleged alliance with a drug trafficking gang to confront FARC dissidents in the country’s southwest is being investigated.

“General Jorge Herrera Díaz is removed from his post, as it is in the institution’s interest to contribute to the clarification of the facts,” the military authority indicated in a bulletin. “The uniformed officer was the commander of the army’s sixth division with jurisdiction in the country’s south.”

The decision comes after the scandal unleashed by a journalistic publication that splashed the high command over the weekend.

The digital media Cambio and the TV news Noticias Uno revealed audios of a conversation between Herrera and his subordinates in July 2019. The commander explains what appears to be an alliance with the drug gang Los Pocillos.

The journalistic publication assures that in that meeting, they discussed the army’s agreements with Los Pocillos.

The army asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the general and “the military personnel who may have participated in the meeting mentioned above, since it was their obligation, at the time, to denounce these alleged illicit activities,” according to the bulletin.

Colombia is experiencing an intense armed conflict that has pitted guerrillas, paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and state agents against each other for more than half a century. The violence has reportedly left more than nine million victims.

According to the journalistic investigation, Herrera faced dissidents of the former FARC guerrilla under the command of “Gentil Duarte”, one of the most wanted men in the country.

The historic peace agreement disarmed some 13,000 rebels of what was once the most powerful guerrilla group on the continent. Still, several fronts known today as dissidents that operate without a unified command remained active.

Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer, a source of financing for illegal armed groups.