Former paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso has let Colombian President Gustavo Petro know in a letter that his «commitment» to achieving a definitive peace in the country remains «intact» and therefore asks to meet with him.
«If we had the capacity and ways to wage such a frenetic and heartbreaking war, we also have the capacity, ways and experience to help stop it,» writes Mancuso in a letter that has been echoed by the media.
Thus, who was one of the most bloodthirsty armed men of the internal conflict in Colombia, has assured Petro that he shares with him «that in any case the truth has to come first» and in that sense, he has emphasized that during the process of demobilization of the paramilitary self-defense groups he always complied with that maxim.
«I am ready to start a conversation with you (…) to materialize that shared will and to integrate a pacified and more humane Colombia to the new generations», Mancuso has told President Petro, to whom he has also asked to be recognized as an agent of peace during the negotiation.
In the document, Mancuso has highlighted that as part of his path to offer «truth» throughout this process he has received threats to his security and that of his family. «What I have had to say I have said at the cost of my security and that of my family, and as an account of where I am and the revenge and persecution to which we have been subjected,» he said.
Mancuso, imprisoned in a US jail for drug trafficking offenses, has tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to apply to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a judicial mechanism that emerged after the 2016 peace accords with the now-defunct FARC guerrillas.
«Triple Zero,» as he was known during his years leading the paramilitaries, is confident that he can be accepted by the SJP as a civilian third party if he can prove the alleged links that these armed groups maintained with agents of the security forces and the army at different stages of the armed conflict.
Fearful of extradition to Colombia once he serves his sentence in the United States, he has two open judicial proceedings for his responsibility in more than 600 homicides, the forced displacement of nearly 1,000 people and more than thirty forced disappearances.
He himself has acknowledged his involvement in at least 300 murders, including the El Aro massacre, which resulted in a 40-year prison sentence that he never served for joining the Justice and Peace Law mechanism promoted by former president Alvaro Uribe to demobilize the paramilitaries.
