The Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) is a federation of dissident fronts of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) that decided not to embrace the peace process signed in 2016 between that guerrilla group and the Colombian government.
The EMC has significant armed power that allows it to maintain control of different criminal rents across the country. Depending on the region and the associated front, revenues vary, but its criminal portfolio is mainly based on drug trafficking revenues in the south of the country, illegal mining, and extortion.
Since its creation, it has expanded throughout Colombia and has also expanded its presence into Venezuela.
History
The EMC was born in the midst of peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba, between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016. Through a communiqué issued that year, the First Front “Armando Ríos” announced that it would continue underground. The leader of the First Front, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco,” had at least 400 members under his command and control of drug trafficking routes in the Colombian departments of Guaviare, Guainía and Vaupés.
In response to Mordisco’s defection, FARC commander Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias “Timochenko,” and other commanders decided to send Miguel Botache Santillana, alias “Gentil Duarte,” a guerrilla with more than 30 years of experience and great political leadership, to Colombia to reestablish discipline in the First Front.
However, Gentil Duarte also betrayed the Peace Accords and left the process with $1.35 million and several members of the Seventh Front who joined the Mordisco structure.
Already in hiding, Mordisco and Duarte sent emissaries to different regions of Colombia to convince other commanders to join their dissident project. The strategy was effective. In April 2017, the faction issued a communiqué in which they claimed to be the continuation of the FARC signed by nine dissident fronts, a mobile column, and seven urban militias.
In the years following its creation, the EMC began a process of expansion into Venezuela. Thanks to the support of fronts with a historical presence in that country, such as the 10th Front and part of the 33rd Front, the EMC consolidated its presence on the Colombia-Venezuela border.
The EMC enjoyed its power on the border until 2019, when Luciano Marin Arango, alias “Ivan Marquez,” the FARC’s second-in-command, announced the creation of the Second Marquetalia, another group composed of former FARC fighters, which also proclaimed itself the successor to the guerrilla project.
The Second Marquetalia tried to incorporate into its structure different fronts that were part of the EMC network. However, the EMC labeled them as traitors and they became enemies. The rivalry between both groups of ex-FARC mafia was evident in the border territory between Apure, Venezuela, and Arauca, Colombia.
The disputes between the two structures, plus pressure from the security forces in Colombia and Venezuela, also resulted in the death of several of the EMC’s most important commanders, among them Gentil Duarte, and caused the withdrawal of its members to Colombia.
With the arrival of Gustavo Petro to the presidency in 2022, the EMC began peace negotiations with the government in the context of its “Total Peace” policy. Although Ivan Mordisco is still considered the top leader of the EMC, differences have arisen between the commanders of the attached fronts regarding the negotiations. This, after Petro decided to suspend the ceasefire agreement in Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Nariño, in response to an attack perpetrated by a faction of the group in Cauca, which killed an indigenous leader.
Leadership
Nestor Gregorio Vera Fernandez, alias “Ivan Mordisco,” is the leader of the EMC. Until 2016, he was the commander of the FARC’s First Front, and today, thanks to his more than 20 years of experience within the FARC, he is one of the main criminal actors in southern Colombia.
Second in importance is Alexander Diaz Mendoza, alias “Calarca,” a former commander of the FARC’s 40th Front. Calarcá has decades of guerrilla experience. Today he appears to manage drug trafficking and command the dissidents of the Jorge Briceño Front in the departments of Meta, Caqueta and Putumayo.
Other important leaders are Ivan Jacobo Arredondo, alias “Marlon Vazquez,” commander of the Western Bloc Commander Jacobo Arenas, who reportedly leads 10 structures in western Colombia; Javier Alonso Velosa, alias “Jhon Mechas,” commander of the 33rd Front, present in Norte de Santander; and Omar Pardo Galeano, alias “Antonio Medina,” leader of the 28th Front and the 10th Front.
The EMC is currently made up of four national blocs, grouping a total of 24 substructures or fronts.
Allies and Enemies
The EMC’s main rival is the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN). Although the EMC has reached agreements with the guerrillas in some parts of the country, such as southern Bolivar, these pacts are unstable. The ELN confronted the 10th Front in Arauca and Apure and the 33rd Front in Norte de Santander, Colombia.
Another enemy of the EMC is the Segunda Marquetalia and allied dissident structures. In Putumayo and Caqueta, in southern Colombia, the Carolina Ramirez Front, under the umbrella of the EMC, is fighting the Comandos de la Frontera, allied to the Segunda Marquetalia, for control of one of the most important drug trafficking enclaves in the country.
On the other hand, before his death, Gentil Duarte established alliances with Brazilian and Mexican cartels to supply them with cocaine shipments.
Geography
The dissident factions that respond to the EMC have a presence in the south, east and west of Colombia. The main strongholds of this dissidence are the departments of Guaviare, Meta, Caquetá, Vaupés and Guainía. From there the structure has expanded to Amazonas, on the border with Brazil and Peru; Putumayo, on the border with Ecuador; Casanare, Arauca and Norte de Santander, on the border with Venezuela.
It also has a presence in the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño, in the west of the country, on the Pacific coast.
Thanks to the presence they have established in the Colombian departments that share a border with Venezuela, the EMC’s territorial influence has expanded into that country. Following disputes with the ELN, it is unclear whether they still maintain a presence in the Venezuelan states of Apure and Zulia.
Prospects
Due to its rapid growth, territorial control and use of violence, the EMC became the main ex-FARC mafia organization in Colombia.
Although the EMC embraced the “Total Peace” policy of President Gustavo Petro’s government, only a fraction of its component fronts remain at the negotiating table.
While a partial ceasefire agreement has halted operations by the Colombian armed forces against this group in some regions of the country, it has not stopped clashes with other rival criminal groups.
The EMC’s intentions with the Total Peace proposal are unclear. Given their history with the 2016 Peace Accords, it is possible that at least part of the network may not want to hand over their weapons and continue in hiding.
This scenario became more feasible after in March 2024, Petro suspended the ceasefire with the EMC in the departments of Cauca, Nariño and Valle del Cauca. This caused tensions within the EMC, with some blocs advocating for continued dialogue and others unwilling to participate until a nationwide ceasefire is re-established.