00:00There is still a long way to go before things return to normal in Santa Marta. The armed strike ordered by
00:06The self-defense forces conquering the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, ACSN, also known
00:12Like the Pachenka, it ended last Friday at 7 a.m., just as the organization
00:17He decided it. It's dramatic and illustrates the scale of the problem, that the return
00:24The return to normality, rightly celebrated by the authorities of Santa Marta, has been announced
00:29by the ACSN and not by the State. For three days, that criminal structure managed
00:36to paralyze Santa Marta, capital of Magdalena, a city of about 600,000 inhabitants and one
00:42of the country's main tourist destinations. It was the immediate response to alias Cholo,
00:49Identified as the second-in-command and financier of the ACSN, he was killed in an operation
00:55from the police. At the beginning of the month, alias Bendito Menor, from the same organization, was also arrested.
01:03The blows dealt to these bosses and the capture of their henchmen are important and demonstrate the
01:08capabilities of our public force when it receives support for its operations from the head
01:14of the State. Alias Pinocchio, the top leader of that organization, confirmed through his
01:21lawyers who are willing to negotiate their surrender. However, this week's strike
01:27evidence that the criminal governance of ACSNs is far from losing strength.
01:35After the death of Bendito Menor, alias Cholo, he took the reins. Given the latter's dismissal,
01:41The organization almost immediately carried out this armed strike, and alias [name missing] was at the head.
01:47I'm being taken aback. That is to say, the blow has undoubtedly been significant, but it won't necessarily produce
01:54a proportional weakening of a structure with agile organizational capacity.
02:01The government gave a show of force. President Abelardo de la Espriella again
02:07He walked among corpses, ordered the militarization of the region, and moved to Santa Marta, where he toured
02:13Some neighborhoods were under lockdown with a pistol on their hip, while CAFIC planes flew overhead.
02:20Magdalena. At first glance, it's easy to criticize those images of spectacle, but they can also be
02:27understood as a response to criminality that, in turn, uses social media to
02:33to show off, intimidate, and recruit young people in a context of weak state presence. That's how
02:40Bendito Menor did this on his Instagram account, which reached more than 90,000 followers.
02:46Although the ACSNs are geographically localized and are not the largest criminal organization in
02:52country, its presence in the Sierra Nevada and in the Magdalena has been consolidated for almost 40 years.
02:58Its origin is linked to the Tayrona Resistance bloc of the AUC, which demobilized in 2006 and was led
03:06Hernán Giraldo, who was extradited two years later, left behind a network of relatives and close friends.
03:13who inherited a large part of that structure. They reorganized and in 2019 adopted the name of
03:19Self-defense groups conquered the Sierra Nevada. They participated during Gustavo Petro's four-year term.
03:26in the negotiations for total peace without reaching any agreement. In those decades a was consolidated
03:33Strong territorial governance and parallel criminal and security systems. Various investigations
03:40They have described a criminal governance structure that coexists with state authority and in certain
03:47territories it competes with. In addition, the ACSNs control hegemonic routes of
03:55drug trafficking and extortion, which generates enough income to sustain men, weapons, and networks of
04:03Information. The State has the obligation to prosecute those who use violence and subjugate
04:09the communities. And operations against those primarily responsible are necessary. That said,
04:16always within the law. But he still faces the task of regaining authority.
04:24territorial. This requires dismantling the economic, social, and political networks that during
04:30Decades have allowed crime to become a form of government. If you disagree with
04:37For this editorial, send your 500-word counter-editorial to elespectadoropinion.gmail.com.
