Twenty-eight police officers and a soldier owned hostage in southwest Colombia were released on Saturday, according to a team from the France-Pressée agency on the field.
Around noon on Saturday, residents of the Hacienda community in the Cauca department told detainees that they were free to leave.
The men, held since Thursday, collected their anti-riot equipment and left along a dirt road, escorted by residents, saw AFP.
They headed for the neighboring city of El Plaido, where a commission of the Ombudsman office of the State was waiting for them.
Upon his arrival in El Plaado, the caravan stopped in a service station where United Nations officials and a group of around twenty soldiers were stationed.
The 29 men were arrested on Thursday after a day of clashes between residents and the security forces, part of a government military operation aimed at ending drug -related violence in a region with one of the highest concentrations of coca cultures in Colombia.
The government said the officers were detained by a dissident stuffed guerrilla group, the mayor of Estado Central (EMC), for whom the Canon del Micay region is a bastion.
While leaving the Hacienda, Major Nilson Bedoya, the group's soldier, said that throughout the test, he could not help thinking about his family.
“My family, my wife, my son, who is waiting for me at home,” he said in a painful voice, while he was carrying his equipment on his shoulder.
Legitimate force?
In an interview with W Radio earlier on Saturday, the Minister of Defense, Pedro Sanchez, threatened to use “the legitimate force of the state” to release the troops.
Sanchez and other representatives of the left government Gustavo Petro had to meet residents of the departmental capital, Popayan, to listen to local concerns.
The officials said that the Guerillas and the public members had faced on Thursday and overwhelmed the security services that were trying to restore state control in two municipalities.
Government images have shown gangs on a flaming armored vehicle with rocks, and anti-riot police exploded smoke grenades in the middle of a firearm battle.
“Stiven was burned alive,” said one of the men detained, referring to a colleague who had to jump in a water swimming pool to save himself.
Petro accused the EMC of “using the civilian population” to attack the troops.
Removers were a major embarrassment – and a severe challenge – for the government of Colombia, which is struggling with its worst troubles in a decade involving spasms of violence in several parts of the country.
Since October, Bogota has been trying to regain control of the EMC Cauca parts.
The Petro government offers an ambitious culture substitution program to combat the drug trafficking economy, a strategy that the inhabitants have denounced as a campaign of “forced eradication” of Coca cultures.
“There will be no eradication of cultures by force,” said Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, accusing the cartels of having tried to deceive the local population.
“We will continue to work for these lands so that people can have a better future,” said Bedoya, the soldier. “The peasants were sold the idea that we are their enemies, but we are their best allies.”
