His face masked, the 30-year-old who goes only by an alias received AFP in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta -- the highest coastal mountain range on Earth, in Colombia's north, where his organization operates.

Dressed in military fatigues and holding a long gun at his side, Camilo said his Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada or ACSN, created in 2020, "seeks to move forward with peace talks" initiated by President Gustavo Petro.

Petro is Colombia's first-ever leftist president and a former urban guerrilla who came to power with the stated mission of finally bringing "total peace" to conflict-ridden Colombia.

On December 31, Petro declared a six-month ceasefire with five of the country's armed groups, which include leftist guerrillas and dissidents, rightwing paramilitaries and criminal cartels -- all enemies of one another and of the military.

The pact with only two of those still stands, including with the ACSN, which Camilo said has about 1,100 fighters.

Camilo said the ACSN was "committed to President Petro's 'total peace.'"

But for the negotiations to be successful, he said the government would have to lift arrest warrants against ACSN commanders.

Bogota has not committed to any such concession.

- 'Sustainable work' -

Any peace deal must also "provide social and sustainable work for the regions where we operate," the paramilitary leader told AFP.

NGOs sat the ACSN has engaged in a spree of terror in the Sierra Nevada region, populated largely by Indigenous people and declared a biosphere reserve by the UN.

His fighters are wanted for crimes against local people, including extortion and violence.

But Camilo, who says he was a soldier in the Colombian military for 12 years, insists the ACSN is working for the good of local communities and in their defense -- its fighters drawn from their ranks.

The region has long been coveted by criminal groups for growing marijuana or coca, the raw material of cocaine.

Camilo said the ACSN would also want the government to recognize it as a political group, citing the social work he said it has carried out in the Sierra Nevada -- building roads and schools in an area where the state is not present.

"I don't think there's a single fighter who has taken up arms with us who doesn't want to work legally for communities after the peace process," he told AFP.

He added: "Our desire is to continue to work in our communities, where we were born, where we grew up... but now legally."

Ironically, given that they come from the extreme opposites of Colombia's political spectrum, Camilo is full of praise for Petro and hopeful that this time a real peace can take hold after decades of fighting.

"I think that Gustavo Petro is a world leader, a world leader of peace, and that right now he is the most qualified person in Colombia, thanks to his political career, to really achieve total peace," he said.