First change: 19.11.2022 – 14:53
The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) will resume peace talks from Monday in the Venezuelan capital after a nearly four-year hiatus, the parties said on Twitter. Norway and Cuba will act as guarantors of the process.
Negotiations with the country’s last recognized guerrilla were halted by conservative President Iván Duque (2018-2022) after rebels attacked a police academy with a car bomb in January 2019. The attack left 22 casualties in addition to the attacker.
With the arrival of Gustavo Petro’s left-wing government in August, the parties drew rapprochement again and had expected the table to resume earlier this month, though with no indication of where.
“We have the main expectation in this resumption of dialogues, that this armed conflict of more than 50 years between the insurgents of the well-known National Liberation Army and the Colombian State will be overcome, and that this conflict will be overcome, of course , it will be mediated by an agreement that has been met by the parties,” Luis Emil Sanabria, founder of the Colombian organization Redepaz, told RFI.
So far, the government and the insurgents have not disclosed the full list of negotiators, although Petro has already named rancher leader and opponent of his government, José Félix Lafaurie, as part of his delegation.
The installation of this dialogue table in Caracas was possible after Colombia and Venezuela resumed relations following Petro’s arrival at the Casa de Nariño. Norway and Cuba will be the guarantee countries of the process.
try again
Founded in 1964 by unionists and students sympathetic to Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, the ELN has a strong presence along the 2,200-kilometer border between the two countries.
The parties did not agree on a ceasefire, instead agreeing in October to “continue all agreements and progress achieved since the Agenda was signed” on March 30, 2016.
The last five Colombian presidents have held unsuccessful negotiations with the ELN, which official estimates have increased from 1,800 to 2,500 members after talks with Duque stalled.
The energy infrastructure and the transnational corporations in Colombia are their main “military targets”. It is also engaged in a bloody territorial dispute with dissidents from the peace pact that disarmed FARC guerrillas in 2017 and with drug trafficking groups of paramilitary origin.
Antonio García, the ELN’s supreme commander, pointed out in October that the way to find peace is to attack “the causes” of the “armed conflict, namely inequality, lack of democracy and injustice”.
The negotiations are part of a policy of “total peace” with which the new government wants to end the almost six-decade conflict in Colombia.