Antonio García, commander of the National Liberation Army, criticized the government of Iván Duque for not continuing the negotiations with the guerrillas that had been ongoing since the government of Juan Manuel Santos.
Through his Twitter account, Eliécer Chamorro, alias Anton GarciaCommander-in-Chief of National Liberation Army (ELN)replied the President Gustav Petro about your trading intentions.
“Considering the peace dialogues, it is important to say that the ELN has never set any conditions for dialogue or for finding a political solution to the armed conflict in Colombia,” the guerrilla leader wrote on the social network.
He later criticized the government of Iván Duque for not continuing negotiations with the guerrillas that had been ongoing since the government of Juan Manuel Santos.
“But it was Duke who defaulted. The talks were not broken off because the ELN was conducting military action, as the military and police forces had conducted hundreds of military actions against the ELN,” he wrote.
And then he expressed his willingness to continue negotiations but “to consider how to proceed with what has been agreed”:
“Now we have to examine how we can continue to take what was agreed into account. There is no problem.”
That’s something to remember Petro announced that he will resume the process that was carried out with the guerrillas THEN in Cuba, based on the recognition of the protocols, leading to a diplomatic crisis with that country under the administration of former President Iván Duque.
The statement was made during his first bilateral meeting after taking office with Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who expressed his willingness to continue his cooperation as a guarantor country for negotiations with the ELN. In this sense, the Colombian President indicated that the government would make efforts to revive the process, which was officially canceled in 2019.
The President reported on the process that started in the Santos government, which reached an agreement with the FARC guerrillas and the exploratory phase with the ELN began in parallel until March 2016, when the talks that began their phase began in the year was formalized in 2017.
The process reached its sixth cycle of talks in 2018 and even agreed a bilateral ceasefire. A stay was then put in place to await the arrival of the new government of President Iván Duque, who never named delegates to resume talks. Only in 2019, after the attack by this armed group on the General Santander cadet school in Bogotá, which killed 23 people, did it decide to end the negotiations.
Duque reactivated the Interpol circulars against the delegates of the THENwho were in Cuba at the time and applied for extradition to Colombia. The island government as guarantor refused to comply with the request due to the protocols signed at the beginning of the negotiations and that it gave negotiators the opportunity to return to the country if negotiations failed.
“The revival of the protocols, their recognition implies this and we call on the countries that were guarantors then to continue to be guarantors. There may be others, among these countries were Norway, Cuba, Venezuela, Chile and Brazil. Today we should ask all these governments, if they want, if they want, to continue to be guarantors of the process that is being restarted. We have received confirmations from the countries that are now at peace with Colombia,” the President said of a possible peace process with the ELN.
He also pointed out that it will depend on these countries, their attitudes and the rapprochements with the other side, where the peace talks will take place, which he intends to resume. Just as he questioned the work of former President Duque, who ran into a diplomatic crisis with the Havana government over the protocols.
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Petro would continue negotiations with the Clan del Golfo that the Santos government started