Colombia’s new government and members of the country’s last guerrilla group have taken steps to resume peace talks, which were suspended in Cuba three years ago.
Newly elected President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, has promised to bring about “total peace” in Colombia and this week sent a high-level delegation to Cuba to meet with representatives of the National Liberation Army (ELN). meeting.
After a meeting between officials from both sides in Havana, Colombia’s national peace commissioner Danilo Rueda said Friday the government would take the necessary “judicial and political steps” to facilitate peace talks with the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN.
He said this included the lifting of arrest warrants for ELN negotiators who are currently in exile in Cuba.
“We believe that the ELN has the same desire for peace as the Colombian government,” Rueda said in his statement. “And hope they will listen to the many voices in different areas seeking a peaceful resolution to this armed conflict.”
Peace talks between the former Colombian government and the ELN ended in 2019 after rebels detonated a car bomb at a police academy in Bogotá, killing more than 20 cadets.
Following this incident, the Colombian authorities issued arrest warrants for ELN leaders in Cuba for the peace talks. But Cuba refused to extradite them, arguing that doing so would jeopardize its status as a neutral nation in the conflict and would break diplomatic protocols.
The United States responded by adding Cuba to its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Petro said he wants to start peace talks with the country’s remaining armed groups to reduce violence in rural areas and bring lasting peace to the nation of 50 million.
A 2016 peace deal between the government and the country’s largest guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, helped reduce kidnappings, killings and forced evictions.
However, violence has increased in some parts of the country as FARC dissidents, drug trafficking groups and the ELN fight over cocaine smuggling routes, illegal mines and other resources abandoned by the FARC.
In July, criminal groups carried out nearly 90 attacks on police and military forces, killing 13 police officers, according to Cerac, a think tank that monitors violence in Colombia. It was one of the most dangerous months for the Colombian armed forces in the past two decades.
Established in 1964, the ELN has long been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department. The group has an estimated 2,500 fighters in Colombia and also operates drug trafficking routes, extortion rackets and illegal mines in neighboring Venezuela.