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A clash between the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the Central General Staff (EMC), the most powerful dissidence of the FARC, left nine people dead and five injured this Monday in the Colombian department of Arauca (4). The deaths include that of a 14yearold indigenous teenager.
Governor Wilinton Rodríguez confirmed in a video the involvement of the two armed groups in the incident, but gave no information about who the victims were or whether the dead were guerrillas or civilians from the region. The bodies and survivors were found by military personnel in the municipality of Puerto Rondón, near the border with Venezuela.
While the battle was taking place, ELN negotiators were concluding the fourth round of peace talks with the Colombian government about 600 km away, in Caracas.
“We have reached new agreements that bring us much closer to the peace everyone wants,” said Colombian executive representative Otty Patiño at the end of the round of negotiations in the Venezuelan capital. Guerrilla leader Pablo Beltrán, in turn, appealed for perseverance “on the path to a peaceful solution to the conflict.”
The socalled Caracas Agreement, which emerged from this cycle of talks with the ELN, “sets out the principles and approaches with which we hope to reach an end.” [das hostilidades] “fulfills its humanitarian purpose,” says the document read out at the event in Venezuela.
“We have highlighted some critical areas,” Beltrán said. “This is where most of the clashes with communities occurred.” The panel declared the Bajo Calima and San Juan regions in the Cauca Valley (whose capital is Cali in the east of the country) to be conflict hotspots and critical zones. There are proposals in the negotiation to define further regions in this way.
“Humanitarian actions and dynamics are expected there, guarantees of compliance with the bilateral, national and temporary ceasefire, the participation of communities in the peace process and social development projects monitored by the National Planning Department,” the text added, emphasizing that delegations these will visit areas “in the coming weeks”.
The “total peace” plan to disarm guerrilla groups in Colombia was one of the key campaign proposals for the presidency of Gustavo Petro, the country’s first elected leftwing leader. Shortly after he took office last year, the government resumed contact with the guerrillas.
On December 31, Petro declared a bilateral ceasefire with the guerrillas. Days later, however, leaders denied the deal, saying the measure was onesided, even though contacts between the parties had already taken place for months.
In the case of the ELN, negotiations were suspended in 2019 by former President Iván Duque after an attack on a police school that left 22 dead and dozens of public holidays in Bogotá. The government and guerrillas agreed to a new pause in hostilities in June in an agreement reached in Cuba.
The back and forth of rounds of talks, ceasefires and episodes of violence are a thorn in the side of Petro, who has now been in power for a year, although recent events show obvious progress, as is the case with the round that concluded this Monday the ELN.
Another development was the announcement of a ceasefire agreed between the Colombian government and the EMC, the very group involved in the confrontation with the ELN this Monday. The group was formed by members who disagreed with the peace agreement signed between the FARC and the Colombian state in 2016 during the administration of Juan Manuel Santos.
The ceasefire with the group was suspended in May after four young people from an indigenous community were murdered in southern Colombia. This Saturday (2) the government and the guerrillas announced the resumption of the ceasefire and the convening of a first negotiating table for the next 17th.