Gustavo Petro has spent half his life delivering a peace speech, having been a young and short-sighted guerrilla fighter who believed in the armed struggle for power more as a dream than an attainable goal. A few months ago he was convinced that he could transfer this transformation he was experiencing to the leaders of the ELN, men with the manners of seminarians who have survived decades hidden in the depths of the jungle. However, negotiations with them are so difficult that right now they are jeopardizing what Petro has called total peace, absolute non-violence in Colombia. An agreement to stop killing each other is in the air.
The President wanted the dialogue to move forward quickly, so he announced a truce for New Year’s Eve, which actually didn’t exist. It was neither a confusion nor a misunderstanding. He believed, and people who work closely with him have told this newspaper, that the guerrillas would have no choice but to announce the ceasefire and would abide by it. It was a bold move, a move that suited his personality but was also risky. It went wrong. It took the ELN three days to reject him and make it clear that no one would enforce agreements removed from the negotiating table. Since then, Petro has eagerly awaited the ceasefire while the ELN remains impassive, convinced it would be suicide to let their guard down amid the war they are waging in their territories.
But after Wednesday’s dawn attack that killed nine soldiers and wounded eight, a discussion on the issue cannot be postponed. This was announced by the government’s chief negotiator, Otty Patiño, who is giving top priority to calling for a ceasefire and hostilities at the emergency meeting Petro called for Monday after the attack. In any case, the ELN sees things differently, emergencies are not their thing. Commander Pablo Beltrán has said that this agreement means staying like a statue and that puts them in jeopardy. Beltrán believes that the Colombian armed forces are in cahoots with the other armed groups with which the territory is disputed, the Clan del Golfo and other paramilitary-descended armies.
The matter is crucial because without an agreement with the ELN there is no real peace worthwhile, everything collapses. A deal with this guerrilla, who has sat down for talks unsuccessfully with six other presidents, is the foundation upon which the rest must be built, the first stone of the church. The conditions are unbeatable for the ELN, which faces a left-wing government with which it shares many postulates. I’ve never had an opportunity like this before.” At that negotiating table are people like Patiño, a former M-19 guerrilla fighter, or María José Pizarro, daughter of the leader of these guerrillas who was assassinated in the middle of the presidential campaign in the 1990s. People who came to the left along similar paths.
This was not the first crisis to arise in the negotiations. The first came about because of the ceasefire that Petro fabricated out of thin air, and the second because of some tweets from the President comparing the guerrillas to the drug dealer Pablo Escobar. There was a third of less depth, a mini-crisis that was settled with a meeting between the parties, following an interview that Pablo Beltrán gave to this newspaper. He referred to the government’s negotiators in very harsh terms, although when asked why this should be the last negotiation after six failures, he gave an enthusiastic statement: “What’s new is that we have a progressive government that is pushed through his peace-making program. He agrees that peace is an emergency for the country and the only thing that makes us viable as a nation. We are partners in this matter.”
This factor has not yet been decisive, it has not managed to give a boost. It’s about a lot. Petro longs for the truce and the ELN delays it. Until then, there may be massacres like those of the military, to which the army will certainly respond with an offensive. In short, more dead.
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