The peace negotiations between Gustavo Petro’s government and the ELN are going through what we can call a deep crisis, to say the least.
The detonator that ignited this crisis was the infamous killing of nine soldiers by the ELN, who were not fighting the guerrillas but sleeping after their usual duties of tending to the Caño Limón pipeline , which transported crude oil from the wells found in the department of Arauca to the maritime export facilities in the department of Sucre.
But aside from this episode that rocked public opinion this week, there are of course many other factors clouding the future of negotiations with this armed group. Negotiations resumed in the Petro administration after a four-year hiatus during the Duque government.
Above all, the government seems to have a weak and soft attitude towards this armed guerrilla, one of the last surviving in Latin America. The agenda itself – or the agenda to be developed during the negotiations – agreed in the second round of negotiations and finalized a few days ago in Mexico City has been criticized by many observers.
They consider it vague and above all written in such a way that it seems to give the ELN the possibility to negotiate a real model change of the economic and social structure in Colombia (if it is ever possible to sign a peace agreements with this guerrilla). Also, the agenda is not clear on how and when the ELN will be demobilized and arms delivered once negotiations are complete.
President Santos has always said in negotiations with this armed group he leads that there are “red lines” that cannot be crossed at any time. And one of those red lines was Colombia’s constitution and economic model, which is largely enshrined in the 1991 policy letter.
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The current administration has said the opposite: that there will be no red lines in these peace talks and that there will be no taboo topics. In fact, President Petro himself reiterated a few days ago at a meeting with Antioquian businessmen and leaders grouped in “pro-Antioquia” that he is ready to negotiate the “Colombian economic model”. And that Juan Manuel Santos made a mistake in rejecting this alternative when he declared that there was an impassable red line around the “economic model”.
This, of course, has caused confusion in Colombia.
A staffer from El País reported a few days ago that during the discussion of the agenda in Mexico, the ELN had spoken out against the expression “welfare state of law” in the text of the agenda, which is exactly what the constitution calls the organization the entire Colombian institutional framework. But the government delegation finally accepted this imposition on the guerrilla group. Bad premonition.
Another serious reason for the disagreement with the ELN: that this group does not recognize the obligation to respect international humanitarian law even before the signing of a ceasefire and hostilities.
The ELN forgets that since the Geneva Protocols, agreed in 1949 when World War II ended, it was enshrined (Protocols Two and Three) that any armed group, from the moment it is formed, is to be associated with a legitimate government to negotiate, the right has a duty to respect international humanitarian law, ie not to mistreat or terrorize non-combatant civilian populations.
The ELN does not respect this postulate and one of its leaders, Antonio García, recently said on Twitter – one word more, one word less – that this armed group can do anything until a bilateral ceasefire agreement is signed. Which of course is unacceptable. And also well-founded rejection by public opinion and Colombian civil society, which is increasingly distanced and hostile to the ELN.
What’s next? The priority, of course, is the early signing of a ceasefire and hostilities, so that the negotiations, which continue on the motley agenda, can at least proceed calmly and civilly.
In the last few hours it has been insisted that when the new round of negotiations starts next month in Havana (because it should be known that these negotiations move from headquarters to headquarters like gypsy tents: they have already been to Caracas, then Mexico, and now go it onward to Cuba), the first thing the ELN government should say with all the letters is this: NO other agenda item will be negotiated until implemented, properly monitored and monitored with the appropriate protocols, a solid and credible ceasefire.
That ceasefire and hostilities do not exist today, nor have they existed since the beginning of the Petro administration, although the Colombian President announced on December 31, 2022 that they were ready. The ELN immediately responded with a bucket of cold water and reiterated that they had not agreed a ceasefire with that government.
Following the killing of the nine soldiers in Catatumbo last Wednesday, the Petro government called an emergency meeting with its entire negotiating team on Friday, where the grand conclusion was to ask the ELN: Are you doing it with facts? like the murder of these young soldiers in the Catatumbo region, do they think they are showing peace or do they just want to get strong at the negotiating table? Now the ELN has the floor.
* Leader of the government team in the peace negotiations with the ELN during the Juan Manuel Santos government.
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