Caracas – Colombia’s government and a delegation from the National Liberation Army (ELN) leftist guerrillas announced on Tuesday they would next month restart peace talks suspended since 2019.
Speaking in Caracas, ELN commander Antonio Garcia said the two parties would re-establish the dialogue process “after the first week of November,” with Venezuela, Cuba and Norway acting as guarantors for the talks.
Dialogue started in 2016 under ex-president Juan Manuel Santos, who signed a peace treaty with the larger Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group that subsequently lay down its weapons and created a political party.
But those were called off in 2019 by conservative then-president Ivan Duque following a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota that left 22 people dead.
Colombia and ELN Rebels to Restart Peace Talks | https://t.co/QrNTewFm9M https://t.co/rb6xEgmc6y
— Leonardo Feldman (@LeoFeldmanNEWS) October 5, 2022
President Gustavo Petro, who in August became Colombia’s first ever leftist leader, has vowed to take a less bellicose approach to seeking an end to the violence wrought by armed groups, including both leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.
Reaching out to the ELN was part of his “total peace” policy.
Colombia has suffered more than half a century of armed conflict between the state and various groups of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers.
Garcia said, “The causes that provoked the armed conflict, which are inequality, the lack of democracy, inequity, must be confronted” for peace talks to succeed.
The resumption of talks will kickstart the “agreements and progress made since the signing of the (peace) agenda on March 30, 2016,” he said.
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Talks will be hosted by Venezuela, Cuba and Norway on a rotating basis.
Garcia said Spain and Chile had also offered to be guarantors, but that “for now, we will maintain the structure… that was agreed upon.”
The ELN peace talks delegation spent four years based in Cuba, as they had been barred from returning to Colombia by the previous government.
They left Cuba for Venezuela on October 2 to begin the new talks promised by Petro, himself a former urban guerrilla.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly commends” Colombia’s decision to resume peace talks, “whose resolution is critical for expanding the scope of peace in the country,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Guterres also said the United Nations was ready to assist the talks as required, according to Dujarric.
Last recognized guerrillas
The ELN is the last recognized rebel group operating in Colombia, although FARC dissidents that refused to sign the 2016 peace deal remain active.
The ELN has around 2,500 members, some 700 more than it did when negotiations were broken off.
It is mostly active in the Pacific region and along the 2 200-kilometre (1 370 miles) border with Venezuela.
The largest FARC dissident splinter group said last month they were prepared to halt attacks against security forces to help ceasefire talks.
Duque had accused Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro of harboring rebels across the border.
Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia in 2019 after Duque refused to recognize Maduro’s reelection the year before in a vote widely condemned as a sham by the international community.
But since Petro came to power, he has reestablished diplomatic ties with Venezuela, allowing the Maduro government to help facilitate peace talks with the ELN.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pixabay/Jorono
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