The Colombian government and the South American country’s largest remaining guerrilla group resumed peace talks on Monday, breaking a four-year hiatus during which the rebels have expanded the territory where they operate.
Venezuela, whose government resumed diplomatic relations with Colombia only a few months ago, hosted the representatives of the National Liberation Army and the government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The discussions in Caracas are more than a month after the rebels and Petro’s government announced the resumption of negotiations.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The delegates in a joint declaration said that they had gathered to restart political dialogue “with full political and ethical will, as demanded by the people of rural and urban territories that suffer from violence and exclusion, and other sectors of society.”
They added that they are willing to “build peace based on a democracy with justice.”
The National Liberation Army, commonly referred to by its Spanish acronym, ELN, was founded in the 1960s by students, union leaders and priests inspired by Cuba’s revolution. The group is believed to have about 4,000 fighters in Colombia and is also present in Venezuela, where it runs illegal gold mines and drug trafficking routes.
The organization became Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla group after a 2016 peace agreement disbanded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.
Since the deal was signed, the ELN has increased its activities in territories formerly under FARC control.
The group is known for staging kidnappings for ransom and attacks on oil infrastructure, and has been listed as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU.
Previous negotiations, some going back to the 1990s, have failed.
Petro — a former rebel himself — is resuming the negotiations as part of a larger peace effort in which his administration is approaching armed groups, drug gangs and FARC dissidents.
This is a significant reversal of strategy.
Former Colombian president Ivan Duque suspended talks with the ELN after the rebels refused to stop attacking military targets.
Israel Ramirez Pineda, an ELN leader, said in a statement that the group in this negotiating effort aims to produce “fundamental changes” as demanded by the Colombian people during massive demonstrations last year and in polls this year by electing Petro.
“Colombians cannot see each other as enemies, the work we have is reconciliation,” Ramirez Pineda said. “We hope that the government’s delegation will have an interlocutor in the same sense.”
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