Colombia on Wednesday suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) after blaming the rebel group for an attack that killed two soldiers and injured more than 20.
“Today the dialogue process is suspended,” the government’s peace delegation said in a statement. “Its viability is severely damaged, and its continuity can only be recovered with an unequivocal manifestation of the ELN’s will for peace.”
This is the most serious crisis during peace negotiations with the ELN since November 2022 and after Colombian President Gustavo Petro took power, launching talks with the group and others like it under a policy known as “total peace.”
Photo: AFP
The ELN last month ended a ceasefire with the Colombian government, but was still involved in peace talks aimed at ending more than five decades of conflict.
The army on Tuesday said that the group fired homemade rockets from a cargo truck that had been parked near a base in Puerto Jordan, a small town in Arauca Province.
The rebel group has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
The ELN was founded in the 1960s by union leaders and university students inspired by the Cuban Revolution. The group has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Colombia and Venezuela. It finances itself through drug trafficking and illegal gold mines.
Recently the ELN has been spreading into rural areas abandoned by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the large rebel group that made a peace deal with Colombia’s government in 2016.
The attack on Tuesday killed two soldiers and wounded 26, Colombian Minister of Defense Ivan Velasquez said in a report.
Most of the wounded were airlifted to a military hospital in the capital, Bogota, where Petro visited them on Wednesday.
A hospital medical report said that 13 remained hospitalized in “stable condition,” most with soft tissue injuries, while five were in an intensive care unit.
Authorities announced on Wednesday a reward of up to US$23,700 for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the attack.
They also confirmed a reward of up to US$948,000 for the main leaders of the ELN.
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