Government Colombian, through the High Commissioner for Peace, assured that he “accompanied the development of the return operation” of the guerrilla delegation of the National Liberation Army (ELN) for the peace talks. The group left this Sunday from Havana to Caracas “with full guarantees”.
“In compliance with his responsibilities, the High Commissioner for Peace, together with the ELN Dialogue Delegation and the guarantor countries, reviewed and applied what was agreed, with today’s hopeful result,” the High Commissioner said in a statement. in which they did not give further details of said “return operation”.
ELN negotiating delegation traveled to Venezuela https://t.co/AA8NoHvLG5
– Iván Cepeda Castro (@IvanCepedaCast) October 3, 2022
Latin Press notes that the delegation thanked the guarantor countries for their accompaniment, for their consistent defense of international legal principles and Cuba for its full hospitality.
The guerrillas, for their part and according to reports from Ephassured in a statement that “with the support of the guarantor countries: the Republic of Cuba, the Kingdom of Norway and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Dialogue Delegation has returned safely and with guarantees.”
The ELN has a strong presence on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, where it has the majority of troops in camps in that jungle area and presence and control of territories on both sides. The transfer, as recalled by the High Commissioner for Peace, is made in compliance “with the application of the protocols agreed between the Colombian State and the National Liberation Army (ELN), as a fundamental step to achieve Total Peace.”
The leadership of the ELN, including its leader, Eliécer Herlinto Chamorro, alias “Antonio García”, and members of the Central Command such as Israel Ramírez, alias “Pablo Beltrán”, have been in Cuba since the beginning of the talks, and their return to the camps of the guerrilla is a step foreseen in the protocols so that this party can reconnect with its ranks in the face of the negotiation.
To this end, one of the first steps taken by the Government of Gustavo Petro when announcing that it wanted to resume the talks was to suspend the arrest and extradition orders against the ELN guerrilla negotiators who were in Cuba so that they could travel.
“The parties involved in this process have the common purpose of achieving the timely reestablishment of the dialogue table with the ELN,” he added. the noticewhere this office stressed that it continues to work “decisively for the timely reestablishment of the dialogue process with the ELN, as a fundamental component of Total Peace with social and environmental justice.”
The dialogues between the Colombian Government and the ELN began in February 2017 in Quito, from where they were transferred to Havana the following year, but were stalled and officially detained in 2019 in the Government of Duque (2018-2022), after an attack of that guerrilla against the police school in Bogotá in January 2019, where 23 people died and nearly a hundred were injured.
The arrival of Gustavo Petro to the Colombian Presidency has caused the reactivation of these conversations. The Government of Colombia and the ELN made their resumption official on August 12 during a visit to Havana by a delegation from the Colombian Executive led by Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva.
Efe/OnCuba.
