The peace talks between the Colombian government and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), frozen for four years, will restart next Monday in Caracas, official sources reported this Friday.
“The dialogue table will restart next Monday, November 21 in the afternoon in the city of Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the office of the High Commissioner for Peace of Colombia said in a statement.
#Attention announcement about dialogues with the ELN. pic.twitter.com/JM9foM0Sm7
– High Commissioner for Peace (@ComisionadoPaz) November 19, 2022
The document, which bears the signatures of the high commissioner, Danilo Rueda, and the head of the ELN delegation, Pablo Beltrán, adds: “The parties are aware of the deep desire of the Colombian people, society and the nation to advance in a peace process and full construction of democracy”.
The public phase of the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the ELN began in February 2017 in Quito, during the government of then-President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), and in May of that same they were transferred to Havana, where the latest round of talks concluded without progress in early August 2018.
The talks have been suspended since then due to the demand made to the ELN by President Iván Duque, Santos’s successor, to release all the hostages in his power and renounce all criminal activity.
From the National Livestock Congress, the president @petrogustavo proposes to the president of Fedegan, José Félix Lafaurie, that he be part of the delegation in the peace talks with the ELN.
— Iván Cepeda Castro (@IvanCepedaCast) November 18, 2022
The situation worsened after the attack perpetrated on January 17, 2019 by the ELN with a car bomb at the General Francisco de Paula Santander Police School in Bogotá, in which 22 cadets died, including an Ecuadorian woman.
However, everything changed this year because Gustavo Petro, who succeeded Duque as President, has as a priority the resumption of talks with the ELN, framed in his policy of “total peace.”
To this end, the ELN peace delegation, which had been in Havana for four years, moved to Caracas a few weeks ago where on October 4 they announced their intention to resume talks with Cuba, Norway and Venezuela as guarantor countries.
Spain and Chile will be accompanying countries of the peace process in Colombia
In this direction, Petro asked on Thursday the leader of the country’s cattle ranchers union, José Félix Lafaurie, to be part of the government’s negotiating commission in the talks. Lafaurie, who is one of the most bitter enemies of the guerrilla, accepted the invitation from Petro, who also confirmed that the former M-19 guerrilla Otty Patiño will lead, on behalf of the Government, the talks with that guerrilla.
In addition, the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office also issued a resolution on Thursday suspending the arrest and extradition orders against 17 members of the ELN so that they can act as representatives in the negotiations.
Efe/OnCuba.
