2023-11-26 05:01:00
The Peace delegation of the Government of Colombia announced that dialogues with the National Liberation Army (ELN) will resume starting next Thursday, November 30 in Mexico City, after the crisis generated after the kidnapping of the father of the Liverpool footballer Luis Diaz.
“We will dedicate our efforts to overcoming the crisis that the dialogue process is currently going through, generated by the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz. We appreciate the commitment of the Government of Mexico and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the construction of peace in Colombia,” expressed the government delegation in a statement collected by Telesur.
The meeting, which was originally scheduled for early November, had to be postponed twice, the last due to the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz, father of soccer player Luis Díaz. The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, assured a few days ago from the United States that the Government has clear requests in the new cycle of talks with the ELN. “We must establish a path of complete improvement, these are steps that must be taken deeper and firmer,” he indicated. “Yes, the ELN really has a vocation for peace, which I hope is the case, because it will know that there are some steps that have already arrived. There is a moment that has already arrived and that moment is to overcome the armed struggle,” he stressed.
The dialogue
The ELN was born in 1964, inspired by the Cuban revolution, and until 2012 the Colombian Government had only achieved exploratory meetings. The management of Juan Manuel Santos managed to set up a dialogue table for the first time and agree on an agenda, but the arrival of Iván Duque in 2018 paralyzed everything. However, on November 21 of last year, the Petro Government and the ELN held the first round of talks in Caracas in search of advancing a peace process. “During four years of the previous Government, no additional steps were taken, now in one year we have not only resumed the table, but we have reached 15 agreements,” said Colombian senator and negotiator with the ELN Iván Cepeda, in dialogue with the agency EFE news.
Among these agreements, in addition to humanitarian relief in some regions hit by the conflict and the beginning to articulate proposals from society so that they are taken into account by both parties, a 180-day bilateral ceasefire was also achieved that began on the 3rd. of August. Beyond small complaints, everything seemed to be working well until the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz became known on October 28, and a few days later the Government delegation denounced that he was in the hands of the ELN, which released him 10 days later. “As in any process, there are hard, difficult moments and now we are in one of them because we have a critical controversy with the ELN over the kidnapping,” Cepeda remarked.
The guerrilla recognized that it was a mistake and criticized itself, although it insisted that it was not a violation of the ceasefire, because according to the commander of that group, Antonio García, “there is no agreement where the ELN has committed to not to carry out financial operations, including deprivation of liberty”. However, the kidnapping of civilians who have nothing to do with the conflict is a violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), according to the Geneva Conventions, and is therefore prohibited by the ceasefire and is a war crime.
Willingness to move forward
The Government’s chief negotiator, Otty Patiño, asked last week for an extraordinary meeting with his ELN counterpart, Pablo Beltrán, but the guerrilla wanted the agenda to continue as planned and for them to meet in Mexico in the fifth ordinary cycle that was underway. delayed until now. They also did not want the kidnapping to be one of the points to be discussed and they did ask to talk about its financing as a structure. “Neither Colombian society nor any government that accompanies this process would be willing to make an investment of resources in financing an organization that would eventually, at any time, resume its military actions,” Cepeda explained.
According to Cepada, the Government does not want to give any ultimatums to the guerrillas and has every will to continue negotiating, but he clarified that it is necessary to address the issue of kidnappings not because they ask for it, but because society in general will demand it. set. “Otherwise the process will erode its credibility, it will erode the possibility of bringing together many sectors of Colombian society and that will make it, at some point, unviable,” the negotiator noted.
For the ELN, the Government wants to talk about the issue of kidnappings so as not to highlight what is happening in the territories, which is a paramilitary advance since the cessation of hostilities began motivated by the ceasefire, they argue. The conclusion, as summarized by both parties, is that the process is complicated, however the Government is very willing to move forward, since getting up from the table, Cepeda said, did not lead to anything in the past. Meanwhile, the ELN welcomes the fact that President Petro’s words are to continue saving the process.
#Colombia #government #resumes #dialogue #ELN #relationship #parties #crisis #due #kidnapping #father #soccer #player