Colombia and ELN guerrillas resume negotiations

Cuba, Venezuela and Norway are taking part in the negotiations as guarantors. The Catholic Church and UN representatives should accompany the process.

Peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN guerrilla organization are taking place at the Humboldt Hotel in a national park near Caracas, Venezuela.

Rayner Pena R/EPO

(dpa)

After a break of almost four years, Colombia’s government and the guerrilla organization ELN have resumed their peace talks in Caracas. After the many deaths in the decades-long conflict, life is at the heart of the dialogue, said Colombia’s peace officer Danilo Rueda at the opening ceremony on Monday. The main task is reconciliation, said ELN delegation leader Israel Ramírez Pineda, aka “Pablo Beltrán”.

The new leftist President Gustavo Petro, an ex-guerrilla of the M-19 group, restarted the peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) after taking office in August. The previous government of conservative President Iván Duque broke off peace talks in 2019 after an ELN bomb attack on a police academy in Bogotá that killed 22 people.

Cuba, Venezuela and Norway are taking part in the negotiations as guarantors. The Catholic Church and UN representatives should accompany the process. The negotiating parties want to meet at different locations in the future. The first session was in a hotel in a national park near the Venezuelan capital.

For 52 years, Colombia suffered from a civil war between left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and the military. 220,000 people died and millions were displaced. After the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the largest rebel group, FARC, the security situation initially improved. However, many fighters have now gone underground again and joined criminal gangs. The Marxist-Leninist ELN has around 5,000 fighters.

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