NewsLatin AmericaPeace process with the ELN: what are the points on the agenda and how will the negotiations be in the Government of Gustavo Petro

Peace process with the ELN: what are the points on the agenda and how will the negotiations be in the Government of Gustavo Petro

Pablo Beltran, of the ELN, shakes hands with Danilo Rueda, Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, during talks at the Humboldt Hotel in Caracas, Venezuela, on November 21, 2022.Ariana Cubillos (AP)

The National Liberation Army (ELN), the last armed guerrilla in Colombia, has once again sat down at a talks table in search of a peace agreement, for the first time with a left-wing government, that of Gustavo Petro. The negotiating teams of both parties installed on Monday, November 21, on the Avila hill, on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela, the resumption of the “political dialogue” that they had begun in March 2016, in the period of Juan Manuel Santos (2010- 2018), and had been suspended in January 2019, during the Administration of Ivan Duque (2018-2022), after a car bomb attack against a cadet school in Bogota that left 23 dead.

When did the peace process start?

The government of Juan Manuel Santos agreed to a negotiation agenda with the ELN, which was also disclosed in Caracas, in March 2016. Postponed by a tug of war over the kidnapping issue, the public phase of the talks only began beginning of 2017 in an old tobacco farm on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador. At that time, it started with the premise that the work sessions could also take place in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile or Cuba – in addition to having Norway as a guarantor country. At the end of Santos’ term, the table moved to Havana, Cuba – which had already hosted the negotiations that led to the peace agreement with the FARC.

Ivan Duque – a critic of the agreement with the FARC – inherited the negotiation with the ELN, but terminated it when he had been in power for a semester after the attack against a cadet school in Bogota that caused 23 deaths, in January 2019. The break brought diplomatic repercussions for Havana. Duque ignored the protocols signed by the parties –including the guarantor countries–, which he left the ELN delegation that was in Cuba in limbo. The island refused to extradite them, protected by the protocols. When the Government of Donald Trump in the United States designated Cuba as a “State sponsor of terrorism” in January 2021, he justified his decision based on Duque’s claims.

The nascent Petro government proposed to resume the talks, from the point at which they were suspended, as soon as it came to power. “We start from what already exists, from what has already been agreed, we are not inventing anything,” said the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda.

What is the negotiating agenda?

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The original agenda deals with six somewhat abstract points, which will serve as a starting point:

  1. Participation of society in the construction of peace
  2. democracy for peace
  3. transformations for peace
  4. victims
  5. End of the armed conflict
  6. Implementation

read about The keys to the negotiation agenda with the ELN in Colombia

Which are the guarantor countries?

The negotiation began with Cuba, Norway and Venezuela as guarantor countries. As part of its first agreements, the dialogue table invited Brazil, Chile and Mexico to join the status of guarantor countries, while Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain will accompany the process. The parties also contemplate that the United States could have a special envoy to the table.

What are the venues for negotiations with the ELN?

The reinstatement of the dialogues became official on Monday, November 21, at a hotel on top of Cerro Avila, in the vicinity of Caracas. But Venezuela, one of the guarantor countries, is just the starting point, not a permanent headquarters. Talks are expected to take place in other guarantor countries as well. In the process with the Government of Santos, a rotating seat between several Latin American countries was already contemplated, and that scenario is once again open now that the region is experiencing a wave of progressive governments.

Who are the negotiators?

The head of the government delegation is Otty Patino, a former M-19 guerrilla, the same group that President Petro was a member of in his youth. He is accompanied by other figures close to the president, such as senators Ivan Cepeda and Maria Jose Pizarro, but also representatives of right-wing sectors, such as the cattle leader Jose Felix Lafaurie, or of the military, such as retired colonel Alvaro Matallana and Admiral Orlando Romero. . The ELN delegation is headed by old acquaintances such as Pablo Beltran, Aureliano Carbonell and Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista (Gabino).

read about Who is who in the peace negotiations with the ELN

When was the ELN born?

The National Liberation Army was born in 1964 inspired by the Cuban revolution and marked by a deep religious influence. Several of its founders – trade unionists, students and peasants – were trained on the Caribbean island. Very soon they were joined by the Colombian priest Camilo Torres (1929-1966), who died in one of the first combats. The priest Torres, along with three other Spanish priests who were exponents of Liberation Theology who later followed in his footsteps, sealed the confluence between Christianity and Marxism that has characterized the Guevarist group. Among them, Manuel Perez (Alfamen, Zaragoza, 1943), who came to command the ELN until his death from natural causes in 1998.

What is the ELN doing today?

The ELN has some 2,350 combatants and a presence in regions such as the departments of Norte de Santander and Arauca, on the border with Venezuela, in the northeast of Colombia, as well as in Narino and Choco, in the west, near the Pacific fringe. In recent years it has strengthened militarily, it has expanded and its presence on the Venezuelan side of the border is documented. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have denounced that the Venezuelan security forces have been their accomplices, to the point of carrying out “joint operations” with the ELN. That is why the role of Venezuela emerges as a key factor in any negotiation.

What was the first peace agreement in Colombia?

Different Colombian governments have negotiated with various armed actors in search of reaching peace agreements. The first major peace agreement between a guerrilla group and the Colombian State was signed on March 9, 1990 in Caloto, Cauca, with the M-19. The M-19 Democratic Alliance, the political movement that emerged from the guerrillas that had just laid down their arms, played a leading role in the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1991 political charter.

The other major peace agreement with a guerrilla was signed with the FARC on November 24, 2016. The disarmament of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, today converted into a political party with representation in Congress, left the ELN as the last armed guerrillas in the country.

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