Colombia’s longest-living guerrilla group ELN said that peace talks with the government were suspended for the remainder of April.
In a post on social media platform X, the ELN’s peace negotiators said that “a demobilization operation in Nariño put the peace talks in a paused state.”
The rebel negotiators referred to negotiations between the authorities and ELN commander Gabriel Yepes of the Comuneros del Sur unit that operates in the southwestern province.
Yepes reportedly contacted the Peace Commissioner’s Office in August last year to negotiate the possible demobilization of his unit without the involvement of the ELN’s formal negotiators.
During the month of March, the government’s decisions continued with the double handling of the peace process with the ELN, in which it attends this Dialogue Table, while underneath it it promotes the demobilization in Nariño, conduct contrary to the fair play and good faith that should characterize the peace talks.
ELN
The ELN statement was published ahead of a meeting between the two peace delegations in the Venezuelan capital Caracas.
According to the guerrillas, their negotiators traveled to Caracas to listen to their statist counterparts and “clarify what follows.”
The ELN’s top commander, “Antonio Garcia,” said last month that the talks with the Nariño guerrillas is a “show” that seeks to present his guerrilla organization as divided.
The peace talks with the ELN are the most advanced of multiple government attempts to negotiate an end to armed conflict with the illegal armed groups that are active in the country.
The government has also been negotiating with illegal armed groups that were formed by dissidents to peace process with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC and the now-defunct paramilitary organization AGC.
On top of that, government emissaries have been negotiating the demobilization of urban gangs in the cities of Medellin, Buenaventura and Quibdo.
