Colombia’s foreign minister and peace commissioner traveled to Cuba on Thursday to meet with ELN guerrillas over a possible resumption of suspended peace talks.
Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva additionally met with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez to talk about the possibility to continue negotiations on the Caribbean island.
Leyva and Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda were accompanied by coalition Senator Ivan Cepeda, a long-time victims representative and peace advocate.
Colombia’s 2017 peace talks with ELN | Fact sheet
Praise for Cuban government
Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva (Image: Foreign Ministry)
Following his meeting with Rodriguez, Leyva said that “we hope to resume the talks with the ELN on this land of peace in order to begin walking the road proposed by President [Gustavo] Petro to achieve total peace” in Colombia.
Leyva praised the Cuban government’s “uninterrupted” support for peace talks between leftist guerrilla groups and the government.
Cuba began hosting peace talks between the former government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the ELN in 2018 after hosting successful peace talks with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC between 2012 and 2016.
Leyva condemned a 2021 decision by the government of former US President Donald Trump to designate the island’s communist government as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
According to the foreign minister, the Trump administration falsely denied the Cuban government’s “commitment to peace in Colombia and the world.”
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Secret talks with guerrilla leaders
Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda Screenshot: Twitter)
While Leyva met with his Cuban counterpart in public, Rueda and Cepeda met with ELN leaders in secret, according to newspaper El Espectador.
Neither the ELN nor the government representatives confirmed the meeting.
Without referring to the guerrillas, Cepeda tweeted on Thursday evening that “we will achieve Total Peace.”
In Colombia, the hope to end war and violence through dialogue is reborn. With patience, rigorous work and perseverance we will achieve Total Peace.
Senator Ivan Cepeda
The ELN’s negotiators have been staying in Cuba after former President Ivan Duque suspended the peace talks and refused to guarantee the guerrilla commanders’ return to Colombia in 2018.
One of the guerrillas’ negotiators, “Antonio Garcia,” stressed earlier this week that the ELN has always maintained the will to negotiate an end to the group’s decades-long insurgency.
Garcia stressed, however, that Petro’s “Total Peace” concept “is a false peace if it is reduced to only the absence of an armed confrontation.”
According to the rebel leader, “treating social conflicts the wrong way will continue to lead us to armed uprisings.”
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Duque suspended the peace talks after his predecessor had already come to a number of partial agreements that were part of an agenda that was agreed with the ELN ahead of the talks.
The ELN has sustained that these agreements continued to stand and has added that the guerrillas were willing to renegotiate points on the agenda to advance the talks.
Petro, who took office on Sunday, has been consistent in claiming that he wants to continue Santos’ peace talks.
The president has yet to confirm his commitment to the agenda agreed by his predecessor and the ELN.
The talks between Santos and the guerrillas bogged down when the two parties reached the point about “citizen participation,” which would allow community organizations to make demands.
