Prosecutor General Luz Adriana Camargo revoked the suspension of the arrest warrants against 31 ELN commanders in response to a guerrilla offensive in northeast Colombia.
In a post on social media platform X, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that the chief prosecutor revoked the suspensions that had been granted in 2022 and 2023 to facilitate peace talks with the national government.
President Gustavo Petro suspended attempts to revive these talks earlier this week amid an offensive in the Catatumbo region that left at least 80 people dead and 36,000 people displaced.
Among the suspensions are those of ELN commander-in-chief Eliecer Herlinto Chamorro, a.k.a. “Antonio Garcia,” and the guerrillas’ chief negotiator, Pablo Beltran.
The prosecution also reactivated the search warrant against Gregorio Manuel Perez, the commander of the ELN’s Northeastern War Front who has been leading the Catatumbo offensive.
Petro suspended the peace talks with the ELN in September over ongoing guerrilla violence targeting the security forces and civilians along the Venezuelan border.
Government and ELN negotiators have since been trying to revive the negotiations, but to no avail.
The talks with the guerrilla group were first initiated by former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2017, but were suspended on multiple occasions in response to guerrilla attacks.
The ELN has been fighting the State since the 1960’s and has assumed control over rural regions in the aftermath of a peace deal with the now-defunct guerrilla group FARC that was signed in 2016.
Colombia’s military estimates that the guerrilla organization has more than 6,000 members.