Colombia’s longest living guerrilla group, the ELN, threatened to suspend peace talks with the government.
According to the ELN, the government violated previously made agreements on citizen participation in the talks by organizing a meeting in the southwestern Nariño province without the guerrillas.
If the government insists on holding this meeting without the ELN “the dialogue process would be in crisis as it would violate the reached agreements.”
When such a set-up, disguised as regional dialogues, is made public, the process enters into open crisis and we are obliged to call for consultations with our delegation. Without being our responsibility for what has happened, the dialogues between the ELN and the national government will enter a phase of freezing while the government prepares to comply with what has been agreed.
ELN
Negotiators of the ELN and the government of President Gustavo Petro agreed in June last year to create a “National Participation Committee,” which would be in charge of organizing regional meetings.
How citizens will participate in Colombia’s peace talks
In a response, the Peace Commissioner suggested that the Nariño meeting had been called by local communities.
The national government has clearly defined as one of its priorities the development of peace in the territories. In this sense, it respects and encourages the initiatives led by local leaders to protect the population and bring about social transformations. The conduct and position of ELN fronts and structures in relation to these initiatives do not depend on or are induced by the national government, but correspond to the clamors of communities tired of violence.
Peace Commissioner’s Office
The tensions between the ELN and the Petro administration come two weeks after the negotiators agreed to an extension of a ceasefire.
Colombia extends ceasefire with ELN
This ceasefire extension came a week late because of other disagreements over the peace talks that seek a process that would put an end to the decades-long insurgency of the ELN.
