The fourth round of negotiations between the Colombian government and the country’s last active guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), begins on Monday. A historic ceasefire between the two parties was established in the country on the 3rd of this month. However, the resumption of negotiations takes place in a very tense context, with scandals such as the arrest of one of the president’s sons.
RFI
The resumption of negotiations comes a week after one of the country’s biggest political scandals, the arrest of the president’s eldest son Gustavo Petro for money laundering. In addition, a plot to assassinate a prosecutor, attributed to ELN guerrillas, was also disclosed.
The two events weaken the image and credibility of the President of the Republic and the guerrilla delegation, which is sitting at the negotiating table in Caracas on Monday, as Venezuela mediates the peace process.
Ceasefire maintained
Despite everything, the six-month bilateral ceasefire continues. Commissions have been set up to monitor and evaluate the proper functioning of the truce, which should allow tensions to ease and help open dialogue for a definitive end to the armed conflict.
This is what left-wing President Gustavo Petro, who is betting his entire peace strategy on the success of these negotiations with the last guerrillas active in the country, hopes. The ELN would still have thousands of men and its armed struggle has lasted almost 60 years.
Colombians are wary
On the streets of Medellín, talk of negotiations with the ELN is discreet. Colombians know it will be a long road, but most want to believe.
Liliana Agudelo is a nurse. Since the beginning of the ceasefire, she feels calmer: “Citizens still don’t feel safe, especially with these recent events with car bombs, kidnappings. So we are still anxious. But thanks to this news of ceasefire and peace talks, we feel a little bit calmer.”
Brandon Guerrero is also staying positive. This native of the Santander region, one of the areas most affected by the conflict with the guerrillas, prefers to see the glass half full. “First of all, it’s important to do internal work to prevent these acts of violence from happening again,” he says. “Secondly, disarming a group generates many changes, for example, a reduction in the number of deaths, it maintains the collective memory. These dialogues are very important.”
Car bomb blast kills four police officers in Colombia
An ambush and car bomb blast blamed on FARC dissidents left four police officers dead in southwest Colombia this weekend, in two new violations of the ceasefire agreed by authorities with the terrorists.
The car bomb was detonated in the early hours of Sunday morning (13), about 30 km from the municipality of Morales, where the lethal ambush took place on Saturday (12). The region is a stronghold of the Central General Staff (EMC), the main group of dissidents from the peace agreement that disarmed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla in 2017.
In late May, Colombian President Gustavo Petro suspended a ceasefire agreement with the terrorists in four southern departments following the killing of four minors. However, he maintained the ceasefire in Cauca, where two attacks took place this weekend.
The Ministry of Defense has set a reward equivalent to 50,000 dollars (about 245,500 reais at the current exchange rate) for information on the whereabouts of “Marlon Vásquez, leader of the Jaime Martínez front of the dissidents, or El Paisa, Samper and Martín”, who would be behind both actions.
Petro anticipated that tomorrow there will be a meeting of the security council in Cauca, “in which important measures will be taken”.
Under the leadership of Iván Mordisco, the EMC is one of the illegal armed groups with which Petro wants to negotiate and reach an agreement on disarmament as part of the so-called “Total Peace”.
The opposition, however, denounces that the armed groups have taken advantage of this policy to strengthen themselves and attack the security forces.