More than three years after an attack on a cadet school in Santander, in which 22 students died and more than 70 people were injured, the complex negotiations between the Colombian State and the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas resumed this Monday. (21) in Caracas.
At 4:00 pm local time, 5:00 pm in Brasilia, the delegations met, seated at the same table, at the iconic Humboldt hotel — a place that was abandoned for years and was restored to serve wealthy Chavistas. Venezuela is a guarantor of the process, along with Norway and Cuba.
Under Gustavo Petro, Colombia recently resumed diplomatic ties with its neighbor, and the return to dialogue with the ELN is part of the same logic. The leftist president’s idea is that everyone involved in the Colombian conflict be heard and have the possibility of carrying out reparatory sentences in exchange for reports on their actions, the commitment not to repeat them and services to the victims.
The strategy recovers to some extent the one adopted by then President Juan Manuel Santos, in 2016, when establishing the negotiations, based in Ecuador. The politician believed that there would be no way to reduce the levels of conflict in the country just by demobilizing the FARC.
The attack on the police academy in the south of Bogotá, however, triggered the interruption of talks with the ELN, already under the government of Iván Duque —who thought differently from his predecessor and reinforced the punitive discourse as synonymous with justice. After the suspension, the rightist still felt empowered to ask for changes in the Reparatory Justice imposed by the agreement with the FARC, in which he was unsuccessful.
On Monday, when the talks resumed, the Colombian State was represented by senators Iván Cepeda, from the Historic Pact (Petro’s party), and María José Pizarro; Otty Patiño, a former M-19 militant, as well as the president; and José Félix Lafaurie, leader of livestock producers’ unions.
The latter’s presence in the delegation surprised the leftist’s supporters. An important player in a recent agreement with the rural sector for the purchase of land for agrarian reform, Lafaurie is a new ally of the president — in which he faces opposition even at home, since he is married to opposition leader María Fernanda Cabal.
“The livestock sector will be present because the president understands that the way out of the conflict involves organizing the issue of land in the country. What lands will be productive after the end of the conflict? How can we make them a space of peace?”, says the businessman. . “The agribusiness sector loses with the war, that’s why I’m here.”
Before the entourage leaves for Caracas, Petro said he hopes that this will be “the first step towards achieving total peace”. The term he coined refers to the ambitious plan to carry out negotiations with all armed actors in the country, including guerrillas, dissidents, paramilitaries and organizations focused only on organized crime and drug trafficking.
One of the major obstacles is that, in recent decades, the mix between members of these groups, in some regions, makes it difficult to identify the area of activity and even the denomination of each one. When peace with the FARC was reached, the ELN had 2,400 fighters; from there, he joined dissidents and other criminals, to reach 5,000 combatants, in current estimates.
As for paramilitaries from the so-called “gaitanistas” forces, concentrated in northern Colombia, which had been losing space, today they are experiencing a moment of reinforcement of weapons and personnel, having taken control of the mafia of transporting immigrants through the Darién jungle. In the border region with Venezuela, Cuban collectives, FARC dissidents and foreign cartels —linked even to the mafia in distant Albania— are still active, competing for the little gold left in the degraded Arco Minero.
Considered the last active guerrilla in the country, the ELN was born in the 1960s and is known for having, since then, a more systematic attachment to Marxist ideas. His activities focused on kidnapping, extortion and involvement in drug trafficking. The end of the FARC opened up new routes, facilitating the entry of the guerrillas into Venezuelan territory, where it now has barracks and training camps.
At the meeting in Caracas, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, Iván Rueda, recalled victims of the nearly six decades of conflict in the country. “We are here honoring life, that of so many who are no longer here — murdered, missing,” he said.
The ELN delegation in Caracas brings together veterans such as Eliécer Herlinto Chamorro (the “Antonio García”, who has led the organization since 2021), and Pablo Beltrán, second commander. The two met with government representatives in recent weeks to set the agenda for the first meetings – which will continue where they left off.
“We cannot see ourselves as enemies, the path is one of conciliation. We hope not to frustrate the expectation for change”, said Beltrán.
Aureliano Carbonell, whose real name is Víctor Orlando Cubides, considered to be the brain of the guerrilla, and other fighters, are also part of the entourage; the ELN is considered more decentralized than the FARC were.
To allow everyone to be present, Petro asked the Public Ministry to lift arrest warrants against guerrillas accused of participating in attacks. “Suspending these warrants will allow a faster path to be built. The ultimate goal is for every Colombian, that the ELN ceases to be a criminal organization.”
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
