The ELN (National Liberation Army), considered the last guerrilla in Colombia, announced this Monday (16) a unilateral ten-day ceasefire for the presidential election, whose first round will take place on the 29th. The group also reiterated the willingness to carry out peace negotiations with the future government.
According to the guerrillas, their activities will be suspended between May 25 and June 3, to guarantee “tranquility to those who want to vote”. The armed group also stated that the decision responds to the interest of generating “a better political environment, before knowing who could be the winning candidate”.
The measure, however, does not prevent its members from reacting to possible operations by the country’s security forces, the statement said. A similar decision was taken in March, during the legislative election.
The Colombian government, on the other hand, claims that such ads are attempts to influence elections. The country’s current president, center-right Iván Duque, rivals the leftist candidate Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla of the M-19 group, former mayor of Bogotá and leader in polls.
In the same vein as Duque, who cannot run for reelection, Defense Minister Diego Molano snubbed the announcement and said that the movement intends to position the ELN for future dialogues with the next government. “Here security is that of public force,” he added at a public event.
The rebel group, accused of funding itself through kidnappings, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal mining, has held peace talks to end its role in Colombia’s long-running armed conflict. It is estimated that the war has already caused, since the 1960s, around 260,000 deaths.
The possibility of dialogue with the Duque government, however, was frozen in 2019, after an attack attributed to the ELN on a military school in Bogotá killed more than 20 cadets. The current administration also claims that guerrillas fled to Venezuela with the complicity of the Nicolás Maduro regime.
The border region between the two countries is even the scene of conflicts between members of the rebel groups. In January, at least 23 people died amid a dispute between the ELN and dissidents from the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) over control of drug trafficking in the area.
Unlike the ELN, FARC leaders signed a peace agreement in 2016 – at the time, the agreement guaranteed the Nobel Peace Prize to then Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
According to experts, the remaining guerrillas have a more diffused chain of command, which makes the demands of the current government more difficult to fulfill. Among Duque’s demands for an eventual agreement are an end to the kidnappings and the release of hostages.
If Petro is elected, the situation could change, as the leftist is in favor of returning to negotiations. On the other hand, the former mayor of Medellín Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, in second place in the polls, as well as the current government, conditions any approach to the end of the violent actions by the group.
As Petro appears in the polls as the leader, with 40%, against 21% for the center-right, they would contest the second round on June 19. In this election, according to surveys, Petro would win by 47%, against 34% for Gutiérrez. If Petro comes to power, it will be the first time that a former guerrilla will command the second largest army in Latin America (after the Brazilian), with 228,000 soldiers and 172,000 police.
Members of the highest levels of the Colombian Armed Forces have interfered in the election with criticism of the leftist. Due to Petro’s past, there is fear that an eventual government will move against the military. The former guerrilla, in turn, has already said that there is corruption in the Army and that the institution’s promotion system is based on “internal politics and bribes by drug trafficking.”
