First modification:
The Colombian government on Wednesday suspended the ceasefire that it had declared with the National Liberation Army (ELN) one day after the guerrillas refused to cease their offensive operations.
After a confusing episode in which the president of Colombia announced a bilateral ceasefire that was denied by the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the government reversed course on Thursday.
“Given the position publicly assumed yesterday (Tuesday) (…) we have decided to suspend the legal effects of the decree” that established the bilateral ceasefire with the ELN from January 1 to June 30, announced the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada.
The ELN rebels argued that this truce was not part of the first cycle of peace negotiations that it held with Colombian government delegates in Caracas between November and December, although the possibility of touching on this issue when the talks resume in Mexico was raised.
“Dialogue on this matter would be reactivated in the next cycle,” added Prada along with Defense Minister Iván Velásquez, presidential peace adviser Danilo Rueda, and the military leadership.
According to the minister, the executive will not consider a bilateral ceasefire “until the dialogue table is reactivated” on a date yet to be defined in Mexico.
At the stroke of midnight on December 31, President Gustavo Petro claimed to have agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with the country’s main armed groups, including the ELN.
The government and the Military Forces had been silent since Tuesday when the rebels denied the official version, unleashing a political storm.
It is also the biggest setback in the “total peace” initiative with which Petro, who took office in August, intends to extinguish the armed conflict that continues despite the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2017.
With some 3,500 combatants, according to independent studies, the ELN operates in at least 22 of Colombia’s 32 departments, profiting from drug trafficking and illegal mining.
Prada invited the guerrillas to “declare a verifiable truce in response to the imperative” called by the communities most affected by the violence.
The FARC dissidents who continue to be armed, the Clan del Golfo -the largest drug gang in the country- and the paramilitaries of the Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada are also part of the bilateral ceasefire proclaimed by Petro.
Only the ELN has publicly rejected that declaration.
In arms since 1964, the ELN has only agreed to a bilateral ceasefire once, while maintaining a peace process with the government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) in 2017. The truce was broken after 100 days following attacks with rebel explosives into state oil pipelines.
Negotiations between the Petro government and the armed groups, which have a combined estimated 15,000 fighters, have so far failed to end the spiral of violence engulfing the country.
The Indepaz research center recorded nearly 100 massacres in Colombia last year.
