Colombian guerrilla leader of the ELN dies in operation of the Military Forces

The commander of one of the main fronts of the Colombian guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN) died on Tuesday in a combat with the Armed Forces, informed the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, in the most recent blow to that group that maintains a peace negotiation with the government.

The combats in which alias Tuvia or Aureliano, the main leader of the ELN’s Darío Ramírez war front, died occurred in the rural area of ​​the municipality of Yondó, in the department of Antioquia, in the northwest of the South American country.

“He had a 25-year criminal record and the author of homicides, illegal recruitment, forced displacement, illegal mining and environmental destruction in Antioquia and Sur de Bolívar,” said a statement from the National Police that participated in the operation with the Military Forces. .

Three guerrillas were captured in the offensive of the Armed Forces who confiscated weapons and explosives.

“This important result weakens the armed and financial structures of the ELN, a group that threatens the security and tranquility of the civilian population,” said the Military Forces, which blamed the dejected guerrilla commander for ordering the assassinations of social leaders.

The coup against the ELN, made up of some 2,500 combatants and considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, occurred almost a week after rebels from that group attacked the Army in the northeast of the country and caused the death of nine soldiers.

After that attack, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, questioned the ELN’s desire for peace and called for consultations with its delegates and the guarantor countries.

Petro, a 62-year-old economist who took office more than seven months ago as the first president in the history of Colombia, promotes a total peace policy that includes dialogue with guerrilla groups and the subjugation of criminal gangs.

The initiative seeks to put an end to an internal conflict of almost six decades financed by drug trafficking and that has left at least 450,000 dead.

The president reestablished a peace negotiation with the ELN in Venezuela in Novemberand the parties recently closed a second cycle of talks in Mexico where they took the first steps to agree on a bilateral ceasefire.

A third round of talks will soon take place in Cubaone of the guarantor countries of that peace negotiation along with Norway, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela and Mexico.

The peace negotiations of previous governments with the ELN, accused of financing itself from kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and illegal mining, did not advance due to its radical positions, a diffuse chain of command and disagreements among its ranks.

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