Opposition cattle leader accepts Petro’s invitation to be a negotiator with the ELN

First modification: 11/18/2022 – 13:49

First was the agreement to buy up to three million hectares from the livestock sector for the long-awaited agrarian reform. And now, the leftist president, Gustavo Petro, surprises with the request to the cattle rancher José Félix Lafaurie to integrate the government delegation in the peace talks with the last active guerrilla in Colombia, the ELN.

“I am going to propose to you, José Félix Lafaurie, that you integrate the commission that we have appointed on behalf of the government as negotiators with the National Liberation Army (ELN),” declared the president of Colombia.

“Because of their mentality, their ways of thinking, with their representation of a sector of society that undoubtedly has something and a lot to say, their presence will be valuable in the dialogues that have begun with the ELN and hopefully it will be the realization of what that we have called total peace”, assured Petro.

The leader of the National Federation of Cattlemen (FEDEGAN) agreed to be part of the peace negotiating team.

“The ones who have been hit the hardest by violence are the livestock sector and that is why it frustrates me to see how there are certain actors who try to make the livestock sector a victimizing sector. On the contrary, we are victims, and if the president asks me to collaborate in this direction, I will do it with the commitment that a sector like ours obliges me to do,” Lafaurie said.

The FEDEGAN union has traditionally been on the right of the political spectrum, and Lafaurie is even a partner of Senator María Fernanda Cabal, a prominent opposition leader.

The so-called “Total Peace”, the insignia of this government, and which implies negotiating with all the illegal armed groups, also passes, as Petro’s latest decisions reflect, through the most recalcitrant opponents.

The ghosts of the supposed expropriation of land from ranchers, and the exclusion of the most conservative sectors from this new negotiating table are thus dissipated.

In the first hundred days of its unprecedented left-wing government, Colombia agreed to cease hostilities with at least ten illegal groups.

“That is what we call ‘total peace,'” Petro said, referring to the policy with which he intends to negotiate the disarmament of those in arms in exchange for legal benefits.