This is the first point of understanding since the reopening of peace negotiations between Bogota and this guerrilla warfare.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
The return to the negotiating table is for the moment. Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced, Saturday, December 3, the conclusion of an agreement between his government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) on the return of indigenous refugees in the west of the country.
Negotiations with the ELN, interrupted in 2019 by the previous government in response to an attack that had left 22 dead, were reopened by President Petro, the first left president in the history of Colombia, who arrived at power in August. Representatives of the Government and the ELN had started these new discussions on November 21 in Venezuela.
“The first point of agreement that we have reached with the ELN, barely a week after the start of the negotiations, is to allow a return of the peoples moved by this organization” on their lands, said the Colombian president During an official act in Dabeiba (northwest). He did not specify the date of the return of these communities which had fled the territories which they occupied legally in the regions of Choco (North West) and Risaralda (Center-West), because of the violence between drug traffickers, paramilitary groups And guerrillas of the ELN, last guerrillas recognized in Colombia.
not yet ceasefire
This agreement should benefit a community which has organized several occupations of various parks in Bogota since the end of 2020, as protests, and which have given rise to violent clashes with the police.
The government and the “Elenos” did not agree with a ceasefire, but agreed in October to “resume all the agreements and the progress made since the signing of the agenda” of the 30 March 2016. In recent weeks, the two parties have shown “wages of trust” with, in particular, prisoner releases or the drop in field operations.
After the suspension of talks, the ELN staff went from 1,800 to 2,500 members, according to official estimates. Founded in 1964 by trade unionists and sympathizers of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, the ELN remains to this day the last guerrillas constituted as such still active in Colombia, while the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia ( Farc) signed a peace agreement in 2016.