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(CNN Spanish) - The FARC dissent, which announced on August 29 that it was returning to arms, said they would begin the second stage of the “armed struggle” in view of the breach, they say, of the Government with what was agreed in the agreement of peace of Havana signed in 2016.
In the message, which was published in a video of more than 30 minutes, the guerrilla leader aka Iván Márquez said he would seek alliances with the National Liberation Army, ELN, a guerrilla that in the past was an enemy of the FARC, according to the Foundation Peace and Reconciliation (PARES).
According to Márquez, in this new stage “they will seek efforts” with the ELN, a guerrilla with which the peace dialogues initiated by President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) did not come to fruition, as the Iván Duque government suspended them indefinitely.
Local media report that while the ELN has not confirmed this alliance, the leader of the Western War Front of the ELN known as Uriel, sent a message welcoming the rearmament of the FARC dissidents.
"We welcome the pronouncement of Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich, El Paisa and other colleagues who reintegrate this form of popular resistance," said 'Uriel' in a video broadcast on social networks, according to Cablenoticias, a CNN affiliate in Spanish in Colombia.
- READ: Will the war return to Colombia? "The worst thing that happened is that a dissident group emerges," says monitoring group
What is the ELN?
The National Liberation Army, ELN, was founded in 1964 with the support of the Colombian Liberal Party. This guerrilla group was a supporter of the Cuban Revolution and is therefore defined as a Leninist Marxist.
The ELN "is a less centralized", "more rhetorical" guerrilla and has "different conflicts" regarding the FARC, Leon Valencia, a political analyst and former chief of that guerrilla, told CNN in Spanish.
But although it is smaller with respect to the demobilized FARC guerrillas, for Valencia an alliance between FARC and ELN is worrisome.
"It's a minor guerrilla that demobilized, but they can do a lot of damage to people and the country," he told CNN in Spanish. "They are people with military experience, and especially with money, they have escalated with the illegal mining of gold and drugs."
Historically, the FARC and the ELN have been natural enemies. According to PARES, a center for studies on the armed conflict, this guerrilla “has an active confrontation” with the FARC dissidents, which today are calling for the union.
But this guerrilla, that of the ELN, is smaller in size and its influence is smaller with respect to the number of territories in which they are present, compared to the demobilized guerrilla of the FARC. According to PARES, at its strongest time, by 2002, the FARC had about 17,000 armed men, and by 2016, after signing the peace process, it had about 7,000 militants. In contrast, at the beginning of 2019, after a “strengthening and expansion process”, the ELN has a little more than 3,000 combatants.
In its time of further expansion, the FARC had a presence in 242 municipalities in Colombia. The ELN has a presence in 115 municipalities in six regions, says PARES.
"Its military capacity is much lower than that of the FARC," says the PARES report. At the time of further expansion of the demobilized guerrillas, the FARC perpetrated some 2,300 military actions a year; the ELN, for its part, has reached its maximum point 400.
"A good part of the actions correspond to sabotage against oil or Public Force infrastructure, some harassment and, to a lesser extent, fighting or ambush that demonstrates low military capacity," says the PARES report.
In addition, "the ELN is not organized into large groups, but forms small specialized cells," says PARES, so to "decimate" this group "does not require increased violence."
But Valencia warns that these two armed groups can degrade the conflict in Colombia.
"The sour is the rebirth of violence and we could have an escalation."
Valencia says that if this dissent "is dedicated to killing politicians that means a huge misfortune in the country."
Look: What you have to know about ELN, in numbers
ELN, FARC and Venezuela
The reason for the union of the armed groups that were once enemies is, according to Miguel Ceballos, high commissioner for Peace of the Government of Colombia, the "weakness" of what he called the "band" created by Márquez and the other dissidents of the FARC
"You see in the statement of that video demonstrates that there is a great military and strategic weakness on the part of the announcement made by Mr. Iván Márquez to say that they will have an alliance with the ELN," Ceballos told a press conference. (near: 04:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY4UikLZjDc
The approach of the FARC dissidents to the ELN is, according to Ceballos, a "confirmation" that the links of the FARC with drug trafficking and with Venezuela. According to Ceballos, 47% of the ELN is in Venezuela.
- LEE: High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia: This band is inspired by drug trafficking
"The fact that Iván Márquez resorts to the ELN whose top leaders are present in Venezuela only confirms that this group, this small band of people who are still linked to drug trafficking are being supported by that dictatorial regime," Ceballos told reporters from Washington.
On July 28, the beleaguered president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro said that Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich, the FARC leaders, "are welcome to Venezuela ... when they want to come," he said, "They are the two peace leaders."
Ceballos, the high commissioner for peace in Colombia, said that although there is no need to fear rearmated dissent "because the real capacity for action of these people is quite limited," he expressed a "great concern" for the desire of the new FARC joining the ELN.
On Thursday, the first vice president of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, said the situation in Colombia is worrisome, but warned that the FARC problem has nothing to do with Venezuela.
This Friday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza criticized Duque's "unwillingness" to "move third countries and third parties" to his responsibility in "the planned dismantling" of the peace process and said that his government breached the commitments made in Havana in 2016.
"It is necessary to note that this attitude not only puts the normalization of public life in Colombia at risk, but threatens regional peace and security in South America."
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