Cuba warns Colombia of attack by guerrilla groups

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The police academy in Bogota after the ELN attack

Photo: DANIEL MUNOZ / AFP

Cuba has warned Colombia of a planned attack by the guerrilla organization National Liberation Army (ELN).

Apparently an attack was to be carried out in the capital Bogotá "in the next few days".

The Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano announced.

His government received the corresponding warning from the Cuban ambassador.

The Colombian government, the US and the European Union classify the ELN as a terrorist organization.

The warning from Havana is unusual.

Because so far the communist government of Cuba had cultivated good relations with the Marxist ELN.

The group has had a permanent delegation in the Cuban capital since 2018.

Parts of the ELN leadership stay in Havana again and again.

The Marxist-Leninist organization has around 2000 fighters and a large network of supporters.

She carried out attacks and took hostages mainly in eastern Colombia.

After a bomb attack with 22 dead on a police academy in Bogotá two years ago, the government broke off peace talks with the guerrilla organization (read an analysis here).

President Iván Duque had ignored a "gesture of peace", the "National Liberation Army" cynically justified the attack at the time.

In contrast to the much larger ex-guerrilla organization Farc - which recently renamed itself "Partido Comunes" (for example: Party of Community) - the ELN has not renounced the armed struggle in Colombia.

The FARc signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016.

Most of their fighters then surrendered their weapons and the FARC turned into a political party.

However, some former FARC leaders have since announced their return to armed struggle.

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as / AFP / dpa