Maduro wants to keep Spain out of the negotiation with the ELN

Pedro Sánchez toured Latin America in August to expand his influence in the region.

The Spanish president offered Madrid to Gustavo Petro as one of the venues for the peace talks with the ELN.

The host thanked the gesture, but made it subject to the opinion of the leaders of the last guerrilla group raised in arms in Colombia.

In the following weeks, Petro sought new support and asked Nicolás Maduro by letter to also exercise that role of mediator, the same role that Sánchez aspired to.

Things got complicated then.

The entry of Maduro, who sees in this an opportunity to vindicate himself as the legitimate leader of his country, can take Sánchez out of the equation.

The president of Venezuela maintains that the most convenient thing for all the parties is for Spain to remain on the sidelines, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

Sánchez's plan, which faces a general election next year and needs to improve his popularity, could be derailed by these crossed interests.

His offer would come to nothing.

Petro pursues the demobilization of the ELN, something that almost all Colombian presidents of the last 50 years have attempted.

Unlike the FARC, this guerrilla that was born when a group of students went to learn about the Cuban revolution in Havana in the 1960s, does not have as its ultimate goal to assault power through arms.

Their interests are diffuse and not easy to specify.

Nor does it have the military hierarchy of the guerrilla that Timochenko commanded, which made it easier to reach specific agreements.

The talks will be difficult, although the government hopes to overcome some obstacles in the peace process with the FARC, which lasted six years.

Two years longer than a presidential term lasts.

Although from there emerged a roadmap and legal mechanisms that can be used now.

That same legal literature is what Petro wants to use to achieve the demobilization of the different armed actors distributed throughout the Colombian geography.

Most of them are dedicated to the cocaine business.

That plan to end almost all violence at once is known as total peace, a goal the size of his ambition as president.

Sánchez made it clear at the Casa de Nariño, the Colombian presidential residence, that he wanted to lend a hand.

"We offer ourselves to help achieve peace and, therefore, if these peace talks can be hosted in Spain, we would be willing," he said then.

Petro publicly acknowledged the good intentions of his colleague, who months before had received him in Madrid when he was only a candidate and presented him to the world as a respectable politician, and not as the danger to democracy that many people believed he was. it was.

Previously, other Spanish socialist rulers, who believed that they were facing an ally of Hugo Chávez, had been cavalier with him.

But even so, Petro was not enthusiastic and did not accept the offer at first.

Dialogues will start shortly.

An ELN delegation traveled from Cuba to Venezuela on Sunday to start their own internal discussion.

The process will start at the same point where it stopped in 2019, when the previous president, Iván Duque, suspended it after an attack perpetrated by the group in which 24 young soldiers died.

Cuba, Norway and Venezuela, the guarantor countries since then, allowed the transfer of the delegation.

These nations would like to join Spain and Chile, which has also shown interest in participating.

Although President Boric's criticism of Chavismo could be another added obstacle.

Petro will have to juggle to please all parties.

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