The Petro Government and the ELN reinstate the talks table 4:01
(CNN Spanish) --
With Caracas as a backdrop, the delegations of the Colombian government and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army, ELN, announced a new attempt at peace talks, after a three-year pause in the negotiations.
The parties will return to the agreements and progress made since the signing of the agenda on March 30, 2016, and the dialogue process will resume after the first week of November this year, the delegations reported this week.
Venezuela will be one of the guarantor countries of this new chapter of talks with the ELN, at a time when Bogotá and Caracas are resuming bilateral relations frozen for years under the government of Iván Duque (2018-2022), the same government that suspended talks with this guerrilla group after a deadly attack on a police school in southern Bogotá in 2019.
Both the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and his Venezuelan counterpart, the questioned president Nicolás Maduro, celebrated the resumption of these talks with the ELN guerrillas, with Maduro saying that his country "will do its best... for total peace from Colombia".
Who are the ELN negotiators for whom Petro lifted the arrest warrants
ELN peace negotiators leave Cuba with the goal of reactivating peace talks
The commanders of the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN), (from left to right) Aureliano Carbonel, Pablo Beltrán and Antonio García, the Commissioner for Peace of the Government of Colombia, Danilo Rueda (2-R) and the Colombian senator Iván Cepeda (R) participate in a document signing ceremony after announcing new peace talks, in Caracas, on October 4, 2022. (Credit: YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The key role of Venezuela
In the protocols agreed with the government of Juan Manuel Santos, it was established that Venezuela was the agreed country for the return of the ELN peace delegates in case the process broke down or if they needed to return to consult with their troops.
On September 14, 2022, President Gustavo Petro asked Maduro to be a guarantor in an eventual peace process with the guerrilla group.
A request that Maduro immediately agreed to.
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The Colombian government decided on August 21 to suspend the arrest warrants and extradition requests against the ELN delegates who were in Cuba to facilitate the new peace approaches.
But the role of Venezuela in Colombia's peace attempts is not new.
In fact, the neighboring country has played an important role, either as a mediator, observer or companion, in other attempts at peace talks with armed groups and the Colombian governments.
For example, Venezuela was a companion in the peace talks between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC guerrillas that were signed in 2016. The support and mediation of President Hugo Chávez allowed in the first decade of the 2000s, when the conflict The armed group was in one of its worst moments, the liberation of hostages at the hands of the FARC.
And in 1990 the then president Carlos Andrés Pérez supported the demobilization of the M-19 guerrilla, and mediated for the Socialist International to receive the weapons of the demobilized guerrilla, according to the national press.
Television capture from the Venezuelan channel Telesur of Colombian politicians Clara Rojas (in white shirt and dark sweater) and Consuelo González de Perdomo (on the left), and their relatives, being received by the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, in the palace in Caracas on January 10, 2008, a few hours after being liberated by the FARC in the Colombian jungle. Rojas and González, two high-profile women held hostage in the Amazon jungle by FARC rebels for some six years, were freed at a secret meeting point in the jungle and immediately flown to Venezuela. AFP PHOTO/TELESUR (AFP via Getty Images)
"Venezuela, in my opinion, was key in the Santos government for the disarmament of the FARC. It was key and I think it could be key to the possibility of success in the process with the ELN," said President Gustavo Petro in a interview with Noticias Caracol a few weeks ago when he was asked about the role of the neighboring country in the peace talks with the ELN.
When Petro was asked why he bets on Venezuela and more on the questioned government of Nicolás Maduro as guarantors – taking into account that this government has "a lot of resistance" internationally, according to the journalist from Noticias Caracol – the president resolved it in three words : "Because there they are."
There is the ELN.
And it's true: the ELN is one of the largest guerrilla forces still active in Colombia and Venezuela.
The guerrilla group was born as a Marxist insurgent force in the 1960s, and now finances activities through kidnapping, extortion and involvement in drug trafficking.
In recent years, it has expanded its operations in southern Venezuela where it controls illegal mining operations.
Armed groups and drug violence: this is Catatumbo, the border area between Colombia and Venezuela where a presidential caravan led by Gustavo Petro was attacked
In fact, according to a recent report published by Insight Crime, a portal that tracks the armed conflict in Colombia, titled Rebels and Paramilitaries: The Colombian Guerrilla in Venezuela, two of the ELN's "strongest and most belligerent fronts... have used for a long time to Venezuela as a refuge and source of income".
These are the Eastern War Front and the Northeastern War Front of the ELN, which managed to become binational groups after the FARC left the political map in the region after the signing of the peace agreements, according to that report.
InSight Crime says that although the ELN is a binational group, "it is not a binational insurgency," since it is not trying to overthrow the Venezuelan state, but rather is "a paramilitary force that supports the Venezuelan government," and points out that for this reason "any new peace process must involve the Venezuelan government".
“As long as the ELN is allowed to operate in Venezuelan territory, there will be no peace,” said Charles Larratt-Smith, an academic and co-author of the study “Why is it so difficult to negotiate with the ELN?”, quoted by InSightCrime.
And for Petro, Venezuela has a fundamentally key role in the peace talks with the ELN, which is why he was invited as a guarantor country, along with Norway and Cuba, in this new stage, when the president seeks "total peace" through a new agreement with a guerrilla that has been elusive for decades to silence the rifles.
ELN dialogues