Cuba will host the next peace talks with the ELN

Official photo of the inauguration of the second cycle of the peace talks between the Government of Colombia and the ELN, in Mexico City, in February. GOVERNMENT OF COLOMBIA

After having passed through Venezuela and Mexico, Cuba will host the next peace talks between the Government of Colombia and the ELN, the negotiating table reported in a statement on Wednesday.

The parties did not specify a date, they only said that they will begin after a break after the sessions that are being held these days in Mexico City and that they have produced "substantial progress in the agenda of the talks."

The dialogue table wanted to recall the role that Cuba has played in the peace negotiations.

In fact, there, in Havana, the agreement between the Government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC was signed, after six years of negotiation.

"The peace delegations of the Colombian Government and the ELN deeply thank the Cuban Government and its people for the unconditional willingness and fundamental support that, for more than four decades, they have given to peacebuilding efforts in Colombia," it was stated. read in the statement.

Precisely in Cuba, some talks were held in 2019 between the government of then-President Iván Duque and this guerrilla, the last active in Latin America, when a guerrilla fighter crashed a car bomb against a cadet school in Bogotá.

Twenty-three people died in the attack.

The event abruptly interrupted the dialogue.

The ELN leaders were stranded in some facilities on the outskirts of Havana, until Gustavo Petro, Duque's successor, decided to start talks with the armed group again three years later.

Next Friday the table will report on the progress it has made in Mexico.

It was hoped that a ceasefire would result from this dialogue that would lead to the negotiation in the middle of a truce, but for the guerrillas it is not easy to achieve it.

In addition to its confrontation with the Colombian Army, the territory is disputed with other groups such as the Clan del Golfo or the FARC dissidents.

In the latter, there are guerrillas and mercenaries who did not accept or deserted from the 2015 peace process. According to negotiating sources, in Mexico the mechanism with which the armistice can be finalized has been discussed.

Petro has high hopes that this dialogue will bear fruit in an agreement.

Six other presidents before him have tried without any success.

Disarming the guerrillas would mean laying the first stone of total peace.

While negotiating with the ELN, the government wants to sit down and talk with other political groups, such as a part of the FARC, and for the Prosecutor's Office to bring drug traffickers and common criminals to justice.

However, the project seems entangled in legal and political discussions and a certain internal disorder that threatens to overthrow it.

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