Government and ELN negotiators have been locked up for weeks negotiating a peace deal to end Latin America's last active guerrilla group. In Caracas, Mexico City or Havana. They discuss every word as if the future of humanity depended on it. The representatives of Petro sometimes go for a walk to get to know the city, but the guerrillas, for safety, do not go outside and spend hours cloistered looking for the magic formula that leads them to surrender their weapons and at the same time preserve their dignity. The fact is that while they reach that agreement they live in a bubble that sometimes cracks because of the news that comes from abroad.
The ELN has claimed responsibility this Friday for an attack two days ago, when an explosive charge blew up a police patrol that was circulating on the outskirts of Tibú, a city with a strong guerrilla presence near the border with Venezuela. The Government had been seeking for 48 hours to identify those responsible and had offered a reward of $ 45,000 for the material authors. You don't need to dig any further. In a strong statement, the guerrillas claim responsibility for the attack in which, according to them, four policemen died. There are actually two, according to the official version, which has released the name and portrait of the two agents.
Vehicles damaged by the attack in Tibú, Colombia.COURTESY
The blast also killed a citizen, Lucy Katherine Castillo, and wounded a second woman. The ELN stands in solidarity with their friends and family. "This action was not intended to produce these conditions," reads the communique made public by the ELN's Northeastern War Front (FGNO). According to his version, the police of this border area have been presenting themselves as paramilitary and have generated "anxiety" among the inhabitants. "The national government," the letter continues, "is obliged to explain to the people of the border the type of operations that its security agencies have been carrying out in the territory that violate human rights and bring to the memory of the population the terror and death caused by the army and the police during the governments of Andres Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe Velez."
The attack comes as negotiators in Havana fail to agree on a ceasefire. Petro came to the presidency with the intention of agreeing one with all armed groups and drastically reducing homicides in Colombia's interior areas. The principal wanted to sign it with the ELN, but six months after sitting with them at the table it has not been possible. The guerrillas resist, justifying themselves in that they are waging several wars at the same time with the Army, the FARC dissidents and the Clan del Golfo. Acquiring a passive position, they explain, would be deadly for them. However, these attacks call into question the total peace of Petro, a process with which he seeks to pacify the country by negotiating with all criminal groups. The violence continues.
Subscribe here to the newsletter of EL PAÍS about Colombia and receive all the informative keys of the current situation of the country.
