Colombian government, guerrilla group start peace talks in Ecuador

By Tatiana Rodriguez and Georg Ismar

dpa

BOGOTA, Colombia — The Colombian government and the country’s last active guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), officially launched peace talks Tuesday in neutral Ecuador, to end a conflict that has lasted more than 50 years.

Following successful peace talks with the FARC guerilla group last year, Colombian President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos will negotiate terms for the laying down of arms at the meeting in Quito.

The start of talks was delayed for close to 11 months and was finally scheduled after the ELN released a key hostage.

In front of scores of invited guests, the government’s head negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo, and his ELN counterpart, Israel Ramirez, known by the alias “Pablo Beltran,” finally kicked off the process after almost three years of secret talks.

Ramirez read out a text drafted by the ELN’s commanders, calling both parties to “change whatever needs changing” to “open the doors to complete peace.”

“Fortunately, we in Colombia are trying to develop a political exit to the conflict. The government of President Juan Manuel Santos invited us to talk and we came here to achieve a political exit,” Ramirez said.

Restrepo said he hoped talks will be “frank, realistic and with a clear goal,” and stressed that they should move forward “as fast as prudence allows.”

“We did not come here to explore. The goal is to sign a final agreement to end the armed conflict,” the former Colombian minister said.

The release of former congressman Odin Sanchez on Thursday, who had been held hostage by the ELN for nearly one year, was a key government precondition for the talks to begin. Delays in his release held them back twice previously.

The left-wing guerrilla group had held Sanchez captive since March of 2016, when he volunteered to replace his brother, former Chaco state governor Patrocinio Sanchez, who had been held since August 2013 and had fallen ill in captivity.

Prior to the talks, the ELN also released another captive Colombian soldier as a sign of goodwill.

A peace agreement with the ELN would complete peacemaking efforts in Colombia, which has suffered under an armed conflict for more than half a century. Santos’ government and the ELN began informal contact in early 2014 and in March 2016 announced that they would negotiate.

In November, Santos signed a final peace accord with the larger rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The accord ended a 52-year war that had left 220,000 dead and millions internally displaced. The FARC deal, which took four years to negotiate, is likely to serve as a blueprint for the ELN talks.

A deal with the ELN is seen as vital to preventing the group’s fighters from taking control of areas formerly controlled by FARC and their local drug trade.

Founded in 1964, the ELN has about 1,500 members, according to government data.