Colombia

Colombia Suspends Peace Talks With ELN Guerrillas After Attack on Army Base

SEP 19 2024·Updated SEP 22 2024

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Above: Soldiers stand guard as an ambulance transports a soldier injured in an attack attributed to ELN guerrillas in Arauca, Colombia, on September 17, 2024. Image credit: Joaquin Sarmiento/Contributor/AFP via Getty Images

The Facts

Colombia announced on Wednesday that peace talks with the leftist guerrilla National Liberation Army (ELN) have been put on hold until the rebel group provides an "unequivocal demonstration of peace."
Reuters
This comes after the country's president, Gustavo Petro, blamed the Maoist group for an explosives attack on a military base in the department of Arauca, near Venezuela, that left two soldiers dead and 27 others injured on Tuesday.
The City Paper Bogotá
Colombiaone
Petro added that the incident "practically" ends the peace process in "blood," comparing it to the bombing of a police academy in Bogotá that killed 22 cadets in 2019 and also prompted peace negotiations to collapse.
The City Paper Bogotá
Colombiaone
Talks restarted in 2022, but have been in crisis since February, as Bogotá had sought parallel negotiations with the dissident ELN faction Comuneros del Sur, which were formally authorized on Monday.
Reuters
InSight Crime
Violence has escalated since a bilateral cease-fire between the Colombian government and the ELN expired early last month, including attacks on key infrastructure and the killing of two other soldiers in Arauca on Sept. 1.
InSight Crime
Al Jazeera
The ELN is the largest active armed group in the country with an estimated 6K fighters, and has spread into rural areas since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace with the government in 2016.
Al Jazeera
ap

Sources Split

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RIGHT

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The Spin

Left narrative

Unlike past peace processes, Petro's ambitious Total Peace sought to finally bring the country's decades-long armed conflict to an end, ensuring that guerrillas would not be persecuted once demobilized and disarmed. That talks with the ELN have now been called off doesn't discredit the plan, as there has been success in talks with other groups.

Justice For Colombia

Foreign Policy

Right narrative

Total Peace was always a failure waiting to happen, as there were no incentives to stop armed groups continuing to expand their territorial control. It's certain that Bogotá did sign cease-fires with some guerrilla groups, but the truth is that violence has risen under Petro.

Global Americans

Impunity Observer