ELN Guerrillas Look to Join Colombia Peace Talks

With the start of negotiations between the Colombian government and leftist rebels the FARC just days away, Colombia’s second largest insurgency, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has again indicated it wants to participate.

The ELN leadership has published an “open letter to the negotiating table in Havana,” in which they announced they were ready to begin exploratory talks with the government and had formed a delegation for that purpose. The Colombian government has yet to respond to the ELN’s letter.

Since the announcement of this latest round of talks, the ELN has engaged in a media back and forth with the government, declaring their willingness to join talks one minute, denouncing negotiations  as “cheap” and “doomed to perish” the next.

The group has criticized the government’s refusal to discuss Colombia’s social and economic order and called for increased participation from civil society and for the imposition of ceasefire - something the government has so far refused to consider.

However, despite the for-the-media rhetoric, the ELN may already be involved in behind the scenes talks. Last month, former ELN guerrilla turned NGO analyst Leon Valencia claimed that negotiations to join the table had begun and that an ELN delegation was in Oslo for the launch of the talks to observe the process. Peace campaigner and former senator Piedad Cordoba supported the claim, saying the ELN and the government had an "exchange of letters" over the issue.

According to Valencia, the participation of the ELN could be crucial to the success of the talks. “A delay in the process could result in sad temptations for the country,” he said. “The ELN could decide to continue in the conflict, it could feed on the FARCs sources of finance, FARC dissidents could reinforce the ELN’s military structure.”

The participation of the ELN, could also change the shape of the talks, according to Valencia. While the FARC considers itself to be the representatives of certain sectors of society, the ELN has always looked for a more participatory process, possibly involving the formation of a national people’s convention, he said.

The ELN is estimated to have around 2,500 armed insurgents - about half the number of its mid-90s peak. The group is implicated in drug trafficking, recruitment of minors and extortion. Ideologically, the ELN combines a Marxist-Leninist outlook with Catholic liberation theology.

The peace talks have now been moved from the scheduled start date of the 15th to the 19th.

Ahead of the start of negotiations, La Silla Vacia analyses the FARC’s military strength while the Just the Facts blogs has compiled a list of “interesting sources” on the talks.

News Briefs

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