Colombia: Gustavo Petro reaches out to the armed group ELN
Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro in Bogotá, Colombia, June 28, 2022. © LUISA GONZALEZ/REUTERS
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1 min
In Colombia, the elected president, Gustavo Petro, wants to relaunch peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
This guerrilla is considered the last active in the country, although some FARC dissidents have also taken up arms since the signing of the peace agreements in 2016. The end of violence in Colombia was one of the campaign promises of this first left-wing president in the country's history.
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The ELN now has some 2,500 members.
Founded in 1964 in the wake of the Cuban revolution, this guerrilla is now mainly present in the Pacific region and on the border with Venezuela, where it disputes the control of drug trafficking and illegal mining with other armed groups.
For
Gustavo Petro
, it is high time to put an end to this violence.
In an interview
with Colombian radio station W Radio, he therefore proposes a return to the talks that were interrupted three years ago by the outgoing conservative president, Ivan Duque:
“
The message I want to send today, not only to the ELN but to all armed groups, is that the time for peace has come.
What I am asking for is a bilateral ceasefire and the start of legal negotiations with most of them and political negotiations with a minority of them.
All to end the war in Colombia
”.
The elected president also announced the creation of a Ministry of Peace under whose supervision he would like to place the police.
Currently, the police depend on the Ministry of Defence.
►Also read:
The march of the world - In Colombia, a long construction of peace with the Farc
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Colombia
Gustavo Petro
Defense