Colombia: a first agreement between the government and the ELN on indigenous people

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in Bogota, Colombia, Saturday August 20, 2022 (photo illustration).

AP - Fernando Vergara

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In Colombia, the first agreement was announced on Sunday December 4 between the government and the ELN guerrillas, who are currently negotiating in Venezuela.

It is a question, indicated the president Gustavo Petro, of allowing the return on their lands of the indigenous populations displaced by the violence.

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President Gustavo Petro praised the speed with which, according to him, the negotiations with the ELN, which began at the end of November in Venezuela, are progressing.

He did not specify when this first agreement would be put in place, but he already believes that it must be extended to other populations, “

 that return be possible throughout the national territory 

”.

This first agreement concerns indigenous populations who had had to flee their territories in the west of the country, the states of Choco and Risaralda, because of violence between drug traffickers, paramilitary groups and ELN guerrillas.

Since the end of 2020, the natives had occupied several parks in the capital Bogota to denounce this forced displacement;

violent clashes with the police ensued – this was during the time of Gustavo Petro's predecessor, President Iván Duque, whose government in 2019 broke off negotiations with the ELN.

For these new negotiations, the two parties did not agree on a ceasefire, but gave each other pledges of confidence, with the release of prisoners and the reduction in the number of operations on the ground.

And they resumed these negotiations where they had left off, that is to say by integrating all the progress already made at the time.

►Read again: Colombia: Bogotá and the ELN guerrillas offer the United States to participate in the peace process

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  • Gustavo Petro