Colombian ELN: ‘An exploratory dialogue’
Progreso Semanal/RPA
HAVANA – The Colombian Army for National Liberation (ELN) has announced its willingness to “an exploratory dialogue with the government.”
In an editorial published in the guerrilla organization’s magazine Insurrection, the ELN makes public that willingness in answer to the interest manifested by “the government and the FARC, as well as broad sectors of the nation and the international community,” so it may participate in a process leading to the quest for peace.
“In that sense, we reaffirm that the ELN is committed to a political solution, which we understand to be a collective construction of the nation as a democratizing, social, political, economic and cultural process that gives an account of the changes the country needs,” says a paragraph of the declaration signed by the ELN delegation. The delegation “is set up and ready to engage in a dialogue that will serve Colombia,” the statement says.
It is not clear if this decision implies that the “elenos,” as the members of the second largest insurgent group in Colombia are called, will join the conversations already initiated in Oslo by the Colombian government and the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] or if they will engage in a parallel process. The talks will resume in Havana soon.
A preview to this announcement was made in a video released by the ELN in August, in which Nicolás Rodríguez (“Gabino”), the group’s top leader, said that “we are open – that’s precisely our position – to find a space for an open and unconditional dialogue.”
The editorial in Insurrection welcomes the conversations in Havana and “the national clamor to sign a bilateral ceasefire while the talks are taking place. The creation of a nonconfrontational environment could help generate trust and the conditions for society to participate in a more active, more leading role. This is a responsibility of the government and the insurgent movement.”
Saying that peace is a problem that concerns all Colombians, the editorial specifies that the problem of the land, the first tackled by the FARC and the government, “demands the participation of the peasant and farm movements, of the regional and environmental movements.”
The “elenos” have conducted dialogues with the governments of César Gaviria, Ernesto Samper, Andrés Pastrana and Álvaro Uribe, without achieving any results. The last contacts occurred in 2007, but none produced the expected outcome.
