The government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group announced this Tuesday (4) that peace talks between them will officially resume in November.
The The announcement was made in the capital of Venezuela, Caracas, in La Casona, the former presidential residence. The dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro is one of the guaranteeing countries for peace talks, in addition to Cuba and Norway. The negotiations will take place in these three countries, but it was not announced in which of them the first round of talks will be held.
According to information from Colombian radio Caracol, one of the leaders of the ELN was in Caracas this Tuesday , Antonio García, and Pablo Beltrán, head of the guerrilla negotiation team, and peace commissioner Iván Danilo Rueda, senator Iván Cepeda and bishop Héctor Fabio Henao as leaders of the government delegation.
In a statement read this Tuesday, the parties involved announced “the re-establishment of the dialogue process after the first week of November of 2022”.
“For the government of Colombia and the ELN, the participation of society in this process is essential for the changes that Colombia needs to build peace”, they expressed.
On Sunday (2), the ELN had announced that its delegation left Cuba, where its leaders had been since 2018 for peace negotiations with the Colombian government, initiated during the administration of J uan Manuel Santos in 2017, in Ecuador.
Already in the mandate of Iván Duque, in 2022 the negotiations were interrupted, due to the ELN attack on the Cadet School in Bogotá that left 68 dead and 68 injured. The attack led the Colombian government to ask Cuba to hand over the negotiators who were in Havana, a request that was not granted by the Castro dictatorship.
In August, the government of Gustavo Petro suspended the capture orders and extradition requests against delegates who were on the Caribbean island.
