Colombian delegation travels to Cuba for talks with ELN rebels

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - A Colombian delegation headed by new Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda traveled to Cuba on Thursday to resume peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group, President Gustavo Petro announced.

“Danilo's task is to determine to what extent a peace process is possible,” Petro said.

Members of the government commission will meet with ELN leaders to determine whether the rebel group wants to “resume negotiations,” said the newly elected president. Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva and Senator Ivan Cepeda, who have supported peace negotiations with rebel groups for years, also traveled to Havana.

"Complete peace is not only national but goes beyond borders," Leyva wrote on his Twitter account before leaving for Cuba.

Negotiations with the ELN began in 2017 in Quito, Ecuador during the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and in 2018, they were moved to Havana, where the group’s main leaders live. The peace talks were interrupted by former Colombian President Ivan Duque in January 2019, a day after the group carried out a bombing at a police academy in Bogota that killed 21 police officers and injured 68 others.

Duque said at the time that he was not willing to negotiate with the rebels after they refused to cease attacks against the population and the security forces. The guerrilla group answered that they would resume peace talks with the next president. Petro, who took office last Sunday, repeatedly said during his campaign that he would seek to resume peace talks with the guerrillas.

Colombia has seen a surge in violence provoked by various criminal groups, among them the ELN, which are fighting to gain control of coca crops and trafficking routes in the country.

Petro still has to decide whether the island nation is the ideal location for the new talks with the ELN. Negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were held in the same place, which resulted in the signing of the 2016 peace deal with the government. Chile's president Gabriel Boric said Monday that his country would be a guarantor of such negotiations.