During an interview, Commander Aureliano Carbonell from the ELN peace talks delegation reminded that the peace process between the two parties restarted at the end of last year.

He explained that the guerrillas have made political solutions attempts for more than 20 years and the most recent was the one conducted with the Government of Juan Manuel Santos.

Carbonell evoked the agreement with Santos in 2016 and in January 2017. A negotiating table was then set up in Quito, Ecuador, where the most relevant result was a 101-day-long bilateral ceasefire, very well received by the country and also, as a previous step, the participation of society, the first item on the agenda, he said.

That process was broken by the Government of Iván Duque (2018-2022) who failed to comply with the protocols agreed before the international community, and pressured the United States to impose more sanctions against Cuba, who was acting as a guarantor country.

During Duque’s administration, the political solution for peace was disrupted and violated. “It is now, with the electoral triumph of Gustavo Petro, that the protocols are respected, we have managed to return to the country, establish contact with the national leadership of the ELN, define political lines for collective bargaining and once again we are sitting at the ta dialogue table,” Carbonell said.

“In this process, the ELN wants Colombia to head towards paths of less inequality, of sovereignty, the generation of other realities in the nation, such as justice, the cessation of paramilitarism, autonomy, independence and development favoring the majorities.”

In regards to the Government of Petro, he pointed out that it is the result of the election and the popular outbreak during the 2021 demonstrations. It is also part of the era of progressiveness and manifests commitments for greater changes in the country.

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