Colombia's President suspends peace negotiations with ELN rebels
The Colombian president Gustavo Petro halted peace talks on Friday with the leftist National Liberation Army, (ELN), after accusing them of committing a crime against humanity in the Catatumbo area, located in Norte de Santander, the province in which the country is situated.
Petro, on X, said: "The dialogue with this group has been suspended. The ELN does not want peace."
William Villamizar, the governor of Norte de Santander, reported that more than 30 people died and 20 were injured in Thursday's attack.
The government reported that at least five of the dead were former FARC fighters who had been demobilized and were part of an agreement for peace in 2016. The government said that many of those killed were the family members of former fighters who had been demobilized and of dissident FARC.
The government also said that members of Estado mayor Central (EMC), an FARC dissident group engaged in separate talks for peace with the government, had been attacked.
According to the Catholic Church, and the human rights ombudsman of the government, the violence that was condemned by the United Nations had led to the displacement of an unspecified amount civilians.
Villamizar stated that authorities in Norte de Santander were waiting to talk with Petro about the situation. In a press release, the government announced that 300 additional troops would be deployed to Catatumbo in order to stop the violence. The government blamed the violence on ELN dissidents and FARC rebels.
Camilo González, the negotiator for the government in the peace talks with former FARC rebels and the EMC, both said that the dissidents in the area are retreating to avoid an encounter with the ELN.
The peace talks between the ELN, and the government that were restarted in the year 2022 have been plagued by failures. The government suspended the negotiations in September, a day following an ELN attack near the Venezuelan frontier that killed two soldiers and injured 29 others.
The talks also stalled after the government began separate negotiations with a splinter ELN group in the Southwest, while the ELN returned to kidnappings and bombings on oil pipelines as well as attacks against security forces.
Ecopetrol, Colombia's largest state-owned energy firm, has announced that it will restrict the work and movement at its facilities in Catatumbo. This includes the Tibu gas field and Sardinata plant. (Reporting and writing by Luis Jaime Acosta, Natalia Siniawski, Oliver Griffin Additional writing by Rosalba o'Brien).
(source: Reuters)
