The peace delegation of President Gustavo Petro’s government announced on August 10 that the head of state had sent the ELN a confidential proposal in order to resume peace talks and resolve doubts about extending the bilateral ceasefire.
“The serious crisis situation that the table and the peace process between the Government and the ELN are experiencing at this time does not require “confidential proposals,” as Vera Grabe and Iván Cepeda, members of the government’s Dialogue Delegation, have said. but frankness and clarity to the country, as the ELN Central Command has publicly stated,” said the ELN guerrillas.
In , Several political voices have spoken out about the difficult moment that the dialogue with this guerrilla group is going through.
Julio César Triana, representative to the House for Radical Change, questioned the progress in the peace talks between the Petro government and the ELN guerrillas. For the congressman, there are more steps backward than forward in the midst of these conversations.
In addition, the representative took the opportunity to reproach Petro when, being a candidate, He said that if he were president, in three months he would sign a peace agreement with the ELN.
“What the country has seen in this negotiation with the ELN is that there are three steps forward and five steps back. And the first thing we have to remember is that it was President Petro who generated great national expectations during his campaign when he said that in the first three months of his government he would have consolidated dialogues with the ELN, and that has become a soap opera,” said the congressman.
It is worth remembering that on March 14, 2021, in an interview with Gustavo Petro, he said that, if he were president of the Republic, Three months later, the ELN would end after agreeing to peace with the guerrillas.
In response to the above question, Petro, who was then a candidate, replied: “As far as I understand, and I have to go into this subject in more depth, I confess because I was not a protagonist nor was I close to this process, an agreement was initiated with Cuba, from State to State, in which the government of that time committed itself to certain issues, among which precisely that, that there would be no persecution for those who came there to discuss the issue of peace. What I would answer you is the opposite, Three months after becoming president, the ELN in Colombia ends because peace is made.”
“That was the president’s first lie”
On this Thursday, August 15, José Vicente Carreño, senator of the Democratic Center, said that he, like many Colombians, I saw that the peace talks between the Petro Government and the ELN were not going well.
“As we all Colombians see it, bad. When President Petro told Colombians that in three months he would make peace with the ELN, those of us who know about conflict issues know that it was a big lie, But an illusion was created and deep down I personally thought: ‘It must be that he has already had conversations and has that in hand’; (…) that was the president’s first lie,” Carreño said.
For his part, Alejandro Carlos Chacón, senator of the Liberal Party, He stressed that peacebuilding is not easy, not at all simple, and on the contrary, it is not without its difficulties.
In addition, the congressman indicated that the ELN has been more radical with the conditions it has set in the midst of peace talks with the Petro Government, and that this What has ended up happening is slowing down the progress of the dialogues.
