Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA: ELN Leader Warns that Peace Process Will Be Lengthy

Patricia Grogg*

HAVANA, Nov 21 2006 (IPS) - Although it is engaged in exploratory talks with the Colombian government, the National Liberation Army (ELN) believes its armed struggle remains legitimate as long as the deeper underlying causes of the country’s civil war go unaddressed and the necessary transformations are not achieved.

In the meantime, the insurgent group is observing the evolution of the leftist governments that have been elected in a number of Latin American countries.

“We are keeping a close eye on the messages that reality sends us, in order to interpret them properly,” Antonio García, 50, the military chief of the ELN, said in an exclusive interview with IPS.

The 4,500-strong ELN is the second largest rebel group in Colombia after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose estimated 18,000 members control at least 35 percent of the national territory, mainly in rural, sparsely populated areas.

Both leftist groups were founded in 1964, but they have different origins. The FARC, which has deep roots in peasant struggles going back to the 1940s, was formally created by the Communist Party, while the ELN was inspired by the Cuban revolution and Roman Catholic liberation theology, and many of its members are urban intellectuals.

The ELN admits that a large part of its funds come from kidnapping. But unlike the FARC and the right-wing paramilitary groups, it is not involved in the drug trade.

García, who was reelected in July to the ELN’s Central Command in the rebel group’s fourth national congress, which reaffirmed that its main focus is currently the search for a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, is the head of the ELN delegation in the ongoing preliminary talks with the Colombian government.

The four rounds of talks with the right-wing Alvaro Uribe administration, represented by Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, have been held in Havana. The first round took place in December 2005.

IPS: Would you say the exploratory phase of the talks is over?

ANTONIO GARCIA: We have said that this phase is coming to an end, and we want to move on to a new one, in which, after agreeing on an agenda for the talks, we can reach accords on the dynamics of the peace process, which have to do with the creation of a climate for peace and participation by society.

IPS: What issues will be discussed in designing an agenda for formal peace talks?

AG: Major issues, which no agreement could be built without discussing. We have to get away from the idea that two people get together to sign something. No, first we have to discuss what aspects we are going to reach agreements on. For example, a ceasefire requires lengthy efforts, on the ground as well.

Or with respect to the question of forced displacement, the victims and organisations that have worked with them must participate, so we can examine and reach accords on possible solutions.

A future amnesty is another of the issues.

These are matters that require in-depth debate, and that will undoubtedly take a long time to discuss.

That’s where the problem lies: the wrong message is sent to the country when it is prematurely announced that there will be a ceasefire. Because first we have to discuss these questions in a very professional, serious manner. A responsible approach requires follow-up and monitoring mechanisms, the planning of details of how it will be implemented.

We haven’t even begun to discuss that. We also have to find out whether the government has the same idea that we do.

IPS: What is the ELN’s idea with respect to this question?

AG: We are interested in achieving a good climate for the entire country, not just for one sector of society. We have to discuss the question of weapons as a whole, talk about everyone’s weapons.

The Colombian government has a war strategy and continues to seek economic resources to finance it. If that tendency continues, it won’t be easy to build a peace strategy that includes the state. But we have the obligation to continue working with all sectors of society so that this war strategy shifts in the end towards a route to peace.

IPS: The fourth round of talks began on Oct. 20. The next day, a car bomb went off in a military academy in Bogotá. In response, Uribe cut off incipient contacts with the FARC towards a possible humanitarian exchange of imprisoned rebels for hostages held by the guerrillas. What impact did all of this have on your talks?

AG: Colombia has been involved in an armed conflict for the past 50 years, which in essence has not changed at all. The government and the ELN engage in military clashes on a daily basis, just as we stage operations in other areas with our FARC compañeros..

Soàthe conflict is there, and that’s not going to change unless the origins are addressed with in-depth solutions. You can’t ask the insurgents not to carry out a military operation if there is no agreement. The government has to understand that.

Peace cannot be achieved with warmongering statements. We have to work towards agreements, commitments, paths that lead to an end to these incidents. But if a humanitarian prisoners-for-hostages exchange is put off, that could end in catastrophe. If the government persists with its idea of rescuing the hostages by force, it will put the lives of the captives at risk.

IPS: What opinion does the ELN have regarding the FARC’s strategy of seeking a humanitarian exchange?

AG: We see a humanitarian swap as legitimate. It is allowed for in international law and has been carried out in other wars [as well as in the Colombian armed conflict.]

The ELN also believes that along with an exchange, it is also important for the country that we work towards an amnesty for social and political activists, community leaders, and insurgents who are in prison.

An amnesty would generate a climate favourable to the country, strengthen the peace process, and contribute to creating new political dynamics that can help Colombia move in a direction that we all want: towards peace and democratisation.

IPS: Would you say the Uribe administration’s strategy to demobilise the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) has failed?

AG: The thing is, there was no demobilisation. What happened was that a large number of new combatants were recruited into the ranks of the paramilitary militias, paid a salary, and these large groups were displayed as ‘demobilised’ troops.

Thousands of people supposedly hired for agricultural and other work were also put on display. They would truck and bus them in, pay them their first wages, and then wouldn’t let them leave.

Others were hired openly, knowing there would be a demobilisation process and that they would continue to be paid as if they were former paramilitaries taking part in the social reinsertion process.

It’s a plan that was conceived of to ‘modernise’ the paramilitary groups and bring them into line with the government’s way of doing things, with its huge network of civilian informants and with a few intelligence offices that can be tied in to the government’s plans.

IPS: Has there been any change in the ELN’s policy of kidnappings since the exploratory talks with the government began?

AG: We have not reached any accord with the government on that issue. We haven’t even discussed it yet.

IPS: The government says the kidnappings are a problem that puts heavy pressure on them.

AG: It also hurts us that there are four million people displaced and that the government does nothing about it. Some kinds of pain hurt the fatherland much more; it’s not a question of making comparisons, but when we talk about pain, we have to talk about all of the different kinds of suffering.

IPS: But the government says it has programmes to provide assistance to people displaced by the civil war.

AG: That’s not true. What it is doing is fighting to legalise the theft of land. The government has submitted a [rural development] bill aimed at the expropriation of small farms that cover a total of four or five million hectares of land.

How is the government going to make reparations for the damages if there is no willingness to return their land to the displaced, the land that was stolen from them? No one has told the truth about what happened.

IPS: Colombian society appears to be tired of so many years of war. How does the ELN feel?

AG: What Colombia is tired of is the poverty, hunger, unemployment, neglect, exclusion, and anti-democracy – the same things that prompted us to take up arms in the first place.

The armed insurgency is society’s resistance, which will continue if there are no integral solutions to this social, political and armed conflict.

Thus, the ELN sees its struggle for change in Colombia as legitimate and valid, and remains committed to that struggle. The ELN is not fighting just because it feels like it. The ELN’s weapons are the weapons of the people, not our own, and we owe our allegiance to those ideals.

IPS: Have there been changes in terms of human rights in the places that the government sees as areas under ELN influence?

AG: The situation has not changed; we must not deceive ourselves. Human rights violations – persecution, harassment and murders – continue to occur. Since we began this dialogue, community leaders and activists have been killed, as have people who are injured at the time they are captured.

IPS: Could that situation hamper the dialogue?

AG: No, because we have not reached any accord. We know that until an agreement has been reached, we cannot say that such and such an aspect has been violated.

IPS: The context in Latin America has changed today, and there are now progressive, leftist governments that emerged through elections. What do you think of this new panorama?

AG: There are new dynamics on the continent, which are challenging Colombia. Could paths to democratisation possibly open up in our country? We think it is possible to the extent that these Latin American political processes, like those of Venezuela or Bolivia, are respected and allowed to evolve in a positive manner. That would send an important message to the region.

That’s why we say that if real, concrete possibilities of democratisation emerge in Colombia as well, it will be possible to achieve peace, and not merely an agreement between the government and the insurgency.

* With contributions from Constanza Vieira in Colombia.