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COLOMBIA: Talks with ELN Enter Complex New Phase

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Apr 18 2007 (IPS) - The Colombian government and the insurgent National Liberation Army (ELN) have launched a complex new round of preliminary talks in the Cuban capital, hoping to agree on an agenda for formal peace negotiations.

The current round, the sixth since the exploratory talks began in 2005, opened Tuesday afternoon with Darío Echeverri, the secretary of the Colombian bishops’ conference’s Commission for the Reconciliation of Colombia, participating as a special observer.

Both delegations are staying in government houses located in El Laguito, an area of Havana where circulation is restricted and the press is not allowed in. The closed-door talks between the representatives of the ELN and the Colombian government’s peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo are also taking place there.

On this occasion, the ELN delegation is headed by the soft-spoken Pablo Beltrán, instead of the rebel group’s hard-line military chief, Antonio García, who led the talks in the first four rounds.

The changes in the ELN delegation and Beltrán’s late arrival in Havana, due to flight delays, triggered suspicions on the part of the Colombian government, which accentuated the chill caused by a flurry of mutually contradictory statements by the two sides in the past few weeks.

“That climate affected the trust and confidence that is essential to any dialogue,” said Jaime Prieto, the Catholic bishop of Barrancabermeja, a city of 160,000 people in the northern Colombian province of Santander.

Prieto, one of the Catholic church leaders who visited Havana over the past week to try to smooth tensions between the two delegations, told IPS he was optimistic about the preliminary talks, because “advances” have been made that could lead to formal peace negotiations.

But he cautioned that the process will be “slow, gradual and global” and requires “great patience,” and said that no “deadlines” should be set.

“Peace should not be seen in terms of specific timeframes, because it is not only achieved by agreements as such, but also involves a complex process of social justice,” which implies “the equitable distribution of a country’s wealth” and equal opportunities for the entire population, Prieto added.

According to World Bank reports, around 60 percent of Colombians live in poverty, amidst a decades-long armed conflict that has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the western hemisphere.

However, the Colombian government puts the poverty rate at 45 percent of the population of 43 million.

The bishop, meanwhile, said there is some flexibility on the part of both the government and the guerrillas with respect to reaching an agreement that would serve as the foundation for an agenda for formal peace talks, based on broad participation by society.

In a press conference, Beltrán told reporters Monday that his group had already clarified in February that the ELN delegation would be expanded, “which does not mean that others will be leaving.” He thus left open the possibility that García would return to the negotiating table.

The proposal for a “base accord” presented by the ELN argues in first place that to build a climate for peace, solutions are needed for the problem of forced displacement, a crisis that especially affects the rural population.

Nearly four million people were displaced by the civil war between 1985 and 2005, according to statistics from the Catholic church and the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a Colombian human rights group.

The agreement forming a basis for the agenda of formal peace talks should also include a ceasefire, the release of imprisoned ELN members as well as the 50 or so hostages held by the rebels, guarantees of safety for activists who engage in social protest, and an end to “political killings and persecution,” according to the ELN.

The group’s proposal also calls for participation by society in the process of building peace and strengthening democracy, as well as guarantees for members of the ELN during peace talks and an eventual demobilisation process.

In addition, the ELN calls for participation by the international community in the process. The exploratory talks have been accompanied by Colombian representatives of civil society and supported by several European countries, as well as Venezuela and Cuba.

Beltrán said a ceasefire should be experimental and temporary, and should not involve the concentration of ELN members in a specific area.

“If the guerrilla group loses its mobility, it will cease to exist. That kind of concentration would be suicide,” said the rebel leader, rejecting the formula demanded by the government of rightwing President Álvaro Uribe to guarantee enforcement of a ceasefire.

In Beltrán’s view, “the main thing is that there must be willingness to respect a ceasefire.”

The ELN is Colombia’s second-largest insurgent group after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Both emerged in 1964, although they have different origins and ideologies.

Last year, negotiations with the Uribe administration led to a controversial partial demobilisation of the far-right paramilitary militias, which are blamed for the lion’s share of human rights crimes committed in the civil war.

Restrepo has stated on several occasions that he has clear instructions not to leave the negotiating table. “I also have the same orders,” Beltrán told IPS. “We will not walk away from the table, even if they take away our chairs.”