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Why has Colombia’s government ended peace talks with Marxist rebels ELN?
The new right-wing administration has cancelled talks and demanded the arrest of the insurgents' negotiating team - but the guerillas aren't beaten, writes OLIVER DODD
A woman guerilla of the ELN, Columbia's remaining armed communist insurgency
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SINCE 2017, Colombia’s government and the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) have been publicly engaged in peace talks to end 54 years of armed conflict.
But following the inauguration of right-wing president Ivan Duque in August 2018, a man who vowed to end peace talks during his presidential campaign, Colombia’s new government has since cancelled negotiations and called for the arrest of ELN’s negotiating team.
This reactivation of an Interpol notice ignores security protocols mutually agreed to by the negotiating parties, which promised the safe return of ELN’s political leadership to their units in Colombia in the event of the collapse of peace talks.
This demand also created a diplomatic dilemma for Cuba’s government – the facilitator of Colombia’s peace negotiations – although Cuba has declared that it will abide by the prearranged protocols.
Peace negotiations were cancelled after the ELN claimed responsibility for a bombing against the country’s largest training academy used for the National Police, killing 20 police officers and injuring dozens more. While ELN’s negotiating team in Cuba claimed that this attack was coordinated without their knowledge, they admitted that it was organised by a local ELN guerilla front.
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