Colombia's Petro suspends arrest warrants against liberation movement

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
21 Aug 2022 12:45

The peace process between Colombia's new leftist administration and the National Liberation Army is underway.

Colombia's newly sworn president Gustavo Petro.

Colombia's newly signed president, Gustavo Petro, announced Saturday that he is suspending arrest warrants and extradition requests for members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group that has been involved in the liberation of Colombia from US imperialism since 1964.

See more: Who is Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist leader?

Petro's efforts come as a step to reignite peace negotiations aiming at ending a 60-year-old conflict in the country.

This move is an integral part of the new Colombian President's campaign, as he pledged to bring "total peace" to Colombia. Petro assumed office on August 7 and was a member of the M-19 insurgency.

"I have authorized the reinstatement of the protocols, allowing negotiators to again reconnect with their organization, suspending arrest warrants for those negotiators, suspending extradition orders for those negotiators in order to start a dialogue with the National Liberation Army," Petro said. "This resolution initiates a new possibility of a peace process in Colombia."

Representatives of the ELN have remained in Cuba since previous talks, as they were called off in 2019. It is worth noting that Colombia, like the US and Canada, designates the ELN as a terrorist organization.

The group asserted that they are willing to reconsider negotiations after Petro's election.

Testing the waters with the ELN, Colombia's high peace commissioner Danilo Rueda, along with Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva, Senator Ivan Cepeda, and UN official Carlos Ruiz Massieu, and a representative of the Norwegian government, traveled to Cuba to explore the possibility of talks and whether ceasefires and other measures could be established, according to Petro.

Petro asserted that discussions can begin where former resident Juan Manuel Santos' government left off, and that he would recognize the protocols agreed upon, with the help of guarantors from Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Norway, and Brazil.

Talks between Santos and the ELN initially began in Ecuador, then they relocated to Cuba. However, they were then canceled by Santos' successor, Ivan Duque.