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A Historic Peace was achieved in Colombia: The ELN Guerrilla laid down its arms

The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas have pledged to start talks for a ceasefire at the end of the second round of peace negotiations held in Mexico on Friday. “We announce the beginning of the cease-fire process”, says the agreement presented during a meeting between the negotiators of the two sides. The framework of the future pact will be international humanitarian law, according to the text read by the leader of the government delegation, left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

“This involves humanitarian actions and dynamics to reduce the intensity of the conflict, facilitate the population’s participation in this peace process, and generate guarantees so that this is possible in the areas where the humanitarian crisis is the most serious,” the document states. The delegates of the Colombian government and the ELN have been negotiating in Mexico since February 13. One of the objectives of the dialogue was to lay the foundations for a ceasefire. On Wednesday, they announced the holding in Cuba of a third round of negotiations aimed at ending almost six decades of armed conflict, without specifying the date on which this new round will take place. Havana hosted the negotiations that led to the 2016 demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which for years had been Colombia’s main guerrilla force. Talks between the Colombian government and the ELN began in 2018 in Havana under the government of President Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018) and were interrupted by his successor Ivan Duque (2018–2022) in 2019 after a guerrilla attack on a police academy in Bogota resulted in the deaths of 23 people.

By Paul Bumman

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