Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA: Uribe Prepared to Sign Agreement with ELN

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Aug 15 2007 (IPS) - The Colombian government has essentially opened up its exploratory talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) to civil society representatives, while saying it is “willing” to sign an initial agreement with the rebel group. If the proposal is successful, it could mean the release of as many as 200 kidnap victims held by the guerrillas.

Just when the right-wing government of President Álvaro Uribe looked like it was about to slam the door on the talks that began in 2005 with the ELN, the country’s second-largest insurgent group, the administration announced Tuesday that it was prepared to sign the “Acuerdo Base”, a framework agreement that began to be discussed in May in the negotiations hosted by Cuba.

In his proposal, Uribe agreed to recognise the ELN’s legal status as a party to the talks and to include in the Acuerdo Base the word “conflict”, although not “armed conflict”.

Although the Uribe administration has steadfastly refused to accept that terminology to refer to the violence in Colombia, the Supreme Court acknowledged in July that the country is in the midst of an armed conflict.

The government, which classifies the insurgent groups that took up arms over four decades ago as “terrorists”, clarified that it was only accepting the use of the term “conflict” in the preliminary documents signed with the ELN “for the sake of peace.”

The government also said that it would not stop considering the ELN a terrorist group, although it would refrain from referring to it as such as long as the Acuerdo Base is in effect.

The ELN, which was founded in 1964 by leftwing intellectuals inspired by the Cuban revolution, is willing to free people it has kidnapped. Kidnapping is its main source of financing.

Official sources estimate the number of kidnap victims held by the group at more than 400, “but it may be only half that,” said Luis Eduardo Celis, an analyst with the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris (New Rainbow Corporation), a think tank in Bogotá.

When asked by IPS, former health minister Camilo González, director of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ), concurred with Celis’s estimate.

“The ELN does not have the infrastructure to hold as many kidnap victims” as reported by the Defence Ministry, Celis – a former ELN member who left the group 11 years ago – told IPS.

“We prefer to purge our list of cases before giving out a figure that is inaccurate,” Olga Lucía Gómez, director of País Libre (Free Country), told IPS.

The foundation, which keeps records on kidnapping and provides advice and assistance to victims and their families, began the work of updating its list of names last week, said Gómez.

By signing an Acuerdo Base, the government and the ELN would commit to a mutual ceasefire between the army and the rebel group.

The conditions set by the government to agree to a ceasefire almost derailed the talks in the past few weeks. In response, the ELN launched a national and international lobbying effort “that has achieved its goal,” said the president of the Senate, Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez.

The crux of the issue is the question of verification. The ELN has called for “technical and community-based forms of verification for the temporary ceasefire and cessation of hostilities.”

The ELN does not exclusively dominate any part of Colombian territory, unlike the much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which controls an estimated 35 percent or more of the national territory, mainly in rural, sparsely populated areas.

In the meantime, the government’s all-out military offensive against the FARC continues, while the Black Eagles continue to expand. That is the new name of the far-right paramilitary militias which “disbanded” as a result of negotiations with the Uribe administration that led to a controversial paramilitary demobilisation process completed in 2006.

One of the government’s conditions for a ceasefire is that the ELN must concentrate its troops in one area, where they would be guarded by the Colombian army.

The group would also have to provide the names of all of its members – a touchy issue, since the ELN has historically been supported by a broad network of sympathisers, who far outnumber its actual armed members, according to experts.

“That is called ‘surrender’. It is not viable. The ELN has no intention of capitulating,” said military analyst Alfredo Rangel.

“The ELN has already basically declared a truce. It is carrying out just one armed operation a month, almost as a formality,” added Rangel at a conference held Tuesday at the offices of the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo, which was attended by international experts on peace processes.

Meanwhile, in the presidential palace, Uribe was accepting, for the very first time, international verification of the peace process with the ELN.

According to the government, the chronology would look like this: the Acuerdo Base would be signed; the ELN would release its kidnap victims and put an end to kidnappings; and the government would put “all of the rest” into practice.

“All of the rest” includes: solutions for the problems of “forced displacement, forced disappearances, widespread and illegal arrests and political persecution” of individuals, among other measures, according to the ELN, which also proposed a start for demining operations. (The group’s main defensive weapon has been anti-personnel land-mines).

The government has offered “a reasonable timeframe of two months” to finetune the mechanisms for the verification of the ceasefire, “and we will “gradually consolidate the Acuerdo Base so that it can bring us to a definitive peace agreement,” the government’s High Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo said in a press conference.

But former health minister González said pressure might be applied to extend the deadline to six months. However, “if the government does not sign the Acuerdo Base, that would show that it has no real intention of giving the process a chance to move ahead,” and “in six months we would be back in the same position.”

For the past decade, the ELN has tried to open the dialogue on peace up to society as a whole, by means of a “national convention”. But “it realises that it has to ‘dissipate’ the conflict and release kidnap victims in order for representatives of the business community to agree to take part” in the proposed political forum, said Celis.

Donor countries say they are willing to provide financing to the ELN for a time while peace talks move forward, so that the group can give up its practice of kidnapping.

Uribe made his announcement about being willing to sign the Acuerdo Base during a gathering of the National Peace Council (CNP), whose meeting was news in and of itself.

The CNP was created by law in 1998 and is made up of representatives of the three branches of government, oversight and monitoring bodies, churches, trade union confederations, business associations, universities, and organisations representing small farmers, ethnic minorities, retired members of the security forces, women, peace activists, human rights defenders, and victims of forced displacement.

“It is a considerable step forward that the government has decided to once again convene the CNP, which was established precisely to try to work towards a permanent, national peace policy,” former foreign minister Augusto Ramírez Ocampo, who is also a former high-level diplomat with the United Nations and the Organisation of American States, remarked to IPS.

The CNP “did not exist anymore. The government had basically dissolved it. Today it has reemerged – that is, if it continues to meet, and we hope that it will, at least for a short while,” Álvaro Villarraga, a CNP member who represents organisations comprised of former members of insurgent groups that demobilised as a result of past peace talks, commented to IPS.

Under the law that created the CNP, the president is to convene a meeting of the advising body every two months.

Villarraga said the government called Tuesday’s meeting in order to avoid a legal resolution and punishment for failing to comply with the law.

However, it was the ELN that asked for the CNP to resume its meetings. Preliminary talks between the insurgent group and the government will continue next Monday in Havana, but this time with the presence of a CNP delegation.