The National Liberation Army (ELN) Creates a Different Peace Process
García-Peña, Daniel
When international attention is directed to the Colombian peace process, most observers focus on government dealings with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A unique meeting in...
...The government further hardened its line...
...The proposed "National Convention" included active, direct and decisive participation from civil society...
...The ELN successfully attracted followers during its early years...
...Coming from almost a decade of failed peace talks and perceptions of broken promises, the FARC embarked on a significant strategic shift in 1993 by emphasizing the strengthening of its military capacity...
...Their main areas of influence lay in Colombia's northeast, and members identified with the Cuban Revolution...
...These divergences set off a lengthy debate in the ELN, leading to its decision in 1996 to pursue a peaceful resolution of the war through a new model that was not centered exclusively around bilateral talks between government and guerrilla leaders...
...Relations between the two were strained, and even though they acted jointly during negotiations in Venezuela in 1991 and Mexico in 1992 under the government of President Cesar Gaviria (19901994), the breakdown of those talks effectively destroyed the CGSB...
...But it was never duly ratified, because of the unexpected death of Manuel Perez a few weeks later...
...The ELN'S resurgence was also political...
...At first, none of the other guerrilla groups were interested...
...He also gave priority to the FARC, which had endorsed his candidacy in the crucial second round of the presidential elections...
...But the ELN denounced talks as an establishment trap and instead began pursuing unification for armed insurgency...
...In a clear sign of progress, the ELN and the government agreed to the formal creation of a "Group of Friends," composed of representatives from Spain, France, Norway, Switzerland and Cuba, to serve as facilitators...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Daniel Garcia-Pena is a university professor and journalist who served as High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia from August 1995 to August 1998, and currently heads an effort to promote grass-roots participation in the peace process...
...The observers are expected to make recommendations to put the talks back on track, although no date has been set for future meetings...
...This has delayed plans to initiate the National Convention...
...This left the ELN and FARC basically alone in the CGSB...
...The ELN blamed the intensification of the fighting on the paramilitaries and the support they obtained from the government...
...Geneva was touted as an opportunity to kick-start the process, and a wide variety of participants began deliberating in an atmosphere of optimism and frank discussion...
...its most notable member, the charismatic priest Camilo Torres, was killed in combat and quickly became a celebrated martyr...
...But then, news arrived about fierce fighting in the encounter zone...
...This led to the creation, in 1987, of the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Coordinator (CGSB), which included all the guerrilla groups...
...The government denied responsibility It appeared the entire peace process would be suspended...
...cre of 25 people...
...In July of the same year, in Mainz, Germany, the agreement's basic framework was included in the Gates of Heaven Accord, which the ELN signed with representatives from civil society...
...During the same period, however, the ELN was just beginning its experience with the peace process...
...But as the peace process began to break down a few years later, the rebel organizations came to agree with the ELN initiative...
...A unique meeting in Switzerland on July 24 and 25, however, revealed the possibilities and difficulties of a very different kind of process: one carried out with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second major guerrilla group...
...The ELN's founders were university students, oil workers and Catholic priests who espoused liberation theology...
...The FARC and other major guerrilla groups signed cease-fire agreements with the government of President Belisario Betancur in 1984...
...Even though the Geneva meeting fell short of original expectations because it did not produce a cease-fire agreement, it avoided the real danger that the peace negotiations would be aborted...
...then they kidnapped more than 150 churchgoers one Sunday in Cali and demanded ransom for their release...
...Hopes of getting things back on track were also rekindled by the Pastrana Administration's decision to demilitarize an "encounter zone," and to name a new peace commissioner, Camilo Gomez, who has dedicated significant efforts to reestablishing trust with the ELN...
...Later they blew up power lines and oil pipelines...
...Feeling squeezed militarily and excluded politically, the ELN resorted to terrorism...
...bermeja in 1998 protest But problems have persisted...
...attend the meeting but immediately endorsed its outcome, as did President-elect Pastrana...
...The former began as a peasant organization, mainly in the south, and took up the doctrines of Soviet Communism...
...There was also hope, in great part generated by the media, that they could reach a cease-fire agreement as a first step, marking a big difference with the process with the FARC, where no such pact exists...
...The ELN also decided to make contact with the government of President Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), despite that administration's deep political crisis, and even though the FARC had publicly refused to have any dealings with the weakened regime...
...As each group went its separate way, the FARC's and ELN's positions seemed increasingly distant from each other...
...Residents of the encounter zone, many of them coca growers said to have close ties to the paramilitaries, have organized protests against the proposed measure...
...In February 1998, the ELN signed a draft agreement with the government outlining the National Convention process...
...As the events in Switzerland came to an end, at least one thing seemed clear: The ELN leadership's work as negotiators was far from over...
...In the early 1970s, however, the ELN was torn by bitter internal disputes and was practically wiped out by the Colombian Army...
...Even before Pastrana took office in August 1998, he had already demonstrated bold political will and leadership by initiating a new phase in the peace process...
...But representatives of civil society and the Group of Friends agreed to send international observers to the zone, and their actions were again key to saving the talks and overcoming the negotiating impasse...
...Some have even suggested that Pastrana virtually ignored the ELN and focused almost exclusively on the FARC because the ELN process had begun under the president's predecessor and hated rival, Samper...
...Their unity was short-lived, however...
...A chance remains to build a new model for resolving Colombia's blood bath peacefully, and with broad citizen participation...
...Both the FARC and ELN were founded in 1964, but from the start they have differed greatly from each other...
...It was civil society, clearly, who revived the peace negotiations this year...
...After a standstill in negotiations of nearly a year and a half, the government and the ELN jointly called the meeting to garner support for the process, to set a timetable for future talks and to resolve several problems that had stalled previous negotiations, such as disagreement over the establishment of a demilitarized zone...
...On taking office, Pastrana acceded to the FARC's demand to demilitarize sizable territory in the south...
...Although publicly the government also endorsed the ELN's process, it originally denied that group's request for a demilitarized zone, leading to a general perception that it was giving the smaller guerrilla group second-class treatment...
...In the 1980s it was reborn under the leadership of a Spanish priest, Manuel Perez, with the help of millions of dollars from German contractors who had been hired to build an oil pipeline, and whom the ELN extorted with threats of kidnapping...
...Even though the ELN has been in the mountains of the zone for months, government troops have yet to withdraw from the more populated valley region...
...Between 1989 and 1991, the April 19 movement (M-19), People's Liberation Army (EPL) and other smaller groups signed agreements with the government leading to their disarmament and demobilization...
...During 1999, they hijacked an Avianca airliner and took its 70 passengers hostage...
...Indeed, the sight of Francisco Galan and Felipe Torres-two jailed ELN leaders on leave from their prison near Medellin-mingling in a Geneva hotel lobby with President Andres Pastrana's top peace negotiators, 80 representatives from Colombian civil society, and other fellow insurgents, was emblematic of the special nature of the peace process in Switzerland...
...Meanwhile, the ELN began to feel the direct effects of repression-mainly in northern Colombia-from rightwing paramilitary self-defense groups...
...ELN guerrillas in Barran The government did not officially the paramilitaries' mas...
Vol. 34 • September 2000 • No. 2
