2023-11-04 01:58:57
The Government of Gustavo Petro is going through a new difficulty in reaching peace with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last active guerrilla in Colombia, following it was confirmed that the kidnapping of Luis “Mane” Diaz y Cilenis Marulandaparents of the Colombian national team footballer and the Liverpool English Luis Diazwas perpetrated by the insurgent organization.
In dialogue with Sputnik, the international analyst and professor at the Universidad del Norte Luis Trejos He assured that this kidnapping does not prevent the dialogue tables from continuing but it deeply delegitimizes the entire negotiation with the guerrilla.
“The ELN did not measure the political and social costs of what it just did and surely this is going to greatly erode citizen perception regarding the real will for peace that this guerrilla organization has,” the expert said.
According to confirmed the Government delegation in the peace talks, the soccer player’s parents were kidnapped on October 28 by a unit belonging to the ELN in their city Canyons (department of La Guajira, in the north of the country). The forward’s mother was released a few hours later.
For Trejos, the profile of the victims indicates that the kidnapping had an “economic intention” and that it sought to present itself as an act of “common crime.” However, he considered that the Government’s “rapid institutional reaction” pressured the ELN to recognize its authorship.
The kidnapping occurred in the midst of a ceasefire between the ELN and the National Government that was in force for a period of 180 days from August 3. This pact was the result of the restart of dialogues in November 2022, following years of suspended negotiations to seek an agreed solution to the armed conflict.
“This kidnapping is part of a dynamic of negotiation and a ceasefire that the Government agreed upon with the ELN guerrilla but which leaves some gray areas,” the expert warned.
Trejos recalled that although the armed group promised not to violate International Humanitarian Law, it had stated that “if necessary it would kidnap once more.” “There was no express and total renunciation of this type of criminal practices,” he added.
The head of the delegation of the Government of the Historical Pact in the peace talks, Otty Patinoassured that this case will be presented to the Mechanism for monitoring and verification of the agreement, to determine if the kidnapping violated what was agreed.
Trejos believed that the crime will not affect the negotiation table as such, although he stressed that “what it does is deeply delegitimize the process to the extent that citizens are perceiving that this negotiation is being used by the ELN to continue committing crimes and not as a means.” to achieve the end of the conflict or the desired peace”.
After the event that had a notable impact, not only in Colombia but internationally, several sectors expressed their dissatisfaction with the way in which the peace process is being carried out, Trejos noted. In that sense, the specialist stressed that the Government needs to achieve consensus not only with the ELN but then with the Congresssince it will be in that orbit in which the pacts will be supported.
“It seems that the ELN is not taking into account or reading that the negotiation is losing political capital but also social capital, that is, people believe less and less in that process and many politicians, making electoral calculations, are going to distance themselves” , analyzed Trejos.
The analyst warned that the dialogue table might become stagnant at the point where the Petro Government leaves it. “If the Government does not have majority political support It is possible that these agreements will fail,” he commented, pointing out that the continuity of the dialogue with the ELN might be a matter of plebiscite in the 2026 elections.
At a social level, the kidnapping of the soccer player’s parents shocks all of Colombia. The specialist highlighted that the athlete is a very charismatic person and very loved in the country and represents an example of personal effort given that the young man, who comes from popular sectors, managed to succeed with his talent and perseverance. “There is total support from the citizens.” Even so, he considered it necessary that the attention that the authorities gave to the case “should be applied equally in all cases of kidnapping in the country.”
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