CUBA: Colombia's ELN guerrilla movement holds exploratory peace talks with Colombian Government in Havana

Record ID: 371234

  • Title: CUBA: Colombia's ELN guerrilla movement holds exploratory peace talks with Colombian Government in Havana
  • Date: 20th December 2005
  • Summary: (BN02) HAVANA, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) NORWEGIAN MEDIATOR TAKES SEAT OPPOSITE ELN REPRESENTATIVES
  • Embargoed: 4th January 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAF3LFWYTE2L7QJSID3Q1BLESZU
  • Story Text: Colombia's second-largest guerrilla movement, the ELN, held exploratory peace talks with the government on Friday (December 16) in a new attempt to end Latin America's oldest leftist insurgency.
    The talks were held in the Cuban capital, Havana, with Colombian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and diplomats from Spain, Norway and Switzerland trying to help end the four-decade civil war.
    Antonio Garcia, the second-ranking military commander in the 5,000-strong ELN (National Liberation Army) said no conditions had been set for the preliminary talks. But he said peace in Colombia would require social and political changes beyond the military realm.
    The last attempt at peace talks with the ELN -- also hosted by Communist Cuba -- broke down in December 2002 after the sides failed to agree on a framework for negotiations.
    Colombian government representative Luis Carlos Restrepo said there were big differences between the two sides.
    European observers were cautious about the prospects for talks.
    The ELN was formed in 1964 by university students and a handful of radical Catholic priests who took up arms inspired by Cuban President Fidel Castro's triumphant guerrilla struggle in Cuba.
    It has waged a war against the central government since then, along with the much stronger 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
    The Colombian government last week offered to withdraw troops from a 70-square-mile (180-sq-km) area in southern Colombia to allow a prisoner exchange with the FARC.
    While the prospect of talks with the FARC seems remote, the ELN has suffered military and financial setbacks in recent years and analysts say its leaders have realised they cannot win, so should negotiate.
    The talks are scheduled to end on December 22.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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