Vera Grabe and Iván Cepeda were appointed by Petro as negotiators in the dialogues with the ELN.
Photo: AFP, EFE and P
After more than two months of crisis at the dialogue table with the ELN guerrilla, the head of the National Government delegation in that negotiation asked the president Gustavo Petro to define the continuity of the process with the Southern Community Frontthe trigger of tensions.
In a statement, the delegation asked the head of state “to make the decision he considers regarding continuing to develop the work of the national dialogue table with the ELN, or to advance a dialogue table with the Nariño structure, or to determine that “This structure has ceased to be part of the organization with which it is negotiating at the national level, to develop an autonomous process with it.”
In the document, signing by Vera Grabechief negotiator, and Ivan Cepedadelegate of the Executive, argue that “it is clear that the Government cannot advance a negotiation process in two instances with the same organization: in this case, a national dialogue table like the one that exists today with the ELN, and another in a process with a guerrilla front.”
Can read: This is how the division of ELN and the Nariño front was created, which has the dialogues in crisis
Just a week ago, the ELN dialogue delegation asked the Government to suspend the talks it is carrying out with that structure.
Head of the front says that it is autonomous to propose an independent process
The delegation’s statement is given in response to a recent interview by The Empty Chair to Gabriel Yepes Mejía, known as ‘HH’, the commander of the Southern Community Front, who maintains that his structure is autonomous in “proposing a peace process from the territory.”
“We do not feel represented there (at the national dialogue table), with all due respect. We have always been a guerrilla in which the war fronts have been very autonomous,” said ‘HH’ in the interview.
As Colombia+20 recounted in this article, ‘HH’ accumulated enough power in its area of control (the center of the department of Nariño) to break communications for more than a year with the Central Command (Coce), the highest body of ELN leadership.
Vera Grabe and Congressman Iván Cepeda, members of the Government delegation at the dialogue table with the ELN.
Photo: Government Peace Delegation
After this division in the guerrilla, HH asked for a clue to total peace, meeting in August 2023 with key pieces that it had known for several years and started an independent process that the National Government, in its eagerness to show results in the face of the slow progress of the formal table, did not hesitate to accept.
Also read: The doubts and concerns after the capture of the head of the Sierra Nevada Self-Defense Forces
Dialogues in Nariño, trigger of a crisis of more than two months
It must be remembered that since February 20 of this year, when it came to light that the Government was carrying out a parallel process with this front without the approval of the ELN command, the peace talks table entered into crisis.
In fact, due to this situation, the seventh cycle of dialogues was postponed. Last week the delegations of both parties had an extraordinary meeting to seek solutions to the tensions, but the ELN was clear in its position regarding the dialogues with the Comuneros del Sur.
On April 19, through a statement, the ELN dialogue delegation He insisted on the demand to put an end to that process: “To get out of this crisis of the peace process, the government must renounce perfidy and return to compliance with the Agreements of the Table with the ELN“, reads the letter signed in Caracas.
