Development: On 26 October Colombia's left-wing guerrilla group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) killed 12 members of the security forces in the central department of Boyacá, as they transported votes from the country's day-earlier regional and municipal elections.
Significance: The attack, one of the deadliest by the ELN in recent years, came less than 24 hours after President Juan Manuel Santos declared the regional elections, in which ruling coalition candidates performed well nationwide, a vote in support of the peace process being conducted by the government with the country’s main guerrilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). This prompted fresh expectations that the government was about to announce the start of formal peace talks with the ELN, with which government representatives have been in exploratory talks since June 2014. Declaring himself “really broken hearted”, Santos last night ordered a fresh military offensive against the ELN. At the same time, however, a scheduled meeting between government representatives and the ELN scheduled for tomorrow (28 October) appears set to go ahead.
- The motives for the attack are unclear, but one inference is that it was a show of force by the group ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. Jorge Restrepo, head of the Centro de Recursos para el Análisis de Conflictos (Cerac) local think-tank, noted that in recent weeks the ELN has intensified its activities, effectively ignoring calls to allow the elections to pass off uninhibited. Restrepo and others suggest that the ELN is deeply divided over the peace negotiations, with the latest attack being attributed to hardline ELN commander Gustavo Aníbal ‘Pablito’ Quinchía who, since his release from prison in October 2009, has sought to militarily strengthen the ELN.
- However, strengthened by the progress with the Farc, Santos was clear that neither the government nor the people of Colombia would tolerate these violent negotiating tactics, or such a blatant attack on the democratic process. “This shows that the ELN has not understood that this is the time for peace and not for war”, the President declared yesterday in announcing the military offensive. “If the ELN thinks that these acts will win them political space or strengthen them in an eventual negotiation, they are completely wrong”.
- According to Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas, the guerrillas attacked the troops with guns and explosives in the Boyacá municipality of Güicán, a remote mountainous area in the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy and formally the territory of the U’wa indigenous group. Eleven soldiers and one police officer were killed, with three soldiers injured. Two further soldiers, a police officer, two election officials and a member of the U’wa tribe remain missing, the defence ministry reported.
- Jaime Bernal Cuéllar, among those appointed by Santos to facilitate the exploratory talks with the ELN, strongly repudiated the attack. However, Bernal noted that progress with the ELN leadership has been such that a formal dialogue table is in sight.
Looking Ahead: The latest incident illustrates the difficulties in trying to set up a dialogue in the middle of a conflict. However, the ELN’s actions may backfire by weakening rather strengthening its hand at the negotiating table.
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