Colombia begins a six-month cease-fire with its final remaining insurgent group in hopes of forging peace

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia and the National Liberation Army, or ELN, formally started a six-month cease-fire Thursday as a part of a course of to forge a everlasting peace between the federal government and the nation’s final remaining insurgent group.

The cease-fire settlement, introduced June 9 throughout talks in Havana, comes amid skepticism amongst some Colombians that the peace course of can absolutely finish an insurgency relationship again to the Sixties or halt the alleged involvement of the group’s estimated 5,000 remaining members in drug trafficking. The ELN management denies involvement within the drug commerce.

President Gustavo Petro known as on the nation’s political teams to grab the “historic responsibility” to succeed in a broad nationwide settlement to attain peace.

He spoke Thursday through the first ceremonial assembly of the broadly consultant National Participation Committee created below the June 9 accord to debate a long-lasting answer to the battle. Top officers of each the federal government and the ELN attended.

Petro appealed to the guerrilla leaders to go away behind lethal violence, saying that “everyone who really wants to transform this society, in today’s world, must be on the side of life.”

The cease-fire is meant to droop assaults between the guerrillas and the Colombian police and army all through the nation, and might be prolonged subsequent January if progress is made throughout peace negotiations.

PHOTOS: Colombia begins a six-month cease-fire with its final remaining insurgent group in hopes of forging peace

As lately as final month, guerrillas had been blamed for the slayings of three Colombian cops on the border with Venezuela, the kidnapping of a military sergeant and her two minor youngsters and several other bombings.

The U.N. introduced Wednesday it is going to deploy a contingent of 68 observers to watch the cease-fire. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, stated Thursday that Colombia‘s peace efforts “are advancing.”

Petro, who was sworn in final yr because the nation’s first leftist chief, gave new momentum to the nation’s peace efforts, and he reached the newest accord with prime guerrilla commander Antonio García through the talks within the Cuban capital in June.

Petro has pushed for what he calls a “total peace” that might demobilize all the nation’s remaining insurgent teams in addition to its drug trafficking gangs. He has at instances questioned whether or not senior ELN leaders have full management of a youthful technology of commanders who he has recommended are targeted extra on the unlawful drug commerce than on political objectives.

Two factions of the ELN – the National Urban War Front and the Northern War Front – introduced their endorsement of the cease-fire within the hours earlier than it went into impact, saying they might abide by orders of prime chief García to adjust to its phrases.

The ELN chief warned, nevertheless, that the group reserves the proper to struggle if attacked.

The ELN was based within the Sixties by union leaders, college students and clergymen impressed by the Cuban revolution. It has been notoriously troublesome for earlier Colombian governments to barter with.

In 2016, Colombia’s authorities signed a peace take care of the bigger FARC group that ended 5 many years of battle by which an estimated 260,000 individuals had been killed.

But violence has continued to have an effect on rural pockets of the nation the place the ELN has been energetic, together with FARC holdout teams and drug trafficking gangs.