Colombian president suspends ELN arrest and extradition orders

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Saturday that he will suspend the arrest and extradition warrants against the chief negotiators of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the framework of the peace talks between the Government and the guerrillas.

“I announce that by decree, signed yesterday, I have authorized to reinstate the protocols and allow the negotiators to reconnect again with their organization to begin a dialogue with the ELN to try to build the way hopefully fast and expeditious, so that this organization ceases to be an insurgent guerrilla in Colombia,” Petro announced after finishing a meeting with the military forces in the city of San Pablo, in the north of the country.

With this announcement, the Colombian president assures the return to peace talks with the ELN. In the same way, he has asked the groups derived from the self-defense groups to follow the same path and to be included in the peace projects of the country’s institutions.

“I invite those who integrate the so-called self-defense groups to start a similar path and jointly deliver this region to peace”, added the leader.

The idea is that those who are part of these groups integrate into society to achieve a peaceful environment in the territories.

“This resolution initiates a new possibility of peace process in Colombia. We will be vigilant with the Public Force and civil authorities so that this brings the decrease of violence in the south of Bolivar, in our Magdalena Medio, in the lands bordering the great river”, Petro has explained.

In fact, this Friday saw the first U.S. conviction of an ELN guerrilla. In August 2021 the first two members of the guerrilla were extradited, a year later the Texas Court has sentenced the defendant Henry Trigos Celón, ‘Moncho Picada’, for international distribution of cocaine. He has been sentenced to 46 months in prison.

This week the Petro government has resumed dialogues with the ELN, through the Colombian High Commissioner for Peace, Ivan Danilo Rueda, and Minister Alvaro Leyva, in Havana, Cuba.

“The parties agree on the need to restart a dialogue process with facts that demonstrate to Colombian society and to the world that this will is real,” said the guerrilla chief, Antonio Garcia.

The talks were interrupted after the ELN did not agree to the demands of Iván Duque’s government, which finally suspended indefinitely any kind of dialogue in January 2019 when the attack on a police cadet school in which some twenty people died took place.