The announcement comes less than two weeks after the Government and the ELN concluded in Havana the sixth cycle of peace negotiations in which they agreed to extend for another 180 days the bilateral ceasefire that began on August 3, and the The guerrilla also committed to “unilaterally and temporarily suspending economic withholdings,” as it calls the kidnappings of civilians.
For the ELN command, the situation that it now denounces “could be seen coming” and was exposed by its peace delegation in the conversations where, according to what it states, it warned “that if it continued its course it would put the dialogue process in crisis by violating the agreed agreements”.
“When such a setup is made public, disguised as regional dialogues, the process enters into an open crisis and we are forced to call our delegation for consultations,” the statement added.
The governor of Nariño, Luis Alfonso Escobar, told local media today that in the first week of March they will set up “the first regional peace table with an armed actor” without specifying who it is, because they want to make the country see “that a dialogues at the national level are one thing and territorializing peace is another thing.”
The National Government has not commented on these announcements or on the impact that the freezing of the peace negotiation with the ELN may have on the current bilateral and temporary ceasefire and on the suspension of kidnappings.