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Colombia's ELN Guerrilla Group Announces Resumption Of Kidnappings
By AFP - Agence France Presse
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Colombia's ELN guerrilla group, currently engaged in stop-start peace negotiations with the government, announced Monday it would resume its practice of kidnappings, claiming authorities have fallen short on promises to provide them with international donations.
The ELN, or National Liberation Army, had agreed in recent months to put an end to all kidnappings -- a means of raising funds through ransom money.
Last October, members of an ELN unit kidnapped the father of Liverpool footballer Luiz Diaz, threatening to upend the delicate ceasefire. Luis Manuel Diaz was released 12 days after he was taken in what the ELN described as a "mistake."
But in a statement Monday, the group's leaders said the deal to halt kidnappings was contingent on the establishment of an international fund accessible to the rebels.
"The government has shown little will to advance in this area," the group's leadership said. "Given the above, the ELN terminates its offer of suspending unilateral economic withholdings," it said, referring to kidnappings.
The move by Colombia's last active guerrilla group is a major blow to a slow-moving peace process in the works since 2022.
"The delegation of the Colombian government has made it clear with the ELN that the trade of human beings has no... justification and its elimination is not the subject of any negotiation," representatives for President Gustavo Petro said in response Monday.
"We hope the ELN maintains the commitment made to Colombian society and the international community and puts an end to any form of kidnapping," the delegation added.
The Colombian government has insisted that any "international fund" established is intended to help finance the peace process, and "was in no way created as a compensation for the suspension of kidnapping."
Talks with the ELN resumed in November 2022 after the election of Colombia's first-ever leftist president Petro.
They had been suspended by his predecessor Ivan Duque in 2019 after a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota that left 22 people dead.
Founded in 1964, the ELN had more than 5,800 combatants in 2022, according to authorities.
The Marxist group has taken part in failed negotiations with Colombia's last five governments.
The much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, laid down arms in a historic peace accord reached in 2016, though violence in the country has continued.
Colombia's ELN Guerrilla Group Announces Resumption Of Kidnappings
Colombia's ELN guerrilla group, currently engaged in stop-start peace negotiations with the government, announced Monday it would resume its practice of kidnappings, claiming authorities have fallen short on promises to provide them with international donations.
