An attack on an army base in eastern Colombia that killed two soldiers and injured 25 “practically closes the peace process” with guerrilla group ELN, said President Gustavo Petro in response.
The attack was carried out on Monday in Puerto Jordan, a village in the Arauca province, which has partly been controlled by the ELN’s Eastern War Front for decades.
Since the expiration of a ceasefire between the guerrillas and the military on August 23, the ELN has allegedly carried out more than 10 attacks on oil infrastructure in Arauca.
Peace talks between the ELN and the Petro administration have been all but suspended since February.
In a public statement, the president compared the attack in Arauca with a 2019 car bomb attack on the police academy that killed 23 people and triggered former President Ivan Duque to suspend talks with the ELN.
This is like an eternal becoming, silencing a part of the people, continuing wars and killing each other over and over again: as if that were our history.
President Gustavo Petro
Petro resumed the talks after taking office in August 2022, but the ELN began backing out of the negotiations after the government approved parallel talks with the ELN’s front in the southwestern Nariño province and regional authorities.
According to newspaper El Espectador, Monday’s attack caused tensions inside the government between those who want to put an end to the peace talks and those who want to continue.
Suspending the peace process with the ELN, which formally began in 2017, would be a major blow to Petro’s “Total Peace” policy, which sought to negotiate peace with armed groups that remained after peace deals with paramilitary group AUC in 2004 and guerrilla group FARC in 2016.
In its attempt to achieve this, the government has been trying to set up negotiations with five dissident AUC and FARC organizations and organized crime groups from the cities of Medellin, Quibdo and Buenaventura.
