Colombia to restart peace talks with the country’s largest active guerrilla group

Colombia's government and the nation's largest remaining guerrilla group have announced that they will restart peace talks next month for the first time since 2018.

After meeting in Caracas, representatives of the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army issued a statement saying a start date for the peace talks would be announced after the first week of November. The statement added that Norway, Venezuela and Cuba would be "guarantor states" in the talks, and that the participation of civil society groups would be "essential" for the peace talks to succeed.

A venue for the talks has not yet been announced, though an ELN commander, Antonio Garcia, suggested that different stages of the negotiations could be held in Cuba, Norway and Venezuela.

The ELN was founded in the 1960s by students, union leaders and Catholic priests inspired by Cuba's revolution. The group is believed to have about 4,000 fighters in Colombia and is also present deep inside Venezuela where it runs illegal goldmines and drug trafficking routes.

After a 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), the ELN became the nation's largest remaining guerrilla group. Since then it has increased its activities in territories that were formerly under Farc control. The group is known for staging kidnappings for ransom and attacks on oil infrastructure and has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and the EU.

Colombia's recently elected president, Gustavo Petro, is the nation's first leftist leader and has promised to make peace deals with the ELN and other armed groups in Colombia. He has shifted away from the strategy of the previous government, which suspended talks with the ELN after the rebels refused to stop attacking military targets.

In a press conference after the meeting between both sides, Colombia's peace comissioner Danilo Rueda said that the ELN had shown changes in its behaviour which had enabled it to gain the government's trust. Rueda said that the rebel group had recently released hostages and scaled back attacks against the Colombian military.

The ELN did not disclose any details on what it would seek in exchange for laying down its weapons. But the commander, Garcia, hinted that the group was looking for political and economic changes.

"The way to look for peace is not just by thinking about weapons but by attacking the root causes of this conflict which are inequality and the lack of democracy," Garcia said.

In the 2016 peace deal with the Farc, Colombia gave the rebel group 10 seats in the nation's congress as well as the possibility of forming its own political party, while rebel leaders who collaborated with a transitional justice system were able to evade prison sentences. Colombia's government also agreed to finance land titling schemes and rural development projects as part of the peace deal.