And Speech by President Gustavo Petro in which he questions the unity of command of the National Liberation Army, ELN, This did not go down well with the delegation of guerrillas with whom the government concluded the second round of talks in Mexico a month earlier. Representatives of that armed group questioned the “disrespectful and stigmatizing treatment” and asked the executive to clarify whether the talks were still considered a political process.
The words to which they refer were pronounced by Petro this Friday, May 12, in front of the generals and admirals of the country’s armed forces. There, as a prelude to the tension caused by the president’s previous complaint about a possible coup, he assured that the ELN guerrilla “has changed and is not an insurgent group as before, it is now fighting for territory”. Illegal economy.”
announcement of the head of state, whoever said that his administration is not negotiating with the old ELN, but is trying to bring younger commanders into the talks, This was described by the representatives of that group as delegitimization of the institutional framework of the negotiating table.
“The dialogue delegation of the rebel organization believes that Gustavo Petro’s position challenges the Mexico agreement that his government signed,” he warned, while the president’s remarks represent a Fundamental questions on the political meaning of the dialogue table and its entire architecture, including the legitimacy of the government delegation, the guarantor countries, the accompanying organizations (UN and the Colombian Episcopal Conference) and accompanying countries.
“To the ELN Dialogue Delegation, the President, Gustavo Petro, denounces the Mexico Agreement, which was signed by his own government on March 10, 2023, during the second round of these negotiations,” he said, referring to the presidential decree. questioned whether the executive gave the ELN the political status of an “insurgent armed organization”.
For these reasons, the ELN delegation urgently requested that the President “define whether his government continues to consider, as stated in the Mexico Agreement signed by the parties and deposited with the guarantors, that a serious political process aimed at overcoming armed conflict”.
In any case, the head of state also told the generals and admirals of the country that the focus of this government is to attack the illegal economies that help them to finance themselves.
