Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) — the country’s largest remaining rebel group — have signed a ceasefire after months of negotiations, marking a major milestone in President Gustavo Petro’s campaign for “total peace.”
Friday’s announcement is the culmination of a third round of talks in the Cuban capital Havana. The national bilateral ceasefire will take effect on August 3 and will last six months as both sides try to build trust.
“This is considered very important here because the ELN, which has been operating in open conflict with the Colombian state since the 1960s, has never signed any kind of full nationwide ceasefire,” Al Jazeera correspondent Alessandro Rampietti reported live from Bogotá, Colombia.
“It would definitely be the biggest achievement yet in these peace negotiations that have been going on since the start of President Gustavo Petro’s government in August.”
And las próximas horas estaré viajando a La Habana para asistir a la clausura del tercer ciclo de la Mesa de Diálogos de Paz. https://t.co/bFNpyzGIP1
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 8, 2023
The ceasefire was initially expected on Thursday, but as Rampietti explained, the delegations involved “essentially asked for another 24 hours to iron out some details”. Petro himself flew to Havana on Thursday to attend the signing ceremony, which was attended by ELN commander Antonio García and Cuban officials.
The agreement is the culmination of three successive rounds of negotiations, the first of which took place in Caracas, Venezuela, in December. A second round took place in Mexico City, followed by the third round in Havana, which started in May.
Colombia has been embroiled in a nearly six-decade-long civil conflict, with government forces, paramilitary groups, left-wing rebels and criminal networks all vying for power.
Petro, himself a former rebel, has pledged to pursue a platform of “total peace” by pushing for a ceasefire with the armed groups that continue to operate in Colombia. Petro is considered the country’s first leftist president and has sought to move away from the more aggressive tactics of his predecessors by inviting these groups to the negotiating table.
A report by the country’s truth commission, released last June, was critical of previous governments’ militarized approach to the violence. While atrocities such as murder, kidnapping and torture were committed by all parties, the report finds that the government and right-wing paramilitaries were responsible for most of the violence.
A turning point in the conflict came in 2016, when the government of then-President Juan Manuel Santos signed peace agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest rebel group at the time.
The peace deal required the FARC to disband as an armed force in exchange for rural reforms, political participation, reparations for victims and other conditions. But the dissolution of the FARC has left a power vacuum, and dissidents of the peace accords – as well as rival armed groups such as the ELN – have continued their violence.
A Red Cross report earlier this year noted that while violence between military and rebel organizations has eased in 2022, Colombians continue to be displaced and maimed as armed groups fight for control of territory and resources.
Petro’s pursuit of “total peace” has seen ups and downs: at the end of December, Colombia’s president prematurely announced a New Year’s ceasefire with the ELN, which he was later forced to withdraw. Talks with other armed groups have broken down amid waves of violence.
For example, in May the government suspended a ceasefire in certain parts of the country with one armed group, the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), after the group killed several indigenous teenagers.
Rampietti, the Al Jazeera correspondent, said Friday’s deal in Havana could provide a much-needed boost to Petro’s political prospects after weeks of scandal and opposition-led skepticism about his government’s peace talks.
“The government is in the midst of a major political crisis here,” said Rampietti, referring to a recent controversy over allegations of campaign finance violations.
Petro has also seen his agenda of social and economic reform stall in Congress for months. “So this will be very important,” Rampietti said of the ELN agreement.