Peace talks with the ELN return to Havana

Peace negotiations between the Colombian government and guerrilla of the People’s Liberation Army (ELN) This Tuesday, they are returning to Cuba, a country that played a key role in these dialogues despite the political and economic cost it entailed.

Havana, the guarantor of the entire process, welcomes the third cycle of peace talks – after the one in Venezuela and the one in Mexico – with the aim of achieving progress, especially after the violence that has overshadowed the process for months and raised doubts about its health.

Success would be a bilateral ceasefire, one of the axes of the talks that will take place this month in the Cuban capital, along with the issue of humanitarian aid and the participation of civil society in the process according to the agreed schedule.

Return delegation in Havana, which was already the point of contact between the parties until the negotiations were frozen in 2018, by the decision of the then Colombian President Iván Duque (2018-2022) after the ELN attack.

“Cuba has been indispensable in the search for peace between the governments of Colombia and the ELN. Not now, but since long ago,” Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of the government delegation, told EFE, stressing that there were “fundamental dialogues” on the island between sides.

The Cuban government is aware of its role. In an interview with EFE, the director general for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eugenio Martínez, emphasizes that both sides have asked Havana to return to the island, and the executive responded that it was an “honor.”

“For Cuba, it is a firm conviction, a deep conviction, that the Colombian armed conflict must have a political solution” and “that it is time for Colombia to achieve peace,” he affirms.

Martínez defines Havana’s role as “discreet”, “impartial” and “very responsible”, guaranteeing a climate for dialogue “without interference”. “We support politically, diplomatically and create conditions for the parties to have a stage, such as Havana now, to be able to work fully,” he says.

List of terrorists
Martínez also alludes to the “very high costs” his country has paid “to defend what the parties have agreed upon and what Cuba has committed to.”

It refers to the inclusion of the island on Washington’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism, which has seriously affected Havana’s international finances at a time when the country is going through a serious economic crisis.

The United States, still under the administration of Republican Donald Trump (2018-2022), included Cuba on this list because of its refusal to hand over Colombia to ELN negotiators after the 2018 breakdown of talks, despite a request to extradite Duke.

Havana argued that the protocols show that in the event of a breakdown in negotiations, the parties must guarantee the safe return of the negotiators. ELN representatives remained waiting on the island for 45 months, until Gustavo Petro became president of Colombia.

In this sense, Cepeda claims that “Cuba paid a very high price for following the rules as a guarantor country“and” having fulfilled his obligations in terms of peace”. He describes it as “unthinkable from the point of view of international law” that Duque ignored the “termination protocol and demanded that Cuba hand over” the ELN negotiators.

He The ELN’s chief negotiator, Israel Ramírez, alias “Pablo Beltrán”he considers it “very commendable that Cuba has maintained a principled position” “demanding that the agreements be fulfilled” and recalled that the island “since the 1990s” has been facilitating contacts between the government of Colombia and the ELN.

It was a “very strong international legal battle” that Cuba won, “but at a very high price,” Beltrán said at a meeting with international media in Havana shortly before the start of the third round of peace talks.

Martínez, for his part, thinks that if Cuba had handed over the ELN negotiators then, peace negotiations might not be able to continue now. “This is a modest but important contribution from Cuba,” he emphasizes.

progress
For Cepeda, the “best recognition” that the parties can give Cuba for its role yesterday and today is to advance the process and “reach agreements”. “I think it burdens” the delegations, the senator believes.

Beltrán, for his part, believes that the celebration of the third cycle on the island is an “act of reparation” with Cuba and claims that if Havana “was right to maintain its position” not to hand over Bogotá to the ELN negotiators, it deserves “compensation, reparation “.

The recent disagreements between the parties do not seem to inspire optimism, but the delegations come with a clear mandate in this regard. Martínez hopes that the “magic” shown by Havana in other negotiations will work this time, although he admits that he does not know “if the parties are ready.”

“We see with hope the momentum with which they are coming and at the point that they left it in Mexico. We have some certainty that something important will come out of Havana,” he says.