Colombian National Liberation Army offers peace talks

The National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN by its Spanish acronym) is the smaller of the two guerrillas operating in the troubled South American country. Its ideology is Christian-Marxist (Liberation Theology), though this has not stopped them short from kidnapping a bishop years ago.

I recently mentioned that the largest (and purely Marxist) guerrilla, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rejected the "offer" of surrender by the new government in Bogotá. At that time they made a counter-proposal of peace agreements dealing with structural challenges in political and social aspects.

Similarly now the ELN makes an offer of negotiations. This has been known by a 15 minutes video circulating by the Internet (in Spanish):

Not sure how long it'll be on YouTube anyhow, as they tend to delete or restrict access to controversial material, but the full transcript is available (also in Spanish) at Rebelión.

In the video, the first commander of the ELN, Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, Gabino, asks the Colombian government to initiate the much needed peace process, with participation of all social actors, in a so-called National Convention culminating in a National Constituent Assembly. He also calls for the help in this endeavor from the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as UNASUR (the regional South American cooperation bloc). 

ELN flag

He begins pondering the past failed attempts to bring peace to the country with the various governments since the 1980s. In 1999, the various guerrillas finally reached an agreement but Gabino says that the paramilitaries (death squads of the narco-oligarchs) forced President Pastrana not to sign it, abruptly ending the dialogue with an attack against the negotiators' camp.

Further dialogue was attempted with the narco-president Álvaro Uribe but were aborted when they were already very advanced by the demand of the government that the ELN gathered all its forces in a small district. 

After denouncing the 8 years of brutal repression and genocide under Uribe, he also rejects the proposal of new President Santos (heir of one of the best established oligarchic clans of Colombia and minister of defense under Uribe): the majorities must overcome the limitations of this bourgeois agreement by raising the initiative of a National Peace Agreement, which makes viable the structural transformation of the problems that are the original causes of the conflict, because, while these exist, the insurgency will exist as well.

After making sectoral addresses to various groups and institutions, Gabino ends insisting that the ELN is firmly committed to the respect towards the communities and open to criticisms, as well as to International Humanitarian Law. He also declares that they are not at all related to drug traffic:

We do not have crops, nor laboratories, nor transport or distribution networks. Evidence of that is that there has not been any judicial registry nor will be because we have nothing to do with that phenomenon.

The closing of the video-address is:

Let Colombia count on the ELN for a peace proposal that leaves us social justice and a true democracy. 

Colombia for the workers!


Not a step backwards!


Liberation or death!

40 unionists murdered in 2010 in Colombia

Murder Company, Inc.

Among other macabre records, Colombia has the one of being the country where being active in labor struggles is more risky by far. 60% of all unionists murdered in the whole planet are Colombians. And the situation is not improving at all, only this year there have been 40 murders of this kind.

The latest one was William Tafur, 46, mechanic at a coal mine of the US-based company Drummond, was shot several times on the head in October 26th, at Santa Marta, in the Caribbean coast.

The Unitary Workers' Central (CUT) demands a throughout investigation and denounce the Alabama family business as actor of a continued  repression, hostility and murders. Since 2001 8 workers of this company have been murdered.

They also denounce Drummond of lying about the real salaries and work conditions in the company and the Ministry of Social Protection for failing to do its work and ignoring the denounces of workers.

Source: Rebelión[es]