Colombian government and ELN guerrillas reach a six-month peace agreement

The Colombian Government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group agreed on a six-month nationwide ceasefire in Havana today, starting on August 3.

The pact, referred to as the “Cuba Agreements,” was signed by the primary negotiators, José Otty Patiño for the Colombian Government and Pablo Beltrán for the ELN.

The signing was witnessed by the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and his Cuban counterpart, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The agreement outlines a progressive enlistment process for societal involvement in peacebuilding and a temporary bilateral ceasefire across Colombia.

Both parties have pledged to suspend offensive operations starting July 6, leading up to a full 180-day halt in hostilities from August 3.

Additionally, the agreement includes holding a Fourth Cycle of the Dialogue Table in Venezuela between August 14 and September 4, during which the implementation of the Cuba Agreements will be reviewed.

The pact also provides for the establishment of a National Participation Committee, set to convene starting July 25.

Other elements of the agreement include setting up a communication channel between the two parties, drafting pending protocols, initiating educational activities, and implementing mechanisms to monitor and verify the ceasefire.

“By May 2025, the protracted war between the ELN and the State will definitively end,” said President Petro, who had arrived in Cuba to partake in the conclusion of the Third Cycle of the Dialogue Table, a process that had been ongoing for 35 days.

Petro emphasized that the Havana achievement was a “partial agreement,” but it set the stage for Colombia to witness the end of another conflict by 2025.

Both the Government and the ELN had earlier agreed to a timeline that sets May 2025 as the target to have inked the first three of the six points envisaged in the Final Agreement pertaining to citizen participation, democracy, and transformations.

“The world of arms and decades of bloodshed… must end. The violence that has defined our generations… signals our failure to build ourselves as a nation truly,” Petro stressed.

According to Colombian authorities, founded in 1964, the ELN had around 6,000 combatants in 2022, and is deemed Latin America’s oldest active guerrilla group.

Initiated in March 2016 by Juan Manuel Santos’ administration, dialogue with the ELN experienced four negotiation cycles in Quito before moving to Cuba when the Ecuadorian government withdrew from the process.

The negotiations were suspended in January 2019 by then Colombian President Ivan Duque, following a rebel attack on a Bogota police school.

Petro’s administration launched a second negotiation round with the ELN in Mexico last February, and the third round has been ongoing in Havana since May 2.

Cuba hosted the 2016 signing of a peace and political reintegration agreement between the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) following extensive negotiations in the Cuban capital.

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