Havana – The smaller of Colombia’s two main leftist insurgencies said here Tuesday that it agreed with the Bogota government to follow up the parties’ current exploratory peace talks in the Cuban capital with further discussions in the new year.
“Yes, of course, yes, there is something agreed on continuing … that we’re going to go on in the same spirit. We’re going to outline a few goals and shared proposals to plan new meetings,” the top rebel negotiator, Antonio Garcia, told reporters when asked if the talks had produced any consensus.
Garcia said the delegations from the National Liberation Army – ELN – and the Colombian government that have been meeting in Havana since last Friday were putting the finishing touches to a joint communique and trying to set a time and place for their next encounter.
“The climate (of the discussions) was good and the conclusions as well,” said Garcia, who is the ELN’s military chief and deputy leader overall.
He said the ELN and the Colombian government are of one mind on the need to press ahead with the “conversations and with the creation of space for the (peace) process.”
Garcia did not address the substance of any possible peace pact between his group and the administration of President Alvaro Uribe, and noted that the shape of the future talks is likely to be the subject of additional negotiation during the exploratory gathering here in Cuba, which is set to continue at least through Wednesday.
Past negotiations between the ELN and Uribe’s government have foundered on the rebels’ unwillingness to abandon kidnappings for ransom, the group’s chief source of funds.
With its roughly 5,000 fighters, the ELN is a quarter of the size of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has so far rejected government overtures for peace talks.
Also present at the ongoing talks in Havana have been diplomats from the three countries facilitating the Bogota-ELN contacts – Norway, Spain and Switzerland – and Colombian Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who maintains a residence in the Cuban capital.
