Havana – Leaders of Colombia’s second-largest rebel group agreed on Sunday to help de-mine several rural southern districts, marking their first concrete action since agreeing to a peace process last week with the Colombian government.
“We are directing our guerrilla units and structures that operate in the area to facilitate all the necessary conditions (so) the humanitarian de-mining can thoroughly take place,” Antonio Garcia, the military chief of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, told reporters.
Garcia and other ELN leaders made the announcement after meeting with members of the National Commission of Civil Facilitation, which includes Colombian bishops and former foreign ministers.
The number of land mine victims in Colombia has steadily grown in recent years, with more than 1,000 people injured in 2005.
The ELN and the Colombian government announced last week that they were ending the exploratory phase of discussions and launching the “formal establishment” of talks aimed at reaching a peace agreement.
The Cuban capital has hosted meetings between the two sides since they started talking last December.
The government’s top priority is reaching a cease-fire agreement with the rebels. Among the ELN’s top demands is a government amnesty for prisoners – both ELN rebels and non-rebel social activists and union leaders.
The ELN has been fighting the government since the 1960s. Its forces have dwindled to fewer than 2,000 fighters after a military offensive by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
The government is not conducting any formal talks with the country’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been battling the government for more than four decades.
The conflict kills more than 3,000 people each year.
