Colombian government calls on rebel group to suspend planned armed strike

Colombia’s government on Wednesday called on the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group to suspend a so-called armed strike planned for the northwest of the country, after advocacy group Human Rights Watch warned the ELN may conduct a strike later this week.

Armed strikes prohibit movement along roads and rivers in a specific region, confining people to their homes and preventing the supply of food, fuel and access to health or education services.

The government’s request came two days after the first cycle of peace talks with the ELN closed in Venezuela. The negotiations look to end the rebel group’s part in Colombia’s internal conflict, which has run for almost six decades and left at least 450,000 dead between 1985 and 2018.

The two parties agreed to humanitarian relief in regions of the country where the ELN has a presence, to avoid recruitment of minors, forced confinement, and use of anti-personnel mines, among other issues.

“The call from the communities and the government is to stop the armed strike, not to carry it out, because it is planned to take place in the next few days,” Danilo Rueda, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, told journalists.

Human Rights Watch said sources on the ground confirmed the threat of an armed strike by the ELN, which could start on Thursday in a large area of Colombia’s Choco province.

Talks between the ELN and the government of Juan Manuel Santos began in 2017 in Ecuador. They later moved to Cuba, but were called off in 2019 by Santos’ successor, Ivan Duque, because the ELN refused to halt hostilities and killed 22 police cadets in a bombing.

The ELN, which has some 2,400 combatants and was founded in 1964 by radical Catholic priests, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.