BOGOTA.- The National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia He assured in a statement that his structures freed “all the people” who remained kidnapped by the guerrilla for “economic reasons.”
“The Central Command directed the release of all persons deprived of liberty for economic reasons, it was reviewed in all ELN structures and the guidance was fully complied with,” the guerrilla said in a statement released on Friday by its peace delegation. that maintains dialogues with the government of Gustavo Petro, on your X account (formerly Twitter).
“We are complying with the unilateral and temporary suspension” of hostilities that the armed group and the government renewed in January, at the end of the sixth cycle of peace negotiations in Havana (Cuba), the armed group added.
Recently, the government’s peace delegation chaired by former senator Vera Grabe reported that from a list of kidnapped that Petro’s delegates handed over to the ELN at the end of last year, “today we can affirm that none of these people are in captivity,” without specifying whether other people were kidnapped during that period.
At the end of last year, in Mexico City, the guerrilla and the government agreed to the “suspension of withholdings for economic purposes” in Colombia, after a crisis generated by the kidnapping of the father of soccer player Luis Díaz, whom the ELN He was held in captivity for 12 days until his release in November.
Since then, peace negotiations have suffered setbacks. On February 20, the rebels announced the “freezing” of the talks, alleging violations of the agreement. But six days later the parties announced from Havana that they will resume the process.
Petro, the first leftist to come to power in Colombia, is committed to a final negotiated solution to six decades of armed conflict and violence that has left more than nine million victims and that did not cease despite the historic 2016 peace agreement that disarmed the bulk of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
In arms since 1964, the ELN has a force of some 5,800 combatants and a wide network of collaborators, according to military intelligence.
Source: With information from AFP
