Venezuela: compliance with agreements between government and ELN

Caracas, Oct 3 (Prensa Latina) The Venezuelan government welcomed the fulfillment of the protocols agreed between its Colombian counterpart and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

The executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, greeted last night in her Twitter account this step that guarantees ‘the safe and guaranteed return of the ELN peace delegation, which remained in Cuba’.

A statement released in Havana indicated that after four years of non-compliance by the Colombian State of the commitment assumed with the signing of the protocol signed in April 2016, the day before the return of the Dialogue delegation took place and ‘with security and guarantees’.

He specified that this had the accompaniment of the guarantor countries of Cuba, Norway and the Bolivarian Republic.

The text considered a victory of reason and International Law ‘against the purpose of perfidy that in the Government of (Iván) Duque sought ‘not only to mock the obligations contracted with the ELN, and with the international community’.

In that sense, it stressed that it also sought to ’cause serious damage to the people and to Cuba, as the host country of the talks in its commitment to the Peace of Colombia’.

The note thanked the guarantor countries for ‘their accompaniment, for their consistent defense of international legal principles and to the Republic and the People of Cuba for their full hospitality’.

The Colombian government and the ELN began talks in February 2017 in Ecuador, then moved to Havana and in 2019 the talks were suspended after an attack against a police school in Bogota that left 23 people dead and dozens wounded.

Last August the new Colombian government of Gustavo Petro and the National Liberation Army agreed to resume peace negotiations, of which Venezuela agreed to be one of its guarantors.