ELN attack fuels shortage fears

What led to further ELN attacks?

The ELN has been active in Colombia since 1964 and has since become one of the country’s largest players in the Colombian conflict, an ongoing 60-year internal conflict between various politically motivated armed groups, drug cartels, and government forces. Efforts to broker peace between the armed group and the government have waxed and waned since its inception, but many believed that a major peace deal could be negotiated between the two following the rise of the country’s first leftist president and former guerrilla fighter, Gustavo Petro.

Petro largely campaigned on a promise to bring “total peace” to Colombia, aiming to end Colombia’s conflict through a series of peace accords with militant factions within the country with the ultimate goal of complete disarmament and dissolution, similar to the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) under President Juan Manuel Santos. Petro successfully reached peace deals with both the ELN and a splinter faction of the FARC known as the Estado Mayor Central (FARC-EMC), lending some credibility to the president’s ambitious plan to end the decades of bloodshed.

This plan for total peace has largely fallen apart in recent months due to rising tensions between the government, the ELN and the FARC-EMC. In late March 2024, the FARC-EMC became involved in a confrontation with an indigenous community after attempting to forcibly recruit minors in their fight against the government. Locals attempted to intervene in the kidnapping, which led to the death of one of the community leaders and the wounding of two others. In response to the attack, Petro suspended the ceasefire with the FARC-EMC in Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Nariño, leading to bloody clashes between the armed group and Colombian authorities.

Negotiations with the ELN have also largely stalled, despite the efforts of Colombia’s Minister of Peace, Otty Patiño, who is also the leader of the ELN’s peace delegation. As previously mentioned, talks on the continuation of the ceasefire between the Colombian government and the ELN suffered greatly following the latter’s decision to enter into talks with the Nariño Front, leading the ELN to claim that the latter had in fact been created by the Colombian government in an attempt to attack the organization’s leadership in one of the group’s publications, Insurreccion 947.

Furthermore, the publication states that this issue was raised by the organization’s official negotiators during meetings with the Colombian government, but was ultimately ignored, leading to the ELN’s withdrawal from the negotiations.

Both the ELN and the FARC-EMC pose a major threat to the authorities, largely because of the implications of Petro’s overall peace plan. During the ceasefires with the armed groups, the narco-terrorist organizations seized the opportunity to expand their power in a variety of ways, including increasing manpower, expanding narcotics production and smuggling operations, and expanding the reach of their controlled territory.

Without pressure from the Colombian government, this expansion continued largely unabated. The only obstacles were rival criminal organizations such as Clan del Golfo, a narco-terrorist organization that emerged from the remnants of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

As ceasefires are dissolved or expire, Petro’s plan to bring total peace to Colombia remains on shaky ground. The success of using government ceasefires to expand the power base of criminal organizations has raised doubts about the effectiveness and viability of the overall peace plan, with critics arguing that Petro’s plan will only exacerbate the ongoing conflict.