MIAMI – Colombia’s largest insurgency group declared a unilateral ceasefire on Monday, vowing to halt all “attacks on military personnel and electoral officials” a month before congressional elections.
The South American country is set to elect a new Congress on May 8, as voters prepare to head to the polls to choose their party’s candidates in the national primaries.
President Gustavo Petro of the left-wing Historical Pact, with six months left in office, is looking to establish a clear majority in an effort to rewrite the nation’s constitution to push through his reform-friendly agenda.
Candidates in Colombia on both sides of the political spectrum have suffered attacks from rebel groups and assassins over many years. More recently, however, several officials have been targeted over the past year, as violence is projected to disrupt 11% of municipalities, which are “at extreme risk,” according to the Movement for Electoral Observation, a Colombian electoral watchdog.
The Colombian government severed peace talks with the ELN, the National Liberation Army, last year after the group launched a vicious assault on a rival rebel group, the 33rd Front, a dissident faction of the now disbanded FARC.
The offensive by the ELN resulted in the displacement of over 50,000 residents in the Catatumbo region and killed hundreds of innocent civilians.
On February 16, the ELN made a motion to resume negotiations with the national government, proposing that an independent international commission be formed to “investigate the organization’s alleged drug trafficking ties,” as previously reported by Sociedad Media.
The request was made after a recent visit by President Petro to the White House in Washington, where President Trump has launched a scorched-earth campaign to rid the region of violent drug trafficking networks.
The United States State Department officially labeled the ELN a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997 under the Clinton administration.
The Colombian electorate will now vote for a new Senate and House of Representatives on March 8, as candidates from both the left-wing and the center-right conservative parties will compete for 300 seats in the nation’s Congress.
The ELN said in a statement that the group will allow voters to carry out their civil freedoms and vote “in liberty,” but did not specify when the group’s ceasefire will end.
