The Colombian government and the nation’s second-largest rebel group are scheduled to open preliminary peace talks Friday in Havana aimed at easing Colombia’s brutal civil war.
But experts say the chances are slim of reaching a deal between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the 3,500-strong National Liberation Army, or ELN, given the history of failed peace attempts and the reluctance of either side to compromise.
Still, there is some room for optimism because Uribe, a highly popular conservative leader, would like to forge a peace agreement with the ELN to remove one armed group from the conflict while boosting his chances for re-election in May.
The ELN also may show flexibility in the talks after being battered and weakened on the battlefield by the Colombian military, the outlawed right-wing paramilitary forces and even the largest leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
“The chances of success are not great but they are better than they have been in some time,” said Phillip McLean, a former top U.S. diplomat in Latin America and now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The ELN has a strong motive to bring this to an end.”
Known for his aggressive military tactics and uncompromising nature, the U.S.-backed Uribe has sharply increased the size of Colombia’s military forces, which have seized the offensive in many regions and improved security.
Yet Colombian forces have been unable to defeat the various insurgencies in a 40-year conflict that kills more than 3,000 people a year.
Uribe first struck a peace deal with the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which has demobilized about 13,000 of its estimated 20,000 fighters since 2003. Two thousand paramilitary fighters surrendered their weapons this week.
But critics say the peace agreement gives AUC commanders–many of whom are heavily involved in drug trafficking–amnesty for massacres and other human-rights violations while shielding them from extradition to the United States.
Adam Isacson, director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, said Uribe is seeking a peace agreement with the ELN to ease criticism that he is too closely aligned with paramilitary forces.
More Top Picks Screens Patio
“This would inoculate him from those charges,” Isacson said.
An ELN demobilization also would allow the already stretched Colombian military to concentrate its forces on the FARC, which has shunned peace talks and remains the government’s most formidable enemy, experts say.
Formed in 1964 by leftist students and a handful of radical priests who took up arms, the ELN has been closely aligned with Cuba, which in the past provided military training, financial support and even medical treatment to injured ELN fighters.
While the paramilitaries and FARC finance their insurgencies primarily through drug profits, the far smaller ELN has turned to kidnappings and extortion, especially in the oil-rich region of Arauca.
ELN commandos regularly targeted a key oil pipeline crossing Arauca, but attacks have fallen dramatically as the FARC and the Colombian military dislodged the ELN and deprived the group of millions of dollars a year in illegal income.
Colombian security forces also have dislodged the ELN from major highways where it conducted many kidnappings, and the ELN has been further weakened by desertions, according to the respected Colombian newsweekly Semana.
“The fronts are in retreat, isolated and hungry,” Ramiro Ruiz, the head of an ELN column that deserted last month, told the magazine.
Yet, Semana warned, “Despite its relative weakness, this is not a group that will give in easily at the negotiating table.”
The ELN and Colombian government have failed on numerous occasions to secure a peace deal, with the most recent attempt occurring in Havana in 2002.
Achieving a cease-fire will be difficult because the government has demanded that any cessation of hostilities include a commitment by the ELN to end its kidnappings.
The ELN has refused to halt kidnappings unless the Colombian government provides financial support to the rebel group during the peace negotiations, something that is anathema to Uribe.
The ELN has long demanded the nationalization of Colombia’s oil sector, a large-scale agrarian reform program and other major social and economic measures as part of any peace deal.
———-