The peace delegation of the Government of Gustavo Petro in the dialogues with the ELN has revealed this Thursday that the last armed guerrilla in Colombia was responsible for the kidnapping of the parents of the soccer player Luis Díaz in La Guajira, last Saturday, a crime that keeps the country in suspense. A few hours later it was learned that the mother had been released after an intense police and military search, but the father remains in captivity despite the enormous deployment of the authorities. The delegation demands that the guerrilla immediately release him, while the news puts at risk the most advanced of the dialogue tables within the framework of the total peace policy with various armed groups.
“Today we have had official knowledge that the kidnapping perpetrated last October 28, in Barrancas, department of La Guajira, of which Luis Manuel Díaz and Cilenis Marulanda, father and mother of the soccer player Luis Fernando Díaz, were victims Marulanda, was perpetrated by a unit belonging to the ELN,” says the statement signed by Otty Patiño, the Government’s chief negotiator at the table with the National Liberation Army. The delegations announced a six-month ceasefire that began on August 3 and remains in effect until next year.
“We demand that the ELN immediately release Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz, and we remind him that it is his entire responsibility to guarantee his life and integrity,” the statement from the Government delegation underlines. “We remind the ELN that kidnapping is a criminal practice, in violation of International Humanitarian Law, and that it is their duty in the development of the current peace process, not only to stop carrying it out, but also to eliminate it forever,” the statement says.
#Release 🚨 | The delegation of the National Government at the Peace Dialogue Table with the National Liberation Army, ELN, informs public opinion that: pic.twitter.com/XPiAMBy0on
— High Commissioner Paz (@ComisionadoPaz) November 2, 2023
The police operation to rescue the father of the English Liverpool attacker, the great star of the Colombian team, is gigantic. The authorities are aware of the bad image that the country projects with a case that has had a global echo and takes a surprising turn as it involves a group sitting at a dialogue table. “If true, it would be a violation of the ceasefire agreements, I would not understand how this guerrilla wants to throw all the opinion of the country and the world on itself,” reacted analyst León Valencia, amid a wave of repudiation. “This is a violation of the ceasefire… of course it puts the process at risk,” agreed the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, in statements to Blu Radio.
The department of La Guajira, next to the Caribbean Sea, borders Venezuela, so the authorities have expressed their fear that Lucho Díaz’s father has been transferred to the neighboring country, where the ELN also operates. The guerrilla, however, would be coordinating the delivery of Mane, as everyone knows him, according to the newspaper Time. “We hope, as soon as possible, that this release takes place and that it takes place in conditions of total respect for the integrity and life of Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz,” Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of the negotiating team, reiterated in a public statement. President Petro replied to that message. “We spoke with Luis Diaz yesterday. “We worked for the release of his father,” he wrote shortly after.
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The kidnapping by the ELN “is immensely serious” and is “a slap in the face of the armed group itself to the peace process,” he pointed former Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, who was the Government’s chief negotiator in the dialogues with the ELN during the Administration of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018). “This is not only a crime by the ELN: it is enormous political clumsiness,” he assessed. Liberation has become a national cry. “The UN is available to assist in resolving this situation,” offered Carlos Ruiz Massieu, representative of the secretary general in Colombia.
Kidnapping is the stumbling block in attempts at dialogue with the latest guerrillas in arms. The ELN, which was born in 1964 under the influence of the Cuban revolution and the influence of liberation theology, has a long history in this regard. For decades it has obtained resources from extortion of transnational corporations and the kidnapping of civilians, including foreigners. Although he has sat down to negotiate with almost all Colombian governments since the 1980s, this is the first time he has had a left-wing president as a counterpart. Petro wants to seal an agreement with the ELN that paves the way to total peace with all armed actors.
The kidnapping has been one of the most condemned actions in the armed conflict of more than half a century that Colombia seeks to leave behind. It is a very sensitive matter, and even more so when it involves the family of a sports idol who is very loved and admired in the country. With more than 50,000 victims documented between 1990 and 2018, the main person responsible for kidnapping in Colombia has been the extinct FARC guerrilla, with 40% of the cases, according to the Truth Commission that emerged from the peace agreement. The ELN has been responsible for 9,538 kidnappings, 19% of those that occurred in that period. The Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux, who chaired the Commission, went so far as to describe it as “the crime that most broke and divided Colombians.”
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