“Freedom for Dad.” The message that was read on the shirt of Colombian Luis Díaz after scoring Liverpool’s tying goal against Luton Town in the English Premier League on Sunday, synthesized the clamor of his country and went around the world. “Today the soccer player is not speaking to you, today Lucho Díaz, the son of Luis Manuel Díaz, is speaking to you. Mane, my father, he is a tireless worker, our pillar in the family and he is kidnapped,” he wrote minutes after the game in a statement in which he begged the ELN to release him immediately.
The last armed guerrilla in Colombia has kept the father of the star of the Colombian soccer team kidnapped in La Guajira for more than a week. The six-month ceasefire agreed between the Government of Gustavo Petro and the ELN – only the second bilateral truce with that group in more than half a century – did not prevent them from carrying out this action. President Petro himself assured that he is attacking the peace process and the insurgent leadership has said that they have already started the process to free Mane Díaz, but days and hours pass without that order being carried out. Kidnapping, one of the most repudiated crimes, is the obstacle that negotiations with the so-called National Liberation Army tend to encounter again and again.
The matter strikes a very sensitive chord in Colombian society, and even more so since it concerns a very loved and admired athlete. Jesuit Father Francisco de Roux, who chaired the Truth Commission, has described the kidnapping as “the crime that most broke and divided Colombians.” With more than 50,000 documented victims between 1990 and 2018, the main person responsible for the kidnapping In the framework of the armed conflict it has been the extinct FARC guerrilla, with 40% of the cases, according to the Truth Commission, followed by paramilitary groups (24%). The ELN has been responsible for 9,538 kidnappings (19%) in that period, and has not renounced that practice even after sitting down to talk with the Government.
When the delegations announced the bilateral ceasefire in Havana on June 9, that milestone was overshadowed by the statements of the rebels’ chief negotiator, Pablo Beltrán. At that time he told journalists that extortion and kidnappings were not part of the agreement. The ELN’s “finance operations,” he noted, include “taxes” and “withholdings,” as the rebels often refer to kidnappings. “If they are not necessary, they will not be done,” he added. His words stirred up the debate. Beyond the euphemisms that the guerrilla usually resorts to, those in the know agree that it is a clear violation of the signed document.
“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 delegation already pointed out. of the Government in the statement that revealed that the guerrilla was responsible, signed by Otty Patiño, the chief negotiator. “Without resolving this issue, we cannot move forward,” reiterated Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of the negotiating team. in statements to The viewer. “If the ELN is still not clear about its commitment to the kidnapping, derived from the ceasefire agreement, this must be the initial and obligatory point of the next cycle,” added livestock leader José Félix Lafaurie, representative of the most conservative sectors in the Government delegation.
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The ELN, which was born in 1964 under the influence of the Cuban revolution and liberation theology, has an extensive history of kidnappings and attacks on oil infrastructure. For decades it has obtained considerable resources from extortion of transnational corporations and the kidnapping of civilians, including foreigners. Although he has sat down to dialogue 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 the agreement with the ELN as the cornerstone of his total peace policy, so that it paves the way for dialogue with the other armed actors.
The ceasefire signed in Havana by the ELN is part of actions prohibited by International Humanitarian Law, which include both the “taking of hostages” and the recruitment of minors. The original negotiation agenda that the Petro Government proposed to resume – after the parenthesis that the period of Iván Duque entailed – was agreed upon in that of Juan Manuel Santos, in March 2016. Already then the public phase of the talks was long postponed. due to a tug of war over the release of Odín Sánchez, a former congressman kidnapped by one of the ELN fronts in Chocó. The table was only installed in early 2017, almost a year later, on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador.
“The kidnapping was a long and costly issue with the ELN,” Juan Camilo Restrepo, the chief negotiator of the Santos Administration with that guerrilla, corroborates in his political memoirs. “Although we had agreed that IHL would be the common language that would light the way to adopt measures or reach agreements of a humanitarian nature, the ELN argued that the right of rebellion invoked by them allowed them to kidnap, even with extortionate purposes,” he recalls in his book Four crises that marked Colombia.
One of the biggest differences between the extinct FARC and the ELN is that the former, much more pragmatic, “were capable at a given moment of making unilateral declarations, such as renouncing kidnappings,” Restrepo writes when alluding to the other negotiation. of peace in the Santos Government (see breakdown). The ELN, on the contrary, never makes these types of unilateral statements and “frames everything within an absurd bilateralism,” he believes. “For this reason, he has never been able to publicly renounce practices that violate IHL such as kidnapping, something that the FARC did at the time. Without a doubt, this attitude makes any peace process with the ELN especially complex,” he concludes from his experience. The dialogue table with the last guerrilla in arms stumbles, once again and before the eyes of the world, over the same stone.
The background of General Álzate in the process with the FARC
The case of Luis Díaz’s father has put the dialogue table with the ELN at risk. Also, bridging the gap between dissimilar episodes, he recalled one of the biggest crises that the negotiation with the extinct FARC guerrilla went through due to another kidnapping. On November 16, 2014, the FARC took away General Rubén Darío Alzate in Chocó, along with his assistant and a lawyer who worked for the Army, which caused enormous pressure to break off the negotiations.
“It was an action by the guerrilla that went against the promise not to kidnap again and it was also reckless on the part of the general,” says former president Juan Manuel Santos in The battle for peace. Santos suspended the trip of Government negotiators for a new cycle of talks. The general, his assistant and the lawyer were released on November 30 – two weeks later – thanks to the good offices of the guarantor countries and the International Committee of the Red Cross. With the crisis already averted, the negotiators returned to Havana and at the end of 2016 the peace agreement was signed.
Senator Humberto de la Calle, who as chief negotiator sealed the agreement with the FARC, has recalled the episode of the kidnapping of General Alzate as a result of the current situation. “He was quickly released because there was the conviction that at that time it was impossible to continue the talks under those circumstances, despite the fact that at that time the ceasefire had not even been agreed upon,” he recalled. “Very serious. “A true madness,” he said about the kidnapping of Mane Díaz. “Fortunately, apparently the central leadership of the ELN is in the process of seeking his release.”
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