Bogotá (EFE).- The guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN) ordered all its structures to cease fire against the military forces from this Thursday until August 3, when the national bilateral ceasefire officially begins for 180 days agreed with the Colombian Government.
“From 12 a.m. on July 6 until 12 a.m. on August 3, 2023, the structures of the National Liberation Army must cease all offensive military actions against the Military and Police Forces throughout the national territory,” says the Central Command of the guerrilla in a communiqué.
Cessation as a compromise of the dialogues
This is a way of fulfilling the period of “enlistment” that the guerrillas and the government agreed to in Havana in the third round of negotiations and that entails a national bilateral ceasefire from August 3, with a period from July 6. preparation between the two parties.
The ELN structures must also cease intelligence actions as of this Thursday, but they will keep defense and security devices activated “to respond to threats or attacks by any armed group or establishment against our units or against the civilian population.”
For his part, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has not yet signed the ceasefire decree, a necessary step, as Defense Minister Iván Velásquez has stressed on several occasions for the Army and Police to cease their actions. offensives against the guerrillas.
“As long as there is no ceasefire in force – and this occurs at the moment that the president issues a decree that indicates the precise day and time – offensive operations, all the activity of the public force with all its capabilities, continues unfolding”, Velásquez has had an impact.
ELN armed strike in Chocó
This comes a day after it became known that the ELN’s Western War Front, which operates in the jungle department of Chocó (west), announced an “armed strike” starting this Tuesday and indefinitely throughout the San Juan, Sipí, Cajón and their tributaries, in this department.
“We call on all the inhabitants and transporters to refrain from circulating in the territory while said order is in force,” announced the commander of that front, “Gerson”, in an audio.
This region has undergone several armed strikes by the guerrillas, who are in open combat with the paramilitary Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC) and who, since the end of last year, have exposed hundreds of people in this area, who live connected to urban centers by rivers, confined or forced to leave their homes.
Precisely last week, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (AOCP) reported that more than a hundred families are displaced and some 800 confined to the San Juan and Sipí rivers, after an evaluation made with the communities in a Peace Mission, who will return to the area this week despite the clashes.
The crisis, according to the inhabitants of the area, is similar to the one suffered between 2000 and 2004 when the war intensified between the extinct FARC and the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), and it takes place precisely at a time when the ELN He is sitting at a negotiating table where “humanitarian relief” was agreed for this area of Bajo San Juan.
Confluence of different armed groups
In this area, the ELN maintains strong clashes against the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia or Clan del Golfo, who have been pushing the guerrillas towards the south of the Pacific in a fight for territorial control that has exposed the communities to a number of confinements without precedents that advocate an increase in malnutrition and not being able to access basic services.
In early June, the Ombudsman’s Office warned that more than 5,000 people were confined in the municipality of Nóvita, also in Chocó, north of Sipí, due to clashes between the ELN and the Clan del Golfo.