Peace agreement between Colombia and ELN
USA sanctions Cuba for its sponsorship of peace negotiations
A six-month bilateral cease fire signed in Havana
The government of Colombia and the Government-Army of National Liberation of Colombia (known as the ELN for its initials in Spanish) have agreed to a cease fire and to continuation of participation in the process of the construction of peace in Colombia. The agreement was attained during the Third Cycle of Dialogues for Peace between the government of Colombia and the ELN, initiated in Havana on May 2 and concluded on June 9, 2023.
The agreement calls for a bilateral cease fire beginning on July 6, 2023. Mechanisms for monitoring and verification will be implemented on August 3, and the cease fire will remain in vibrancy for 180 days after said date. The agreement also calls for the activation, beginning on June 9, of a special channel of communication through the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General as well as the initiation of pedagogical activities and preparations for the implementation of mechanisms of monitoring and verification. The agreement also states that a fourth cycle of dialogues will be held in Venezuela from August 14 to September 4, in which an evaluation of compliance with the agreement will be made.
In the closing ceremony, the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, declared that the agreement brings to an end the stage of armed insurgency in Latin America, in accordance with the transformation of Latin American reality that has occurred in recent decades. The Prime Commander of the Army of National Liberation, Antonio García, thanked Petro for hearing the clamor of the country for peace, and he observed that the process of peace will restore the heart and the word to Colombia, which have been robbed by violence.
The ELN Commander and head of the ELN delegation, Pablo Beltrán, expressed his desire that Colombian society would back the agreement and would interpret peace not merely as pacification but as the basis for the necessary analysis of the profound causes of the armed conflict and the required social transformations. He warned that it is important to pass from written agreement to implementation, and that the proposal for change will face resistance from groups of power and privilege and others tied to historic violence in Colombia.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in his comments at the closing ceremony, declared that the accord was attained as a result of many years of work and commitment to a firm road in the construction of peace. He exhorted the parties to continue advancing toward peace.
Dialogues for peace between the ELN and the Government of Colombia were initiated in 2017, when Juan Manuel Santos was president of Colombia. The conversations were held in Ecuador, hosted by Rafael Correa, the President of Ecuador at the time. In 2018, the new President of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, decided that Ecuador would no longer serve as the headquarters for the negotiations, and as a result, the peace negotiations were relocated to Cuba. In the period from 2019 to 2022, the Colombian government of Iván Duque suspended the negotiations.
In 2022, peace dialogues were reinitiated in Caracas, Venezuela. On January 21, 2023, the Government of Colombia and the ELN issued a joint declaration at the end of the extraordinary meeting in Caracas, which announced a second cycle of negotiations in Mexico for February 13, when an attempt would be made to agree to a cease fire. Colombian President Gustavo Petro affirmed that the dialogues had the objective of obtaining solutions to the armed conflict, and a resolution recognizing the ELN as an armed rebel organization was signed in Mexico City.
The June 9, 2023, agreement in Havana at the end of the third cycle of negotiations is the eleventh agreement between the ELN and the government of Colombia. Six countries are guarantors of the process: Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Norway. Four countries are accompanying: Spain, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. A Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Episcopal Conference of Colombia also are accompanying.
On the issue of Cuba’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism
The U.S. government has used Cuban sponsorship of the peace negotiations as a pretext for the 2021 reinsertion of Cuba in a list of nations that support terrorism. Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared that he recently told U.S. President Joe Biden that the inclusion of Cuba on said list, simply because Cuba has provided physical space for conversation between the ELN and the Government, to be an act of profound injustice that ought to be ended. With reference to this matter, Cuban President Díaz-Canel declared that Cuba has facilitated what the parties have needed, and it has done so because of its “deep conviction that the peoples of our America deserve to live in peace, with social justice and development, and without external interference and impositions.” He further declared that “even though the price we have paid has been and remains high, we do not regret it.” The inclusion of Cuba on the list of nations that sponsor terrorism has provided a mechanism for the U.S. government to block commercial and financial transactions with Cuba by companies and banks in third countries, which has resulted in serious shortages in Cuba of imported retail goods as well as imported raw materials and equipment necessary for production and for infrastructure maintenance.
In fact, Cuba has been a persistent and committed opponent of terrorism. Cuba has undertaken all necessary steps to combat terrorists, including the signing of nineteen international agreements related to the confrontation of this scourge. At the same time, Cuba has been a victim of terrorism, supported directly and indirectly by the government of the United States, especially in the 1960s and 1990s, a shameful fact not known or acknowledged in U.S. public discourse.
The arbitrary, spurious, and unilateral list was published for the first time in 1979, during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, at which time it designated Libya, Iraq, South Yemen, and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism. The list today consists of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
Cuba first appeared on the list in 1982, during the Reagan Administration and its revitalization of the alliance between the U.S. government and the Cuban-American Right based in Miami. The pretext was Cuba’s historic support for revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa. The pretext collapses when relevant questions are addressed, first, the difference between revolutionary armed struggle and terrorism; and secondly, the specific characteristics and time frame of Cuban support for revolutionary movements in Latin American and Africa. Critics have said that objective criteria are not used in including countries in the list. The list functions as a mechanism for sanctioning countries that that do not comply with U.S. demands.
U.S. President Barack Obama adopted a softer yet still imperialist approach to bringing down the Cuban Revolution. The strategy was to support the growth of Cuban small entrepreneurs, so that they would eventually become the social base of an internal opposition to the Revolution in alliance with the USA. In accordance with this strategy, Obama removed Cuba from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism in 2015. The Trump Administration, returning to the previous aggressive policy toward Cuba, adopted policies designed to asphyxiate the Cuban economy. But despite the renewal of economic and ideological aggression, Cuba remained excluded from the list, apparently for lack of any pretext, credible or not.
However, subsequent events with respect to the Colombian peace negotiations would establish a new pretext for the reinsertion of Cuba in the arbitrary list. In 2019, the Colombian government cancelled peace negotiations with the ELN, as a result of an attack against a school of cadets in Bogotá. The Colombian government of Iván Duque demanded the extradition of ELN negotiators physically located in Cuba. The government of Cuba, however, acting as guarantor of the peace process, and acting in accordance with the agreed protocols of the peace negotiations, permitted the ELN negotiators to remain in Cuba. On January 11, 2021, U.S President Donald Trump restored Cuba’s inclusion on the arbitrary list eight days prior to leaving office, using as a pretext Cuban “harboring” of Columbian rebel leaders against the extradition claims of Colombia.
The Biden Administration maintains Cuba’s inclusion on the arbitrary list, using the same pretext as Trump. This occurs even though the pretext has been rendered outdated by events: the present Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, has renewed peace negotiations with the ELN, has deactivated the extradition process against ELN negotiators, and has publicly declared the inclusion of Cuba on the list to be a profound injustice that ought to be ended.
Conclusion
The reader many have noticed that Latin American governments of the Left have been actively engaged in supporting the peace process, whereas Latin American governments of the Right have been among the forces resistant to a peace agreement in Colombia. This is consistent with the general tendency of the Latin American Left to support processes of change that would provide a foundation for social justice and peace, whereas the Latin American Right is allied with U.S. imperialism and acts in subordination to its interests.
In my May 19, 2023, commentary on China and Cuba as vanguard nations, I reviewed Cuba’s longstanding leadership role in the Third World from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, when Cuba was a persistent and clear voice in international fora in defense of the rights of the neocolonized peoples, calling for the unity of the governments of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the construction of a new international economic order. And I reported that Cuba has played a leading role in the renewal the Third World project during the last two decades, a renewal that has been based in rejection by people’s social movements of the neoliberal project and its negative consequences for the world’s governments and peoples. During this period of Third World renewal, Cuba has been a leading actor in promoting true sovereignty and true human rights in UN organizations, in the retaking by the Non-Aligned Movement of its classic political agenda, and in the process of Latin American union and integration. Because of its persistent diplomatic work in defense of a more just, democratic, and sustainable pluripolar world order, Cuba has been punished by the U.S. government through sanctions and unconventional war.
The inclusion of Cuba in an arbitrary and spurious list of nations that supposedly sponsor terrorism further exposes the USA as an imperialist power in decline and decadence, thus further damaging U.S. prestige in the world, especially among the peoples of the Third World. At the same time, Cuba’s role in facilitating and guaranteeing the Colombian peace dialogues further enhances Cuba’s moral authority before the world.
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