President Gustavo Petro and ELN commander Antonio Garcia shake hands in front of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel during the announcement of the ceasefire in Havana June 9, 2023. Presidency of Colombia (REUTERS)
COLOMBIA-
The DiPAZ celebrates the good news of the closing of the third round of dialogues between the Colombian Government and Cuba’s ELN. The Colombian Government and the ELN signed on June 9th in Havana a temporary six-month’ agreement of local ceasefire before president Gustavo Petro and this guerilla’s top authority, Antonio García. With the signing of this document, the parties have agreed to “immediately comply with the Cuba agrements,” within which there is the “bilateral local and temporary ceasefire,” Cuban chancellor Bruno Rodríguez said.
Both the ceasefire and the civils’ participation have been a claim, particularly from the areas affected by violence, since the dialogues between ELN during Juan Manuel Santos’ administration. Today, the announcment of bilateral ceasefire is a historical event that paves a path and means hope, so the effects can be experienced in the communities and social areas that suffer the consequences of armed confrontation,” as DiPAZ expresses.
DiPAZ assumes a great commitment with their invitation as one of the Communities Based on Faith to be part of the CNP (National Participation Committee, in Spanish), in Cuba’s 9th agreement on Civi Participation Process in Building Peace.
From our Christian perspective and as an area that has historically suffered violence and exclusion we ask those who take part in churches and organisations that make up our platform their double effort in prayers and work as builders of peace in the territories where we have presence, so we can keep doing our part in the process of support and reconciliation in our country under these agreements.
We ask, they say, the World Church Council, other churches and the international ecumenic movement to keep praying for peace in Colombia in these times when new paths are pave to overcome the armed conflicto we have suffered for over half a century.
Editor’s note: ELN is the oldest guerrilla group in Latin America. By the end of 2022, Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president and former guerrilla member, lauched this process that started in November in Venezuela and continued in March in Mexico. The steps towards the ceasefire had been stopped since January, when the guerrilla rejected the president’s proposal, announced in New Year’s Eve.