The National Liberation Army’s guerrilla group, the ELN, announced on Tuesday that peace dialogues with the Colombian government are in a state of crisis and will be frozen. They argue that the government has committed violations of the agreements reached during the fifteen months of negotiations. In a statement dated February 19 from the ELN Central Command, known as COCE, the group asserted that the talks would enter a temporary freeze unless the government demonstrates a clear willingness to uphold the agreed terms, emphasizing that the decision is not of their own making but a reaction to breaches by the other side. The message was issued from the mountains of Colombia, underscoring the gravity of the situation and the seriousness with which the ELN views the current impasse.
According to the ELN, the Colombian government, through the peace commissioner, as well as the armed forces and the police, is carrying out actions that violate the pact. The ELN named regional dialogues in the southwestern department of Nariño as a concrete example. They claim that a regional participation process for civil society has been organized outside the national framework already agreed upon, bypassing the ELN delegation and the negotiating table. The ELN also notes that international guarantors, including the United Nations and the Colombian Episcopal Conference, were not properly involved as part of the process, signaling a breakdown in trust and procedure.
The timing of the announcement comes less than two weeks after the government and the ELN concluded the sixth cycle of talks in Havana. In that round, both sides extended the bilateral ceasefire for an additional 180 days and the guerrilla group agreed to suspend, on a unilateral and temporary basis, the economic grab or extortion typical of kidnappings of civilians, as the ELN describes these actions. The extension and the unilateral measures were seen as gestures aimed at preserving space for dialogue while violence remained under control, a bedrock of the ongoing negotiation framework.
From the ELN’s leadership perspective, the crisis was something that could be foreseen. They say their peace delegation warned during the negotiations that continuing on the current path would jeopardize the process by violating the agreements already reached. The ELN argues that public exposure of what they view as a staged initiative labeled regional dialogues represents a direct blow to the ongoing process and has compelled them to call their delegation to consult about the next steps.
In a related development, the governor of Nariño, Luis Alfonso Escobar, told local media that during the first week of March a regional peace table would be established with an armed actor. He did not specify the organization involved, stating that the aim is to illustrate that national-level dialogues and regional peace efforts operate on different planes. This move signals a broader push to territorialize peace and address local realities, even as national talks remain in limbo.
The Colombian government has not issued an official statement about the ELN’s announcements or about what the freezing of negotiations could mean for the bilateral ceasefire and temporary truce, including the suspension of kidnappings. The evolving situation raises questions about the continuity of confidence-building measures, the role of international guarantors, and the prospects for returning to formal discussions that would sustain a nationwide peace process. In the meantime, communities and officials at various levels await clarity on the path forward and on how regional actions might interact with national diplomacy, governance, and security priorities in the months ahead.