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Colombia suspends peace talks with ELN rebel group after deadly military attack

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – Colombia on Wednesday suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, after blaming the rebel group for an attack that killed two soldiers and wounded more than 20.

“Today the negotiation process has been suspended,” the government’s peace team said in a statement. “Its operation has been severely damaged, and its continuity can only be restored by the consistent demonstration of the ELN’s will for peace.”

This is a serious problem for the peace talks with the ELN since November 2022 and after President Gustavo Petro took office as the first left-wing president to launch talks with that and other armed groups under a policy known as total peace.

The National Liberation Army, or ELN, ended an accord with the Colombian government in August, but was still participating in peace talks aimed at ending more than five decades of conflict.

The military said on Tuesday the group fired homemade rockets at a cargo truck parked near the base in Puerto Jordan, a small town in Arauca state.

The rebel group has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The ELN was founded in the 1960s by union leaders and university students inspired by the Cuban Revolution. The group has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Colombia and Venezuela and finances itself through drug trafficking and illegal gold mining.

Recently, the ELN has been expanding into rural areas vacated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the main rebel group that signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016.

Tuesday’s attack left two soldiers dead and 26 wounded, according to a recent report by Defense Minister Iván Velásquez.

Most of the injured were taken to a military hospital in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where Petro visited them on Wednesday. According to the hospital’s medical report, 13 are hospitalized in “satisfactory condition,” most of them with soft tissue injuries, and five are in the intensive care unit.

On Wednesday, authorities announced a reward of up to $23,700 for information leading to the arrest of those who carried out the attack. They also guaranteed a reward of up to $948,000 for top ELN leaders.

Petro compared the attack in Arauca to another ELN attack in 2019 against a police academy in Bogotá that killed 22 people and injured dozens. That attack also led to the suspension of peace talks between the rebel group and the government of Iván Duque, president from 2018 to 2022.

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