In a room overlooking a garden in Mexico City, a short man waits behind square glasses. Discipline and self-control have infused him with an oriental serenity, reflected in the gentle way he rises from his chair to greet newcomers: “A pleasure”. Israel Ramírez Pineda, aka Pablo Beltrán, chief of negotiators for the National Liberation Army (ELN), sticks to the schedule at the age of 69 and hardly allows himself to be distracted. While he was in Havana waiting for the peace process with the Colombian government to be reactivated, he lived in monasteries and waited for no one to attempt an attempt on his life. Beltrán is a patient, orderly and meticulous man who has the power to put an end to the last armed guerrillas in Latin America. Sometimes President Gustavo Petro’s envoys despair, wanting to give the talks another march. Beltrán, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. You have to tell yourself that changing the world takes a lot of patience.
Questions. The ELN has been negotiating with six Colombian Presidents for several decades, why do you have to believe that this is the right time?
Answer. What is new is that we have a progressive government whose program is to achieve peace. He agrees that peace is an emergency for the country and the only thing that makes us viable as a nation. We are partners in this matter.
Q But they seem to be two partners with different times. It seems President Petro is in a hurry and you have all the time in the world. How are these two speeds handled on the table?
R Our time is more rural and he has this urge for quick wins. But more than the times of one or the other, the country is the one that weeps the most lest peace last any longer. The criterion of the work is speed with rigor.
Q Do you think it has to do with the fact that Petro was a guerrilla member of the M-19, a very daring group but one that had a short lifespan, and you come from the ELN with a history of almost 60 years ?
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R They lived more according to the process, they were always aware of what the situation demanded of them. And our political thinking is more about strategy, phases, stages, accumulation. It’s a different kind of mental structure, yes.
Q What did you think when you saw Petro’s tweet on New Year’s Eve announcing the not really agreed ceasefire?
R The day before, on the 30th, we received a facsimile of a decree that they submitted to us in draft form. They later tried to say that they consulted us and that it was approved, two things that are not true.
Q They tried to force this agreement on you.
R Naturally.
Q How deep was the crisis that was triggered?
R It was a deep crisis because, although we are partners, the idea of a negotiating table is to build consensus. If the two of you sit at a table, come out there because we’ve talked about it, we’ve agreed on it and we’re going to stick to it. You can’t come up with a role that either of you came up with and say it was produced by both of you.
Q Did it occur to you to interrupt the conversations?
R. No no. We immediately told them that this was not an agreement but their business. This brought the table into crisis.
Pablo Beltrán, during the interview Rodrigo Oropeza
Q Spain is trying to play a bigger role as a mediator. Is there a possibility of holding a cycle of talks in Madrid?
R We spoke to several Spanish diplomats a few months ago. We thanked for the invitation, in the past this type of meeting was held in Spain. But on this occasion we see it more difficult because the fact that the European Union has us on the list of banned organizations…
Q terrorists.
R Yes, although this is a political and one-sided list. We asked what the chances were that Spain, which now holds the Presidency of the Union for the second half of the year, would help and take us out of that category. And as such, it’s easier for us to interact with a government that wants to take a more relevant position in the peace processes in Colombia than it did two decades ago. Spain has been missing for two decades.
Q Will this cycle of dialogue in Mexico result in a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities with the Colombian army, as is being said, or just the basis for a later agreement?
R We will take time to prepare for a setting as a setting is intended to remain as a statue or in a setting of offensive actions, but given the complexity of Colombian territory this requires more things. Ultimately it’s a list of what’s forbidden for each party, that’s a de-escalation process. Let’s try a first step. This first step is temporary, you let a few months pass and you are evaluated. And as long as the evaluation is to the satisfaction of the parties, it will be extended. All of this is preliminary, and the more precise you are in this, the more incidents you have to avoid.
Q Even more important is a truce with the rest of the armed groups you are at war with, such as the dissidents or the Clan del Golfo. is that on the table
R Yes and no. Most of these groups have ties to the Colombian Armed Forces. They are its subsidiaries. Many of the attacks on opponents and community leaders are carried out by these groups, whose intelligence work is carried out by the armed forces. A gang doesn’t have an intelligence department. The one profiling these adversaries is the armed forces, and the arm that executes is the other. The one who has to fix the problem is the one who causes it. There is extensive documentation of (army) officers running these gangs. Last week, the Chocó police chief was arrested for doing the wrong thing. If that’s the boss, picture yourself from down there… When we’re in an offensive operational setup, it means we stay in a defensive stance, and if they don’t attack us, we don’t have to defend ourselves, but if someone attacks us, we have to defend ourselves. It’s easy.
The delegations of the Colombian government and the ELN at the opening of the peace dialogue cycle Marco Ugarte (AP)
P. What role does the ELN play in today’s society when many think guerrilla sounds like something from the last century?
R When the ELN was born in 1964, there were no ways to come to power within the regulations of the state and reinforcements had to be made for the people to come to power. Today there is an unprecedented event, there is a government with a popular leader who has said he wants peace (petro) and we are sitting at the table with them behind that goal. There is a window of opportunity and we will try to find a solution. We have to ask why Colombia has been at war since 1948. Back then, a socialist leader (the politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán) wanted to win the presidency and the traditional parties, the liberals and the conservatives, and the CIA decided to kill him. The CIA was a year old, she was a killer baby. It was there that the first guerrillas emerged.
Q They asked Petro for the body of Camilo Torres Restrepo, a guerrilla priest, ELN martyr. What are they going to do with their remains?
R This is a legend like for a movie. Camilo died on February 15, 1966. The general directing operations picked up the body, hid it and said he would not release it. They didn’t want the memory to be upheld, and Camilo became the first to disappear from the state in Colombia. The general said that every general who took command of the brigade was told where the remains were. The body remained in the custody of the brigade. When Santos (the President) arrived we asked him to tell the brigade to return the body. And they showed some remains. The interested people went to Havana, took DNA samples from Camilo’s mother who is buried in the cemetery, compared that DNA to what they said it was Camilo and it wasn’t. Now we hope that the current government will help find him, it is the right of all disappeared. What’s better for a Catholic priest than a Christian funeral? He is a hero of Colombia and deserves a dignified burial and a memorial in his honor. And a reminder of why he chose this path as a sociologist, priest, member of the Colombian elite.
Q Were you offended when Petro said you had two options at the moment, that of Camilo or that of drug dealer Pablo Escobar (murdered by a state-ordered search squad)?
R Roy Barreras (President of Congress) came up with this comparison and Petro could easily say that it was very nice. At the time, the President of Guatemala told Petro that he was almost a drug president, linking him to the drug trade. I said at the table this week: divine punishment. I said if that’s the level of discussion, don’t count on us. The table loses credibility. We’re supposed to treat each other well, so lead by example. That went against the spirit of the table.
Q It created a crisis.
R Naturally. We demand an explanation. And we’re not asking them to discipline the president or take his cell phone (laughs). But at least that he knows the spirit in which we want to do peace education, that he understands what the table is looking for and that when he understands it, he joins that spirit. If anything harms politics, it’s insults, half-truths and the spread of hatred.
Q Don’t you feel that there is a triangulation between you, the government negotiators, and Petro as a semi-external factor?
R He met his entire delegation at a hotel in Bogotá last week. I guess they talked about it. What is the President’s role when he has some gentlemen speaking on his behalf and paying them 650,000 pesos ($124) if they sit down? This is money from the Colombian budget. They can earn over seventy million ($13,000) in one cycle. If the Colombians pay that, they must be doing a good job, and that means the table is a place of arbitration, a different way of treating differences. If the President understands that and goes along with it, we’re done. And we hope so.
Q Unless?
R In Colombia it is sometimes said that we are not in a constitutional state but in a state of opinion. When this government contributes more to opinion than to law, suddenly that is no longer the case. We want a political solution. There will always be differences, but we have to treat each other well.
Q There is a report from the Comprehensive System for Peace that says there are five ELN fronts that do not necessarily abide by the Roundtable’s decisions. Can these uncontrolled groups pose a threat to peace?
R It’s gossip that’s spreading there. When we agreed to the attitude in which Pope Francis came, we drew up a list of prohibitions: the oil installations will not be touched, they will not be withheld for economic reasons…
Pablo Beltran, Rodrigo Oropeza
Q kidnappings.
R (nods) We signed it and we did it. The termination has been completed. What the ELN signs is fulfilled. Now the peace in the country has been unilaterally suspended for Christmas and New Year. A report came out eight or ten days ago stating that the regulations were fully complied with. Do you think it would not be known if a front disagreed with what we are doing here? Do you think I would admit to being the leader of the ELN delegation if a front disagreed? I would not accept. You can’t come here to make Central Command look bad.
Q Antonio García, the ELN’s first commander, has said that you don’t want traditional disarmament. So what kind of disarmament do they have in mind?
R There was a famous former president, López Michelsen, who said that the dialogue tables with the guerrillas could not make revolutions by contract. Okay, but then a table can’t automatically switch off speeds. We are in progress. Which? Let’s de-escalate. This cessation is the example that it is possible. If this termination works, we will extend it. If these weapons are required for a defensive function during the recruitment period, they will be retained. But if later the aggression and attacks in the regions stop, then the defense function will not be needed either. There has to be a de-escalation, not just 5,000 ELN guns going silent. Well, what about the others? The army and militarized police have 500,000. Much of its use is through covert operations. Will they stop doing this? Who gives them the order? You have to dismantle a very sophisticated war apparatus that has existed for many years and is very crazy. There shouldn’t be an army in America with the brutes of the Colombians. They even export military to Haiti and do no good.
Q The government continues to view them as an organized armed group (GAO), like any other drug cartel. García says nothing has been done about it.
R. We already have an agreement, a draft.
Q Will there be agreement here in Mexico that they leave this denomination and that their political character be recognized?
R Yes.
Q Do you have an interest in how the FARC leaders reach the Colombian Congress?
R As an aunt of mine used to say, God set me free. The Congress is the most discredited entity of the Colombian state due to its undemocratic practices.
Q So what would become of the ELN if they laid down their arms?
R We are interested in having a lot of social organization, a lot of education, a lot of direct democracy. If people want to take part in all these processes, where we are, we are not against it. Another thing is that we are a movement dedicated to that, it’s not. If someone wants to be mayor in our area, get involved in the program, be accountable to the people. If he fails to do so, the mandate will be revoked. The problem with representative democracy is that a few people appoint you and then buy you and you end up serving one or two or three. This has to end.
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