Joint Announcement by the National Government and the National Liberation Army (ELN)

• Country/entity

  Colombia
  
• Region

  Americas
  
• Agreement name

  Joint Announcement by the National Government and the National Liberation Army (ELN)
• Date

  24 Oct 2017
• Agreement status

  Multiparty signed/agreed
• Interim arrangement

  Yes
• Agreement/conflict level

  Intrastate/intrastate conflict ( Colombian Conflict (1964 - ) )
• Stage

  Pre-negotiation/process
• Conflict nature

  Government
• Peace process

  Colombia VI - Government-ELN post-2015 process
• Parties

  Government of Colombia and ELN
• Third parties

  -
• Description

  This agreement concerns an application to the security council on the united nations’ participation in the verification and implementation of the bilateral, temporary and national ceasefire (cfbtn) agreed between the government of colombia and the national liberation army (eln)

• Agreement document

  CO_170924_comunicado-conjunto-5-solicitud-onu-verificacion-cese-fuego-eln-1_EN.pdf | Download PDF
• Agreement document (original language)

  CO_171024_ELN FARC Declaration.pdf | Download PDF

Groups

Gender

State definition

Governance

Power sharing

Human rights and equality

Rights related issues

Rights institutions

Justice sector reform

Socio-economic reconstruction

Land, property and environment

Security sector

Transitional justice

Implementation

On this date, in Montecristi, Ecuador, the birthplace of the hero Eloy Alfaro, the delegations of the National Liberation Army - ELN, and the political party Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común - FARC, have met with the National Government with the purpose of evaluating the development of the peace processes that are being advanced.

After deliberating for two days, we allow ourselves to state the following:

1- We express our firm decision to achieve total peace and to the changes and transformations that the majority of Colombians want, to defend together the Peace Process and to explore common mechanisms for compliance with the Agreement signed between the Government and the FARC-EP, to advance talks agreed between the Government and the ELN, as well as harmonise the two processes.

For this purpose, we have decided to create a joint mechanism between the two forces, whose results we will be reporting to the government, the country and the international community.

2- Recognizing the advances in recent years in the political solution, we also express our rejection of the persecution, manifested in the growing number of murders and imprisonments of social leaders, human rights defenders and the killing of thirty ex-combatants of the FARC.

Deeds that mostly remain unpunished at the time and that the Office of the National Attorney General wrongly insists on not finding relevant.

We call on victim organisations, defenders of human rights, and the democratic and alternative sectors to the organization, to denounce these deeds and to strive for resistance, mobilization, defence of life, of the territory, and of the Human Rights of the Colombians.

3-We reiterate that paramilitarism is the greatest threat to peace, society, and democracy in Colombia.

For this reason it is necessary to take effective and immediate measures for the definitive dismantling of paramilitary operations and organizations and their support networks.

4-The truth that must be uncovered to achieve Peace, will expose the weaknesses of a system that requires quick change and assurance of never allowing the situation to repeat itself.

5- The solution to the complex problem of crops for illicit use cannot continue to be an exclusively repressive treatment, with negative results such as those that have been seen in Tumaco and that threaten to spread to other regions, to fulfil commitments agreed upon with the United States.

It is necessary to act sensibly, with sovereignty and for the State to fulfil the commitments agreed upon with the communities, implement substitution plans, social investment programs, transparency in the management of resources, as well as the formalization of land ownership and strengthening of coexistence.

6-We state our concern about the overflowing corruption that has invaded the social structure of the country and in general the public and private institutions of the Nation:

the courts, the Congress, the executive branch, the Office of the Prosecutor, the State agencies at a regional level, as well as public and private companies.

The scandalous and delinquent behaviour of personalities embedded at the highest level of public service and the private sector jeopardizes the possibility of peace and the future of the real democracy to which we aspire.

We consider it necessary to design policies and take action to put an end to this alarming state of widespread corruption.

7-This historical moment requires an alliance of the sectors that defend peace and political and social changes.

We call for compliance with the Havana Agreements and for the increased participation agreed upon in the Quito Roundtable.

For the good of Colombia, we state from the City of Alfaro Montecristi, Ecuador, that no obstacle - no matter how big - will allow us to falter in the conquest of peace, built on the foundations of social equity, sovereignty, truth and democracy, as the Pope recalled in his recent visit when he said to the country:

"Inequality is the root of social issues"

ELN and FARC Delegations

Montecristi, October 23, 2017