Colombian President Gustavo Petro has confirmed that Otty Patiño, political scientist and former guerrilla of the April 19 Movement (M-19), will be the Government’s chief negotiator in the peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
The Colombian head of state has thus given the name of the person in charge of leading the government side in peace talks that will presumably resume next week in Caracas, Venezuela.
The ELN guerrilla and the Executive have taken steps in recent weeks towards the start of a negotiating table, thus resuming the path of dialogue to achieve peace, stalled since 2018 with the arrival of Iván Duque to the Colombian Presidency.
Talks between the parties finally broke down in 2019 after an ELN attack against a police school in Bogota. An event that claimed the lives of 23 people and left close to a hundred injured.
Now President Petro has repeatedly stressed the need to agree on the end of the confrontations and has even signed the so-called ‘total peace’ law that allows the government to dialogue with armed groups.
