From: "Stasi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Peoples War] Colombia: ELN, Govt To Resume Talks In Cuba - Xinhua XINHUA - Peoples Republic Of China Colombian Government, Guerrilla Group to Resume Talks in Cuba ============================================= BOGOTA, November 16 (Xinhua) -- The Colombian government and the country's second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), will resume peace talks in Cuba next weekend in a bid to rescue the shaky peace process, official sources were quoted as saying on Friday by local radio RCN. The government of President Andres Pastrana and the 4,500- strong ELN have agreed to restart talks, which the Pastrana administration suspended on August 7, accusing the leftist rebels of lacking the will for peace. The first contact will take place in Havana in the next few days, said the radio, though it did not reveal a date for the event. The government's senior peace commissioner, Camilo Gomez, Colombian ambassador to Cuba Julio Londono, and the ELN top leader Nicolas Rodriguez, also known as "Gabino", are expected to attend the meeting. The ELN and the government started their talks in 1998, and these have produced few results due to the lack of agreement on the creation of a demilitarized zone which ELN demanded in the northern Bolivar province. The ELN sought a zone similar to one the government ceded to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in the south of the country. The FARC is the largest guerrilla group in this South American nation, where a 37-year civil war has claimed 40,000 lives in the past decade alone. Local analysts said the ELN would have refrained from demanding the neutral area straddling three towns in the Bolivar province, about 600 kilometers north of Bogota. Although there is no dialogue agenda so far, it is expected the ELN will ask for talks with regional authorities as has happened in different municipalities of the Antioquia province, though the government is not in favor of this. Both sides have agreed to restart the process before August 2002 when Pastrana's four-year term expires. Enditem _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
