Colombia, Rebels Reopen Talks

The government has reopened formal peace negotiations with Colombia’s second-largest rebel force after a breakthrough at meetings in Havana this month.

The reopening of formal talks Friday scraps arrest warrants for spokesmen of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and recognizes the guerrilla group’s status as a political movement, even as the United States branded the Cuban-inspired rebels “terrorists.”

“In light of the developments with the ELN, the government has issued the required measures to declare the resumption of the [peace] process,” said Camilo Gomez, the government’s chief peace negotiator.

President Andres Pastrana scrapped talks in August, saying the 5,000-member ELN was not serious about peace.

But after four days of meetings in Cuba this month, the rebel negotiators announced that they would begin discussions with the government in January on a long-awaited cease-fire in Colombia’s 37-year-old guerrilla war.

The agreement was followed by an ELN truce declaration Monday for the holidays--which the group’s founder and leader, Nicolas Rodriguez, said would include a suspension of the extortion and kidnapping of civilians.

The ELN olive branch could breathe life into Pastrana’s 3-year-old and increasingly unpopular peace efforts. The war has claimed 40,000 lives in the last decade.

The larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia has refused to meet with Pastrana since October, despite signing an agreement to launch talks toward a cease-fire.

If no progress is made with the FARC by Jan. 20, Pastrana has threatened to jettison his peace efforts and yank a Switzerland-sized demilitarized enclave that he ceded to the guerrillas in 1998 to launch peace negotiations.