ELN DISARMAMENT CRUCIAL, AMNESTY LIKELY, SAY

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 008840 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/25/2016 TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL MARR CO SUBJECT: ELN DISARMAMENT CRUCIAL, AMNESTY LIKELY, SAY MEDELLIN CONTACTS REF: BOGOTA 8649 Classified By: Political Counselor John S. Creamer Reason: 1.4 (b,d) -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Center-left activists in Medellin told us the ELN would have to disarm before participating in political activity on a broad scale. They said the ELN's electoral support was negligible in Colombia and predicted the terrorist group would struggle to appeal to voters even if it disarmed. Most said an ELN amnesty was inevitable, even if that meant paramilitaries obtained similar benefits. A group of businessmen is preparing to address ELN "post-conflict" issues when the ELN commits to a cease-fire. End summary. -------------- ELN Must Disarm -------------- ¶2. (C) The ELN must turn in its weapons before engaging in widespread political activity, according to a range of government, academic, Catholic Church, media, and business contacts in Medellin who have been associated with the ELN "House of Peace" in Antioquia department. Gustavo Villegas, Secretary of Government in the Office of the Mayor, who has SIPDIS extensive experience on ELN peace issues, said the terrorist group is reluctant to disarm, primarily because it fears FARC attacks. Still, Villegas insisted the GOC should not allow the ELN to proselytize for long without at least a disarmament plan. Alonso Salazar, a center left mayoral candidate, said the ELN should realize its time had passed and begin the disarmament process. Salazar confided that ELN negotiator at the House of Peace, Francisco Galan, offered to enlist ELN sympathizers in support of Salazar's mayoral candidacy but Salazar refused, telling Galan the support would be the kiss of death. Galan seemed surprised but agreed to stay quiet. ¶3. (C) Maria Teresa Uribe, professor of political science at the University of Antioquia and a longtime observer of the ELN, said a transitional period in which the ELN retained its arms and started a fledgling political movement was foreseeable but should be limited to 6 months. A longer period would create fears the ELN was involved in the classic communist process of "combining all forms of struggle" (todas las formas de lucha),preserving the option of "returning to the mountains" if it did not obtain its desired results at the bargaining table. Father Horacio Arango, a GOC-ELN civil society guarantor, said it would be "impossible" to imagine a prolonged transition period in which the ELN freely participated in politics while retaining its arms. All contacts said they were considering "creative" options to persuade the ELN to disarm. ¶4. (C) Villegas and Salazar noted the ELN's obsessive concern with being compared with paramilitaries and suggested GOC negotiators use language other than ELN "disarmament and demobilization" as the peace process advances. Salazar said the ELN preferred to charecterize the process as its "return to legality." He saw no reason to avoid this term. -------------- ELN Political Options Limited -------------- ¶5. (C) The ELN has negligible electoral support in the country; no one predicted the ELN would form a political party. Uribe said the ELN might accept a handful of congressional seats granted to it for a limited period but would be more interested in local representation and/or the establishment of additional Houses of Peace throughout the country. All recognized the democratic left would reject a close association with the ELN for fear that such a link would undermine the left's recent gains in regional and municipal elections. Villegas and Salazar suggested the ELN would try to promote "social change" through a broad-based civil society movement, but regarded the ELN's likelihood of success as slight. El Colombiano Director Ana Mercedes Gomez said her newspaper was prepared to give the ELN and its opponents platforms to discuss issues, repeating a project the paper had recently completed with the ELN and paramilitaries in Uraba. She said the ELN needed political space to get its ideas across, but predicted it would soon discover the democratic left had little time for ELN theoretical discussions, focusing instead on the concrete challenges of governing. -------------- ELN Amnesty Raises Few Questions -------------- ¶6. (C) Uribe was the only contact who expressed discomfort with a possible ELN amnesty; all others said it was inevitable, even if the amnesty was later extended to paramilitaries. Father Arango was the most vocal on the need for reconciliation. He said a critical problem in the paramilitary demobilization process was the lack of genuine reconciliation, which was likely to cause Colombia problems in the future. He promoted Medellin as the best possible crucible in which to push ELN reconciliation with the broader society. Medellin had no strong ELN presence and so no recent history of enmity towards the organization; it had experienced government and private sector personnel and strong financial resources; and it always wanted to show the rest of the country it was more capable than they were. -------------- Preparing for "Post-Conflict" -------------- ¶7. (C) Businessman Manuel Santiago Mejia said he was one of 8 Antioquia businessmen who had formed a group to prepare for an ELN "post-conflict" in which ensuring jobs and educational opportunities for the demobilized would be critical. The same group had recently submitted a proposal to President Uribe on paramilitary reintegration. Their model was the structure the private sector created to address the devastation caused by the 1999 earthquake in Armenia, which destroyed over half the homes in the city. The private sector divided the affected area into 35 parcels and assigned responsibilities for clean up and reconstruction, ensuring no company was responsible for restoring more than a few thousand homes. Still, the business group would not get involved in the GOC-ELN process until the ELN had committed to a cease-fire. If similar private sector groups could not be formed in areas of ELN influence, such as Arauca, Norte de Santander, Bolivar, and Cesar, Santiago suggested drafting Antioquia expertise to manage reintegration projects. WOOD