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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Colombia_______________
Excommunication for one rebel group
Suspension of peace talks by another
Colombia’s second-largest Marxist rebel group has suspended peace talks with the government after the army launched a new offensive against them, according to a priest attempting to serve as a mediator in the conflict.
The National Liberation Army (ELN) complained to the government about the offensive launched in Bolivar province, said Father Jorge Martinez of the Colombian bishops’ conference. Church-sponsored peace talks have been in the preparatory stages for more than a year and were going from informal background exchanges toward an agreement to being formal face-to-face negotiations. “The ELN has decided temporarily to suspend the dialogues it has been carrying out with the government,” Father Martinez said.
About 35,000 people have been killed in the past 10 years of a 37-year-old war which pits the rebels against the armed forces and outlawed right-wing paramilitaries. The army offensive in Bolivar has targeted illegal coca plantations and hideouts of both guerrillas and paramilitaries. The ELN has its headquarters in a secret location in that region.
Government officials dismissed the development as a minor bump in the road. “The road to peace is cluttered with difficulties, but we trust we will overcome them,” said Development Minister Augusto Ramirez.
In a separate development, affecting a different rebel group, a bishop announced that he had excommunicated the members of a guerilla force who had destroyed a church during an attack on a village. “All those who collaborated in this profanity are excommunicated for their sacrilegious lack of respect toward a sacred place,” Bishop Ivan Marin Lopez of Popayan told reporters.
Some 200 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s most powerful rebel group, had attacked a police station in the remote town of Almaguer, near Popayan. No one was killed but 20 homes were destroyed along with the local Catholic church.