AFTER 52 years of conflict, Colombia’s government and the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace deal in 2016. But not all of the country’s guerrilla groups demobilised. The National Liberation Army (ELN) remains a formidable presence. It began peace talks with the government of Juan Manuel Santos in 2017, but failed to reach a deal before Iván Duque (pictured), a conservative, became president in 2018. Mr Duque, who had criticised the agreement with the FARC as too lenient, is adopting a tougher stance towards the ELN. He refuses to renew negotiations until the ELN has freed all hostages. And he has also raised an objection to Venezuela’s role as one of five guarantors of the talks, on the grounds that it is a “protector of armed groups”. What are the grounds for such an accusation?

The ELN was founded in 1964 by a group of Catholic priests and students keen to emulate Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution. Although the ELN had similar goals to the FARC, and wanted to overthrow the government, the two groups worked independently and sometimes clashed. The ELN, with 2,000 armed members, is much smaller than the FARC was, but more ideological. It extorts, kidnaps and trafficks drugs, but has also tried to infiltrate universities and has supported social movements. Since the peace negotiations started in 2017, it has become more violent, killing at least 100 people and kidnapping 16. And if peace is not forthcoming, it may prove harder to defeat militarily than the FARC. Its five divisions operate separately, which makes it harder for informants to bring down all senior members.

The ELN’s links with Venezuela date from the 1980s. The Venezuelan government of the day was hostile to Colombia’s guerrilla groups, but the ELN was still able to enter the country to escape Colombian troops because the border was not heavily monitored. Its standing in Venezuela improved in the late 1990s with the rise to power of Hugo Chávez, who regarded it as an ideological ally. Venezuela has been a safe haven ever since, a place where the ELN gathers to plan attacks on Colombia, and where in recent times it has started recruiting new members. Its activity within Venezuela often seems to be ignored—even endorsed—by the authorities. As Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s successor, turns Venezuela into a mafia state in which drug-traffickers run rife, the ELN is rumoured to be colluding with the Cartel of the Suns, a drugs gang, in establishing trafficking routes through the country.

If the ELN should demobilise, its role in cross-border drug-trafficking is likely to weaken. This gives Mr Maduro reason not to support the demobilisation, if, as the United States’ Treasury has claimed, he is profiting from narcotics shipments. In such circumstances, it is not surprising that Colombia should call into question Venezuela’s role as an honest arbiter of the peace talks. For the ELN, the price of a peace deal with Mr Duque’s government is likely to be the severing of its ties to the Venezuelan dictatorship. It has not yet shown itself to be willing to break that link.