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Spain, Brazil, Venezuela to offer help in
Colombian peace talks
Spain, Brazil and Venezuela will
mediate in the peace talks between the Colombian government and the
National Liberation Army (ELN), the rebel group said in a statement on
Monday.
The ELN's military chief, Antonio Garcia, said the three countries will
send their ambassadors to Colombia to a meeting in the coming days with
Francisco Galan, a jailed leader of the ELN.
Garcia also blamed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for violating the
confidentiality of the talks between the ELN and the government.
The ELN, with 4,500 combatants, is Colombia's second biggest
anti-government organization behind the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC).
The country has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in
Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and
far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflicts kill more than
3,000 people every year.
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