International
Colombia resumes talks with powerful ELN guerrilla group
| By AFP |
Colombia’s government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last recognized rebel group in the country, resumed formal peace talks in Venezuela Monday for the first time since they were suspended in 2019.
The talks are a push by President Gustavo Petro, who in August became Colombia’s first-ever leftist leader, and has vowed a less bellicose approach to ending violence wrought by armed groups, including leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.
In their first meeting, the parties agreed to “resume the dialogue process with full political and ethical will,” according to a joint statement.
They added that the talks aim to “build peace” and make “tangible, urgent, and necessary” changes, highlighting the need for “permanent compromises.”
The first round of talks will last 20 days.
Colombia has suffered more than half a century of armed conflict between the state and various groups of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers.
The ELN started as a leftist ideological movement in 1964 before turning to crime, focusing on kidnapping, extortion, attacks and drug trafficking in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.
It has around 2,500 members, about 700 more than it did when negotiations were last broken off. The group is primarily active in the Pacific region and along the 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with Venezuela.
Dialogue with the group started in 2016 under ex-president Juan Manuel Santos, who signed a peace treaty with the larger Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group that subsequently abandoned its weapons and created a political party.
But the talks with the ELN were called off in 2019 by conservative former president Ivan Duque following a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota that left 22 people dead.
Petro — himself a former guerrilla — reached out to the ELN shortly after coming to power, as part of his “total peace” policy.
The ELN peace talks delegation spent four years based in Cuba, as they had been barred from returning to Colombia by the previous government.
They traveled to Venezuela last month, where the fresh round of talks was announced.
Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez warned that the negotiations do not imply a “suspension of operations” against the ELN.
“If there is an encounter with someone who has an arrest warrant, they must be captured… There is no ceasefire,” he said.
‘We all have to change’
Colombian peace commissioner Ivan Danilo Rueda hailed a “historic moment” for the country after the meeting.
“We are here honoring life, the lives of so many beings who are no longer here,” Rueda said. “Murdered, disappeared.”
ELN delegate Pablo Beltran said he hoped the dialogue would be “an instrument of change… and we hope we won’t fail.”
“In Colombia, we all have to change” and “overcome the dynamic of death,” he said.
Caracas is hosting the first meeting, and the talks will rotate between the other guarantors Cuba and Norway.
A statement from the guarantor nations said Monday’s meeting was “an important step to achieve peace.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres’s special envoy in Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, called on “the parties and Colombian society to take advantage of this historic opportunity.”
“I reiterate the support of the Secretary General @antonioguterres to this process,” he wrote on Twitter.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro hailed the process as “a message of hope for a peaceful Latin America and Caribbean,” at a rally in the capital.
International
Man arrested after deliberately driving into seven children in Osaka
Japanese police arrested a man on Thursday after he rammed his car into a group of seven schoolchildren in an apparent deliberate attack in the city of Osaka.
The children, who were on their way home from school, sustained injuries and were taken to the hospital. All seven remained conscious, according to local authorities.
An Osaka police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect is a 28-year-old man from Tokyo. The officer shared statements the man made after his arrest: “I was fed up with everything, so I decided to kill people by driving into several elementary school children,” the suspect reportedly said.
The man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The injured children, aged between seven and eight, included a seven-year-old girl who suffered a fractured jaw. The six other children—all boys—suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scratches and were undergoing medical evaluation.
Witnesses described the car as “zigzagging” before hitting the children. One witness told Nippon TV that a girl was “covered in blood” and the others appeared to have scratches.
Another witness said the driver, who was wearing a face mask, looked to be in shock when school staff pulled him from the vehicle.
Violent crimes are rare in Japan, though serious incidents do occur from time to time. In 2008, Tomohiro Kato drove a two-ton truck into pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, then fatally stabbed several victims. Seven people were killed in that attack.
Internacionales
Clashes erupt during may day protests across France amid calls for better wages
May Day protests in France were marked by a heavy police presence and clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement in several cities.
In Paris, Lyon, and Nantes, thousands took to the streets to demand better wages, fairer working conditions, and to voice their dissatisfaction with President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
While the majority of the demonstrations remained peaceful, isolated confrontations broke out in some areas. Protesters threw objects at the police, prompting the use of tear gas and resulting in several arrests.
Videos showing police crackdowns circulated widely on social media, drawing criticism from labor unions and human rights advocates, who denounced the authorities’ response to the protests.
International
Kristi Noem credits Trump for mass migrant deportations by mexican president
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem claimed that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has deported “more than half a million” migrants due to pressure from former President Donald Trump.
During a cabinet meeting highlighting the “achievements” of Trump’s administration in its first 100 days, Noem asserted that under the Republican leader’s influence, “Mexico has finally come to the table” to negotiate on migration and fentanyl trafficking.
“The president of Mexico told me she has returned just over half a million people before they reached our border,” Noem stated, criticizing media reports that suggest the Biden administration deported more migrants than Trump’s.
“I wish those deportations were counted,” Noem added, “because those people never made it to our border—she sent them back because you made her.” She went on to thank Trump: “They never made it here because they got the message—because you were so aggressive.”
Noem has made controversial claims about Sheinbaum in the past, prompting the Mexican leader to refute them.
On April 1, Sheinbaum responded to one such statement by declaring, “The president answers to only one authority, and that is the people of Mexico,” after Noem said on Fox News that she gave Sheinbaum “a list of things Trump would like to see” and that Mexico’s actions would determine whether Trump granted tariff relief.
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