ELN likely to resume attacks on Colombian pipelines, electricity pylons, and state security forces as ceasefire ends

The National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional: ELN) is due to resume hostilities against the state on 4 January following a temporary, unilateral ceasefire during the Christmas and New Year period (23 December to 3 January). The insurgency was responsible for most terrorist incidents recorded in 2018, particularly those affecting commercial infrastructure. These included at least 93 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on pipelines and 12 attacks on electricity pylons. The tempo of attacks increased in 2018 compared with 2017, the year that Colombia’s once largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia: FARC) began demobilising; 63 pipeline attacks and no pylon attacks were recorded that year. The ELN has also been expanding geographically in areas previously held by the FARC in the departments of Antioquia, Cauca, Cesar, Choco, Valle de Cauca, Nariño, and Vichada. Peace negotiations between the government and the ELN began in February 2017 with the former Juan Manuel Santos administration but were suspended in August 2018 by newly inaugurated president Iván Duque.

Significance: While the ELN continues to lobby for the government to return to the negotiating table in Havana, Cuba, it has been unwilling to meet the government’s most basic demands – namely an end to kidnapping – for talks to resume. The FARC accepted this pre-requisite early on in their own negotiations. The government dismissed the latest ceasefire as insufficient and declined to participate. Deteriorating diplomatic relations between Colombia and Venezuela, a one-time sponsor of the talks, compounds the deadlock and reduces co-operation to limit the cross-border movements of ELN insurgents seeking refuge from Colombian security forces. With such a distance between both sides a resumption of talks – and subsequent commitments to bilateral ceasefires – is unlikely, at least in the first half of 2019. National oil company Ecopetrol’s Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline running through Arauca and Norte de Santander departments will continue to face the brunt of IED attacks, followed by the company’s Transadino pipeline in Putumayo and Nariño. A series of successful arrests or killings of the ELN leadership would likely indicate a growing likelihood that the remaining leadership would make the necessary compromises for talks to resume, including a commitment to renounce kidnapping, accompanied by a verifiable ceasefire of at least a month.