Colombia’s high commissioner for peace resigns amid crisis

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombia’s high commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, advised this Saturday, May 22, that last May 3 he submitted his resignation to President Iván Duque, who recently added to his functions the mediation between the Government and the National Strike Committee that promotes the protests against him.

“I wish to manifest to you that for reasons of a personal nature, following the calls of my conscience and in fulfillment of the responsibilities that my soul has chosen, I irrevocably resign from my position as High Commissioner for Peace, as of May 26,” reads the letter sent to Duque.

Although he claims personal reasons, the resignation of the high commissioner occurs in the middle of the biggest crisis that this government has had to face due to the protests that began last April 28 against the social and economic policies of the Duque administration.

Ceballos has been the voice of the Government in the talks held for more than a week with the National Strike Committee, main convener of the demonstrations that have been marred by violence and vandalism, and the dialogue with different political, academic, religious, and business sectors.

President Duque has not confirmed whether or not he has accepted the resignation of Ceballos, a lawyer from the Javeriana University of Bogotá, with a Master’s degree in Political Philosophy from the Gregorian University of Rome.

Reactivate negotiations with the ELN

Among the main tasks assumed since August 2018, Ceballos was at the forefront of the Government’s rapprochement attempts with the guerrilla forces of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to try to reactivate the peace dialogues suspended for two years.

That task is also halfway because, on May 9, Ceballos announced that the Government continues to seek conditions to reactivate the dialogues. Still, so far, the armed group has not shown real willingness for peace, nor has it made progress in complying with the conditions imposed by President Duque.

Upon assuming the Presidency on August 7, 2018, Duque conditioned the continuity of the peace dialogues to that group ceasing kidnapping and releasing the people it is holding captive, which the guerrilla refuses to abide by.

Ceballos set in motion “an indirect space of approximation and exploration” with the ELN with which 28 meetings were held, 22 of them at the headquarters of the Apostolic Nunciatura in Bogotá and six at the Nariño Palace (seat of the Executive), as well as four trips to Havana where the leaders of that guerrilla group have been staying for two years when the talks stalled.

During the social crisis derived from the demonstrations, which initially began against a government tax reform, Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla and Foreign Minister Claudia Blum have also resigned, and Duque yesterday changed his Minister of Culture, Felipe Buitrago.