Crisis in Colombia: Iván Duque's negotiator with the protesters resigns

The Colombian High Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, reported this Saturday that on May 3 he submitted his resignation to President Iván Duque, who recently added to his duties mediation between the Government and the National Strike Committee that promotes the protests. against him.

“I wish to tell you that for reasons of a personal nature, following the calls of my conscience and in compliance with the responsibilities that my soul has chosen, I irrevocably resign from my position as High Commissioner for Peace, as of May 26,” it was stated. read in the letter sent to Duque. Although he alleges personal reasons, the resignation of the high commissioner occurs in the midst of the greatest crisis that this government has had to face due to the protests that began on April 28 against the social and economic policies of the Duque administration.

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

President Duque has not confirmed whether 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, was accepted or not.

Negotiations with the ELN

Among the main tasks assumed since August 2018, Ceballos was at the forefront of the attempts of rapprochement between the Government and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to try to reactivate the peace talks suspended for two years..

This task is also halfway done, since on May 9, Ceballos announced that the Government continues to seek conditions to reactivate the talks, without the armed group having shown a real desire for peace or making progress in complying with the conditions imposed. by President Duke.

Upon assuming the Presidency, on August 7, 2018, Duque conditioned the continuity of the peace talks on the fact that this group stopped kidnapping and released the people it has in captivity, which the guerrillas refuse to abide by.. Ceballos launched “an indirect space for approximation and exploration” with the ELN with which 28 meetings were held, 22 of them at the headquarters of the Apostolic Nunciature in Bogotá and six at the Palacio de Nariño (headquarters of the Executive). , as well as four trips to Havana where the leaders of that guerrilla group have remained for two years, when the talks stalled.

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