Back to the Future: Colombia and the ELN

By Julian Díaz Avila

Though a partially successful peace agreement was reached in 2016 between the Colombian government and the country’s main insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), a significant challenge continues to be posed by a hitherto secondary but now dominant insurgency, the National Liberation Army or ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional).(1) Hence a strategy for dealing with ELN remains the most pressing security challenge facing Bogotá.

Symptomatic of Colombia’s long history of political polarization, ELN seeks to seize power in order to institute a Marxist-Leninist regime modeled on the examples of Cuba or Venezuela. Though it once embraced the foco ( focused) approach to insurgency associated with Che Guevara – with strong influence from liberation theology – ELN today pursues a hybrid strategy that privileges terrorism even as it seeks mass mobilization, especially in urban areas, in order to challenge the legitimacy of the state and destroy it from within. Its funding is derived almost exclusively from criminal activity, but it remains Marxist-Leninist in its ideological orientation, with a high capability to infiltrate social, labor, and student groups in order to strengthen its rural and urban social influence.

Vulnerable young are targeted for indoctrination by ELN. (Source: ELN website)

Strategy to counter ELN must contend with the group’s ongoing effort to use t...