Rebels in Colombia who sparked a public outcry on Sunday by capturing a national football star's father announced that they have decided to cease kidnapping people for ransom.As the fifth round of peace talks came to an end in Mexico City, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and President Gustavo Petro's administration jointly released a statement announcing this promise.
In a nation ripped apart by decades of fighting involving guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups, and drug cartels, the talks are intended to put an end to six decades of fighting between Bogota and one of the last active leftist rebel armies.
Vera Grabe, the leader of the government delegations attending the negotiations, stated that the ELN's commitment to stop kidnappings for ransom, a customary practice during protracted hostilities, "is an announcement that is critical for peace in Colombia."
The conversations followed the recent ELN kidnapping and subsequent release of Luis Diaz's father, a football player for Liverpool, which raised the possibility of upending a precarious ceasefire. Nonetheless, the statement on Sunday stated that the truce will hold.
Although it is supposed to finish on January 29, both parties stated on Sunday that they want to prolong it.
The leader of the insurgent delegation, Pablo Beltran, stated that an extension in February was possible.
Luis Manuel Diaz, the father of football player Diaz, was freed on November 9 following a 12-day kidnapping.
The ELN called the kidnapping that occurred within one of its units a "mistake."