Colombia's ELN guerillas responded Jan. 31 to the call made two days earlier by Humberto de la Calle [10], the government's chief negotiator with the FARC guerilla army, to include them in the peace talks. An ELN communique acknowledged that a delegation has been in touch with the government for the past two years to establish terms for opening a formal or "public" peace dialogue, and had expressed its willingness to take this step in November. The statement said the guerillas were still awaiting a response from the government. (El Espectador [11], Jan. 31)
On Jan. 17, President Juan Manuel Santos traveled to the ELN's heartland in Santander department to announce that he was launching an effort to locate the remains of Camilo Torres Restrepo [12], the radical priest who founded the ELN in 1965 and was killed in combat the following February. On Jan. 25, army officials announced that human remains exhumed from a military cemetery in Bucaramanga may be those of the legendary guerilla, with a firm identification pending further tests. Locating the resting place of Camilo Torres is seen as an important step towards a peace process with the ELN. (Colombia Informa [13], El Espectador [14], Jan. 26; El Tiempo [15], Colombia Informa [16], Jan. 25; Prensa Latina [17], Jan. 17)
Meanwhile, the war with the ELN continues. On Feb. 1, two soldiers from the army's Vulcan Taskforce [18] assigned to guard the Caño-Limón oil pipeline were killed in an ELN ambush in the Catatumbo Valley of Norte de Santander. (El Tiempo [19], Feb. 1) The government also called upon the ELN to confirm that it is holding an army colonel believed to have been taken captive during operations in Segovia, Antioquia. (El Espectador [20], Feb. 4) On Jan. 26, the ELN released a video with a statement from Ramón Cabrales, an advisor to the Norte de Santander departmental government who had disappeared in September—indicating he had been abducted by the guerillas. (El Espectador [21], Jan. 26) On Jan. 24, Colombia's Fiscalía General [22] announced that army troops had uncovered three cocaine processing laboratories believed to belong to the ELN's Carlos Armando Cacua Front in Hacarí municipality, Norte de Santander. (El Tiempo [23], Jan. 24)
