Lady Governor of the Valley, Governors of Cauca and Nariño, ladies mayors and mayors of those departments, meeting rich Cauca Villa on 11 May of Corrientes, ladies and gentlemen participating in the Minga for life, land and peace held in Caloto and Villa Rica, Cauca Department, on 9, 10 and May 11, 2012, fellow wrestlers and fighters for peace in Colombia:

The National Liberation Army, sends respectful greetings and expressed his sincere desire for their tireless efforts continue on the path of peace in which you and many other Colombians we insist.

As a Colombian guerrilla force endeavoring to answer your call, so we can work to create a single stream for peace and that spirit we played, because like you we are convinced that the way to Colombia IS NOT peace and war.

In an effort to share with our efforts for peace, let us express the following:

A little history
In 1991, 21 years ago, along with other fellow guerrillas from the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Coordinating then, nonviolently occupy Venezuelan embassy in Bogota, to pressure the government of President Cesar Gaviria to develop dialogue for peace in Colombia.

Since then we have never ceased to develop various kinds of efforts in the search for peace, including tables of dialogue with the government of Cesar Gaviria, Andrés Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe, but unfortunately, we have found a closed position and uncompromising from all of them, because they believe that peace is synonymous with surrender, demobilization and surrender of arms by the insurgents.

We have stated clearly enough, the urgency of solving the social and armed conflict through a political solution in which the whole society, the insurgency and the government, considering that peace is a constitutional right of each and all Colombians and one can replace them in this historic purpose, an issue that goes beyond the view that peace is a matter of a discussion or dialogue table only.

Consistent with this, for several years, we strive to raise with various social sectors, a National Convention, which was born of each and all, could result in a National Constituent Assembly to legitimize the will of the people and nation to peace and enrumbarse reconciliation we all want and deserve. But the ruling class not only rejected this effort but opposed him.

Aware of the grave deterioration of human rights and international humanitarian law, who suffers from Colombia in this fratricidal war, we raise publicly the urgency to humanize the conflict while it ended and in that sense we assume the challenges of it to fulfill this important issue, but never obtained from the counterparty, a consideration in this regard.

The following matters reaffirm our readiness and flexibility in seeking a peace process, serious, stable and durable for Colombia:

1 - We set free to unilaterally and unconditionally fifty soldiers and policemen, captured in various battles.

2 - We declared unilateral truces, and show flexibility to temper the environment and we have fully met.

3 - We have raised our disposal a bilateral ceasefire and hostilities, for the start of a process of dialogue for peace in Colombia.

4 - We have been repetitive in our commitment to respect international humanitarian law, being open to discuss particular issues of the Colombian conflict.

We have expressed our disposal, to discuss all contentious issues of the Colombian armed social conflict and seek solutions within the framework of the bilateral between the parties, with the participation of Colombian society without exclusions. Throughout this effort over 20 years, we have made a number of events and activities of various kinds, which have been very important strong support of major Colombian social sectors of the Catholic and Protestant national international well as a large group of governments and countries who have stood between Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Spain and others.

Our agenda for discussion and approach has always been public and open to the country because we have no secret or forbidden topic since

are matters of social and political interest of each and every fighter for peace in Colombia.

All these efforts led by the commander of our organization, have been ignored or presented to the public by the establishment, so biased and distorted, to generate hostility, rejection, or to gain followers by leveraging its monopoly on mass media, as it does with every event that does not favor its image and its policies.

Present and future
We agree with you that the future of Colombia is not war, as now determined to prove their agenciadores, which have become one of its most lucrative business, finding all popular fighters in the pretext to increase it. To sustain the war against themselves, the more than 46 million Colombians paid $ 120 each year regardless of our economic and social status; In the rest of mainland residents pay only $ 17 a year for defense reasons.

The high militarization of the country, means that there is a soldier for every 100 inhabitants, while the rest of the continent is one per 300 inhabitants.

The so-called defense budget of Colombia in 2012 was estimated at over 23 billion for war spending and some officials considered it insufficient. Because among other reasons, to a large sum of money from such a high budget for the war, is to fatten the coffers of those who strung personal, we can not dream that they are interested in peace. This has to be carried out by those who suffer.

When we talk of peace when we identify with you pose:

"We want a democratic peace. A peace with changes in political and economic life. We want peace with peace. Not because they pretend to solve a political roundtable all the country's problems. But because the only realistic option is to accompany the end of armed conflict with important changes in social and political conditions of national life. The scope of these transformations can not be decided in a closed space between the armed groups, but precisely in a large and pluralistic society of Colombia, where all political, economic, military, political agreement on a new pact that would allow society to live without war and the popular movement to fight for the realization of their political, economic, social and cultural rights without fear of death, marking or displacement. "

"The peace of the country... demand the adoption of a strategy for promoting integrated rural development programs as the only sustainable alternative for the substitution of illicit crops, one of the factors of increased violence and insecurity in various regions of Colombia."

Ladies and gentlemen, the ELN continue to fight for peace as do you and want to keep that effect fluid communication with that purpose, we end the following:

The government of President Santos, faithful to the thought of its class in power, not only does not want peace, but he feels the owner and sole responsibility for defining how and when to start peace talks in Colombia. This contradiction, as you have proposed, violates a constitutional mandate to be challenged as illegal and absurd, because the key to peace have it all Colombians, not only as a constitutional right but as a perspective of life, future and This gives us the power to fight to achieve it.

This reveals the great effort that we make all lovers of peace to concretize our ranks and we propose to you and all Colombians to assume ongoing efforts, turned into a specific plan to realize two objectives:

A- Create a national organization with the aim of achieving peace and uniting all in it and all Colombians that we identify with that objective in the terms that you have raised.

B- That work for BUILD A NEW GOVERNMENT, representing all social and political expressions of the country and has as main objective, to achieve peace in Colombia, such as how to achieve the dream of each and everyone, now dismiss efforts and the current government needs to seek peace, despite the barriers we could find for it.

Colombia's peace must be sought not only within the borders, beyond them, many peoples, nations and governments, the support and backing, because this war also affects them, particularly the peoples and governments of the continent, because strung and promote those who use it as a pretext to threaten and undermine peace in the region and the democratic process that is preventing the great Northern power is the master in the land that Bolivar dreamed of seeing so many together and service of humanity.

That is why we are sure that all who fight for this noble cause we have the support of many governments and peoples brothers on the continent and elsewhere who long as we do justice and social equity, democracy, sovereignty, reconciliation and peace for Colombia.

From the mountains of Colombia:

Colombia for workers
Not one step back Liberation or Death
For the ELN Central Command

Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista
First major
May 26, 2012