What's the End Game? The ELN's Kidnap Stalemate

Of the 205 kidnappings reported in Colombia last year, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the country’s second largest militant group, was responsible for 11 percent of incidents. However, reports suggest that the group is likely involved in far more incidents, as it regularly subcontracts its kidnapping operations out to smaller criminal groups. Despite starting formal peace negotiations with the government in February 2017, the ELN has so far been unwilling to end its kidnapping and extortion activities. Rather, as it attempts to demonstrate its strength to pressure the government into a bilateral ceasefire, the group’s criminal operations look set to continue.

By the end of 2016, kidnapping incidents in Colombia had decreased by 92 percent from a high of 3,572 in 2000, when the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) was the country’s most prolific kidnapping group. Today, the ELN is the primary organised militant or criminal group engaged in kidnappings in Colombia. According to the Colombian NGO, País Libre, the ELN has carried out over 7,107 kidnappings since 1970, primarily targeting farmers, engineers, miners, and local politicians. Norte de Santander and Arauca in eastern Colombia, as well as Chocó and Cauca in the west of the country, continue to comprise the group’s primary kidnapping hotspots. 

Kidnap for ransom and extortion are central to the ELN’s survival. With an estimated 1,500 militants – far fewer than the FARC’s estimated 7,000 – and less involvement in drug-trafficking, the ELN has historically been more dependent on these activities to finance its operations. Numerous politically-motivated kidnappings targeting politicians have also served to increase the group’s political bargaining power, despite its relative size. As such, despite mounting public and government pressure, the ELN has so far refused to publicly renounce kidnappings but has instead sought to use these activities to place pressure on the government during ongoing peace negotiations. 

Unlike with the FARC, the government did not insist on an end to kidnappings as a precondition for peace talks with the ELN. On the contrary, the group’s leaders have indicated that kidnappings and extortion attacks will only end once a bilateral ceasefire is agreed upon. However, consensus within the militant group in this regard is unlikely as the ELN has a decentralised command structure in which each of the ELN’s seven fronts operate relatively autonomously. Without a strong central command structure, information chains are often blurred suggesting that even if ELN negotiators were to call for an end to kidnappings, it remains unclear whether this order would be adhered to. 

Government negotiators have warned that by continuing to engage in kidnapping, extortion, and terrorist attacks, the ELN is undermining any prospect of a ceasefire in itself. Until this impasse is overcome, criminally and politically-motivated kidnappings are likely to remain the ELN’s key bargaining chip and could increase as the group tries to place added pressure on the government.