Weekly Report - 14 April 2016 (WR-16-14)

Despite the announcement by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Colombia’s second-largest leftist guerrilla group, that it will soon engage in formal peace negotiations with the government, it has launched a military offensive in recent weeks, prompting a counter-offensive by the armed forces. The decision by Clan Úsuga, the country’s largest emerging criminal organisation (Bacrim), to initiate a new campaign of violence in repudiation of the government’s peace negotiations with the guerrillas [WR-16-13] is also a factor in the upsurge of violence in the country. All of this is sparking fears that the peace process being conducted by the Juan Manuel Santos administration could become seriously hindered.