Bogotá, Colombia – The Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) has declared a 72-hour nationwide armed strike beginning on Sunday in protest against increased US military activity in Latin America.
In a statement, the group warned Colombians not to travel via the country’s roadways or navigable rivers during the three day window; while the group said it would not harm civilians, armed strikes are enforced through violence, with previous iterations involving vehicle burnings and civilian casualties.
The action will be the first national-level armed strike since 2022 and comes amid an ongoing U.S. boat bombing campaign – which the Pentagon says has targeted ELN members – as well as White House threats of further intervention, including land strikes in Colombia.
“We, the peoples’ forces of Colombia, protest the threat of imperialist intervention in our country as a new phase of Trump’s neo-colonial plan, which aims to sink its claws even deeper into Latin American and Caribbean territories,” read a decree emitted on Friday by the ELN.
On multiple occasions, U.S. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of striking drug production targets within Colombian borders; Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the ELN is known to be a key actor in the drug trade.
The communiqué said the strike would begin at 6:00 AM on Sunday, December 14 and last until the same time on Wednesday.
While it instructed civilians not to travel by road or river during the three day window, it maintained that its “road control units will respect civilians and their property,” but advised regular people not to mix with soldiers in order to “avoid accidents.”
Although the measures are purportedly national, analysts say they are unlikely to affect the whole country.
“In practical terms, this is a national announcement, but it has a limited impact because the ELN does not have a national presence,” Gerson Arias, investigator at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian think-tank, told The Bogotá Post.
Arias said the bulk of the effect will be seen in areas of ELN control, especially in Colombia’s northeast and in the western departments of Cauca, Nariño and Chocó.
The last time the ELN implemented a nationwide armed strike was in 2022, with incidents across 17 departments including vehicle burnings and road blockages intended to protest the Ivan Duque administration (2018-2022).
But the ELN regularly uses smaller scale armed strikes to exert control over specific areas, usually in rural regions. Experts say that the guerrillas often use the actions as a guise to secure drug transit corridors and facilitate the movement of soldiers and contraband.
Rights groups criticize armed strikes for producing a host of deleterious effects on affected populations, with forced confinement impeding access to education, food, and healthcare.
While the ELN’s decree did not explicitly mention U.S. threats against Venezuela, the group is known to have a presence in the country and has recorded ties with the Nicolás Maduro regime.
Much of the guerrilla group’s territory lies on the border with Venezuela and any U.S. attack on Colombia’s neighbor would also threaten the ELN, according to FIP’s Arias.
“The ELN is well aware that it may be affected by some of the measures taken by the United States,” said the analyst.
The group has already been directly impacted by Trump’s boat bombing campaign, with U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth saying an October 17 strike on an alleged drug vessel had killed three ELN members. The rebels denied the claim, insisting they do not smuggle drugs.
The ELN’s armed strike declaration underscores the complex panorama of armed groups in the region and their ties to government, drug trafficking, and border zones. While the impact of the action is yet to be seen, the announcement shows the far-reaching consequences of the White House’s mounting military pressure in the region.
This article originally appeared in The Bogotá Post and was republished with permission.
Featured image description: ELN fighters.
Featured image credit: Brasil de Fato via Flickr
