The fight against narcotrafficking, in the ELN, is old–fashioned. It is also old the way the State and the Military Forces allow and promote that the paramilitaries are financed with narcotrafficking to combat the armed insurgency, a practice that has come since the 1990s.
There will never be room in the ELN for “traquetos’ or “narcos,” nor for vicious ones. The dream of the DEA and the intelligence of the Colombian state has been to try to introduce us a Trojan Horse linked to the narco–trafficking business to show the “evidence,” the “proof.” But we have always discovered them and their plans have failed.
They will not be able to find any evidence, because there is none, simple as that. We have told the truth, because we do not have crops, laboratories, routes, tracks, nor do we market their products. As we have proposed, when there is an opportunity, we can bring forward a national debate to address in depth this issue of drug trafficking and in that context to establish an International Commission to verify or verify whether what the ELN has said is true and consistent with its practice.
They have never captured an ELN militant with a gram of cocaine, nor have they found any laboratory to process it. There is no record in the justice system to prove it. What the media have said are montages of soldiers and police, which have never been substantiated, lack any seriousness.
Since the plans of the DEA and the Colombian intelligence have not worked for them, now, Petro pretends that at the point of lies, the reality is another, sad task in which they have placed him. These are pure lies that will continue for a while circling in the “opinion,” but then everyone will know that Petro lied, it’s that simple. It’s something that we shouldn’t give him so many spins. True or not, but in reality, not because Petro says so. Then we will be able to say who was the liar: Petro or the ELN.
The same happened with the lies that were told about Camilo Torres, they spoke to the satiety that he was a bandit, a criminal, but now they can no longer sustain the same.
As Petro continues to listen to his friends in the Gang of 33, he now repeats that the ELN hires mercenaries of other nationalities. No one is paid in the ELN, nor is anyone recruited. The fighters who join its ranks do so voluntarily, all go through fighter schools where they receive training.
That has been and will continue to be the strength of the ELN. Reality is not what Petro has in mind.
They have never captured an ELN militant with a gram of cocaine, nor have they found any laboratory to process it. There is no record in the justice system to prove it. What the media have said are montages of soldiers and police, which have never been substantiated, lack any seriousness.
The ELN is a modest organization, we manage our resources judiciously, we spend our needs on a daily basis. We have to make a lot of efforts to get the resources that are required to advance the fight. I wish we had what we really need, so that our fighters had the weapons both in quantity and quality. That way we would have many more fighters and better armed.
Traquetos and mercenaries are the Banda del 33, the laboratories they had in Catatumbo were in charge of processing, by that time, 12,000 kilos of cocaine for the Mexican narcos, said by the same captured “cook”.
It is surprising that Petro receives “intelligence” information from Rubén Zamora and Felipe Tascón, characters closely linked to the Banda del 33 and takes it as a reference for their performances. As well as the fact that the Military Forces protect the band in the Catatumbo and as soon as they are attacked by our units run to defend them and we end up facing the military.
Has anyone known or heard of any military or police fighting against the Band of 33 in the Catatumbo? No, there is none. That means there is a clear alliance with them or they are part of the state. And since the Band of 33, they are “rattlesnakes“; so the boomerang that Petro threw us back into his hands, or rather, he is hand in hand with them.
Source: ELN-Voces