The Government of Colombia confirmed on Wednesday that the peace dialogue with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) “is suspended” after the attack by that armed group against an Army military base in the department of Arauca, in the east of the country, which left two dead and 27 injured.

The Government delegation at the dialogue table clarified in this way what was said on Tuesday night by President Gustavo Petro, who declared that the attack “closes a peace process with blood.”

“During these months the Government has sent multiple proposals to the ELN. Today the dialogue process is suspended. Its viability is severely damaged, and its continuity can only be recovered with an unequivocal manifestation of the will for peace of the ELN,” the delegation added in a statement, which did not completely close the door to the process.

In the letter they also expressed their “absolute rejection of the attack perpetrated by the ELN on the military base of Puerto Jordán, Arauca” and showed their condolences to the families of the victims “in the face of this new act of violence that claims the lives of young Colombians.”

The Colombian Government and the ELN restarted in November 2022 in Caracas the peace negotiations with the last major Latin American guerrilla that, however, stagnated at the beginning of this year due to the demands of the ELN that the Executive remove them from the list of terrorist groups and abandon the regional dialogue it maintains in the department of Nariño (southwest) with Comuneros del Sur, supposedly split from the ELN.

During the various cycles of negotiations in Caracas, Havana and Mexico City, the parties reached several partial agreements and agreed on a one-year bilateral ceasefire, the longest maintained with that guerrilla, which ended on August 3, after which the ELN resumed its attacks against public force and infrastructure in different parts of the country, especially in Arauca, where it is particularly strong.

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Petro compared Tuesday’s attack to the attack on the Colombian Police Cadet School in Bogotá, which in January 2019 left 20 dead and 68 injured, including an Ecuadorian cadet, and which put an end to the dialogue that the Government was having with that guerrilla at that time.

“And obviously, as happened that time in another place near here, at the Police School, because many police officers died, ensigns who were studying there, because it is practically an action that closes a peace process with blood,” he added.

On that occasion, the government of Iván Duque broke off peace negotiations with the guerrillas.

Tuesday’s attack was at the Puerto Jordán military base, in Arauca (east), which “was attacked with improvised explosive devices launched from a dump mantip.”

According to figures provided by the Ministry of Defense, 27 soldiers were injured, “of which 20 have splinters” and seven are “seriously injured.” Two of the injured died on Tuesday night.

The violent escalation of the ELN left two soldiers dead last Sunday in a rural area of Tame (Arauca) and also includes attacks on the Caño Limón-Coveñas and Bicentenario pipelines, two of the most important in the country.

The Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline, 770 kilometers long, transports oil from the Arauca wells to Coveñas, a Colombian port in the Caribbean Sea.

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President Joe Biden claimed on Wednesday that the United States is a strong country because it is a nation made up of immigrants, in response to the anti-immigration rhetoric of former governor and Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

Biden made these statements when participating with actress Jessica Alba in a reception at the White House with leaders of the Latino community to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month that is celebrated every September in the United States.

“We don’t demonize immigrants. We don’t attack them. We don’t think they are poisoning the blood of our country,” Biden said in reference to some comments made by Trump last year.

“We are a nation of immigrants and that’s why we are so strong,” Biden remarked.

The president defended that the United States was not created on the basis of a certain territory or ethnicity, but under “the idea that all men and women should be treated equally.”

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Biden, who will not seek his re-election on November 5 and was applauded in the room with shouts of “Thank you, Joe,” he added that the Hispanic community “will change” the country in the next decade because 25% of minors are Latinos.

For her part, Jessica Alba exposed the story of her grandparents, who migrated from Mexico to the United States at the beginning of the last century and “never stopped believing” in a better future.

“That legacy of hard work and unwavering hope is something I carry with me every day,” he said.

Previously, the White House dedicated part of its daily press conference to claiming, in Spanish, the policies promoted by Biden and his vice president, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, in support of the Latino community, such as the plan to regularize migrants married to Americans, something that Trump has rejected.

Spokeswoman Luisana Pérez Fernández stated that “diversity is one of the greatest strengths” of the United States.

Immigration is a central issue of the November election campaign and was put even more in the spotlight after Trump’s campaign (2017-2021) spread the hoax that Haitian migrants eat the pets of neighbors in Springfield (Ohio).

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Rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs appealed on Wednesday the decision of Judge Robyn Tarnofsky to keep him in custody in a detention center until the trial is held on the charges of sex trafficking, human trafficking and organized crime conspiracy for which he was charged on Tuesday in New York.

At an appeal hearing held today, District Judge Andrew L. Carter rejected the defense’s proposal, which called for Combs to be released on $50 million bail, and agreed with the prosecution that he should remain in a detention center until the trial.

Carter said the prosecution had provided sufficient evidence to show that Combs is a danger to society and that in his case there is a high risk of obstructing justice and harassing witnesses.

Combs is currently in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was transferred after his appearance yesterday in a Manhattan court, where he pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

Judge Tarnofsky already rejected the request of Combs’ lawyers yesterday and argued that the accused could commit the crimes “behind closed doors, even when the preventive detention services are watching.”

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Tarnofsky also said there is a high risk that Diddy will obstruct justice, since he has repeatedly contacted victims and witnesses to try to manipulate them.

The rapper’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, stated in a letter presented today in court that his client is “trustworthy” and again asked for release on bail, endorsed by Combs, his mother, his sister, his three adult children and the mothers of two of his daughters.

The defense also proposed limiting women’s visits to the rapper’s home and frequently subjecting him to drug tests.

Agnifilo defended his client by indicating that when he learned that he would be charged he left his home in Miami and traveled to New York, “where prosecutors and agents are investigating him.”

In addition, he alleged that the rapper has been wanting to sell his private plane for some time, with which he ruled out that there was a risk of escape.

The prosecutor’s office yesterday accused the musician of continuously participating “in a widespread scheme of abuse of women and other people” and revealed that Combs regularly organized forced sexual encounters between women and sex workers.

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Combs is accused of being the head of a criminal company, Combs Enterprise, whose members were involved in sex trafficking, forced labor, human trafficking, drug-related crimes, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, among others.