Colombia: ELN Denies Responsibility For Murdered Social Leaders

Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) has refuted allegations by the General Prosecutor that the group is responsible for the majority of social leaders murdered since the peace agreement was signed in 2016.

RELATED:
Exclusive teleSUR Interview With ELN Peace Delegation 

Posting on its official Twitter account on July 7, the insurgent group said: "The Office of the Prosecutor confuses and contaminates intentionally without providing information to support his accusations against us."

The group also called attention to the General Prosecutor's failure "to resolve the deaths and threats against leaders," and said the words of National Director of Public Prosecutions Gonzalez Leon "represent a smokescreen to hide the true perpetrators of these murders."

"The Prosecutor's Office must stop participating in the 'war of information' and we urge the government to show its willingness to stop this extermination," the ELN tweeted.

On July 6, Leon had told local media: "In the areas where these killings occur, we have found the (drug cartel) Clan del Golfo and the ELN as the main authors in Antioquia; the ELN in Choco and the municipalities of Cauca and Nariño, as well as FARC dissidents."

The exchange followed a flurry of reports released by various social organizations earlier in the week, which variously accused the government and paramilitary groups of complicity in the killings.

One report, entitled 'All The Names, All The Faces,' names 123 of the 125 social leaders murdered between January 1 and July 4 this year. The two additional victims were murdered immediately after the report was published.

Another report on assassinations between 2002 and 2015 revealed that the majority of the murders aren't related to Colombia's half-century internal armed conflict, but are perpetrated by state security forces.