Additionally, the growing severity of countrywide guerrilla attacks by the FARC and ELN, and smaller movements, as well as the growth of drug production, corruption and the spread of even more violent paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia ( AUC ) has made it difficult to solve the country's problems.

From 1999 to 2008, the FARC-EP, together with the ELN guerrilla group, was estimated to control up to 40 % of the territory in Colombia.

In 2005, an estimated 11, 000 children were involved with left-wing guerrillas or right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia according to Human Rights Watch and " pproximately 80 percent of child combatants in Colombia belong to one of the two left-wing guerrilla groups, the FARC or ELN.

His presidency is remembered first for his negotiations with the two left-wing guerrilla groups FARC and ELN, culminating in the grant of a demilitarized safe haven to the guerrillas the size of Switzerland, and second for his breaking off said negotiations.

Although the paramilitaries retain a firm hold over large land estates, often in agreement with corrupt local government officials, the guerrilla movements FARC and ELN also have a presence here.

In June 1970, a new Marxist guerrilla emerged in the lowlands near La Paz, this time constituted mostly by Bolivian university students aligned with the outlawed Ejército de Liberación Nacional ( National Liberation Army, or ELN ).

The National Liberation Army ( Spanish: Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN ) is a revolutionary guerrilla army who have fought in the Colombian Civil War since it began in 1964.

His attraction to the radical ideas of Liberation Theology led to joining the ELN, a guerrilla army intent upon effecting the revolutionary praxis of liberation theology among the poor people of Colombia.

In the event, Father Camilo was killed in his first combat as an ELN guerrilla ; and so became the exemplar ELN soldier, to be emulated by ELN guerrillas and by other liberation-theology priests from the lower ranks of the Roman Catholic priesthood.

ELN guerrilla: Father Camilo Torres among the peasants of Colombia.

He was one of the original founders of the Colombian guerrilla group ELN.

Unfortunately, the area was at one time affected by the Colombian armed conflict between the Colombian National Army, right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrilla groups like National Liberation Army ( ELN ) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC ).

The EPL's efforts were initially unsuccessful, some of the groups main leaders were killed in military operations during the 1970s, and it apparently did not gain as much intellectual sympathy or recruits as the larger guerrilla organizations ( FARC, M-19 and ELN ), even after the group announced in 1980 that it would abandon orthodox Maoism in favor of Hoxhaism.

Colombia is in the midst of a civil war which has been waged since 1966 between the Colombian government and aligned rightwing paramilitaries against two communist guerrilla groups ; the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army ( FARC-EP ) and the National Liberation Army ( ELN ).

The first guerrilla movement, the ELN ( National Liberation Army ), appeared, to be quickly defeated by the military.

Coincidentally, Colombia's second largest guerrilla group is the Ejército de Liberación Nacional or ELN.

The ELN is a revolutionary, Marxist, insurgent guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1966.

By 1985, the major guerrilla groups ( EPL, FARC-EP, M-19, and ELN ) had come together under an umbrella organization known as the Guerrilla Coordinating Board ( CNG ).

Initially, the M-19 attracted a degree of attention and sympathy from mainstream Colombians that the FARC and National Liberation Army ( ELN ) had found largely elusive earlier due to extravagant and daring operations, such as stealing a sword that had belonged to Colombia's Independence hero Simon Bolívar.

By 1982, the perceived passivity of the FARC, together with the relative success of the government's efforts against the M-19 and ELN, enabled the administration of the Liberal Party's Julio César Turbay ( 1978 – 1982 ) to lift a state-of-siege decree that had been in effect, on and off, for most of the previous 30 years.

In 1976 there had been plans to send great part of the Uruguayan Tupamaros ( MLN-T ), the Chilean Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria ( MIR ) and the Bolivian National Liberation Army ( ELN ) to fight alongside the ERP and Montoneros in Argentina, but the plans failed to materialize largely due to the military coup.

" Third, the report determined that the DEA " has no evidence that the FARC or ELN have been involved in the transportation, distribution, or marketing of illegal drugs in the United States.

The AUC paramilitary organization disbanded in 2006, while ELN guerrillas have been weakened.

The National Liberation Army ( ELN ), which has traditionally been involved in such attacks, charged in a communique that " in our country, energy policy does not prioritize investment ( in Colombia ) but rather exploitation and consumption that sacrifices future generations.

Assay data management, data mining, data analysis, and electronic laboratory notebook ( ELN ) integration are all features that have been added to many LIMS.

" Third, the report determined that the DEA " has no evidence that the FARC or ELN have been involved in the transportation, distribution, or marketing of illegal drugs in the United States.

Beginning in 1964, the FARC and ELN narcoterrorist groups were taking control of rural areas of the country by the beginning of the decade, while terrorist paramilitaries grew in other places as businesspeople and politicians thought the State would lose the war against guerrillas.

* The Colombian armed conflict ( 1964 – present ) is a complex perpetual war between the following three factions: ( 1 ) the Colombian government, which is the formal nation of Colombia represented by the vast majority of its society ( rural and urban, poor and rich ), the Colombian politicians, business interests, and military ; ( 2 ) the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which in Spanish is " Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ", is abbreviated FARC, and claims to represent rural poor Colombian people, especially by appealing to Marxism – Leninism ; and ( 3 ) the National Liberation Army, which in Spanish is " Ejército de Liberación Nacional ", is abbreviated ELN, and, like FARC, also claims to be representing rural poor people, but unlike FARC, emphasizes Liberation theology more than Marxist — Leninism.

However, with the coming of the Popular Liberation Army ( ELN by its Spanish initials ) there ensued a three-way struggle between the national military, the incoming guerrillas and local paramilitaries, with the serious consequence of massive population displacement.

In humans, elastin is encoded by the ELN gene.

The National Liberation Army of Colombia ( Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN ) was founded in 1964, by Fabio Vásquez Castaño and other Colombian rebels trained in Communist Cuba ; upon the Vásquez Castaño death, the ELN was headed by a series of Roman Catholic priests, exponents of Liberation Theology.

In the 1970s, after suffering military defeat and internal crises, the ELN was commanded by the Spanish priest Father Manuel Pérez Martínez ( 1943 – 98 ) alias El Cura Pérez ( The Priest Pérez ), who shared joint-leadership with leader Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, alias " Gabino ".

The ELN guerrillas survived the heavy combats of the Colombian Army ’ s Operation Anorí ( 1973 – 74 ), and then reconstituted their forces, with partial assistance from the Colombian Government of President Alfonso López Michelsen ( 1974 – 78 ), who allowed the ELN to break from and escape encirclement by the Colombian National Army.

A Colombian government initiative towards granting the ELN a demilitarized zone in the southern region of the Bolívar Department was thwarted by right-wing political pressure from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia ( AUC ) whose paramilitary mercenaries conduct anti-guerrilla operations in that part of the Bolívar Department.

The ELN has also occasionally operated with the FARC-EP and like FARC it has targeted civilians, according to a February 2005 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: " During 2004, the FARC-EP and the ELN carried out a series of attacks against the civilian population, including several massacres of civilians and kidnappings by the FARC-EP.

The ELN advocate a composite Communist ideology of Marxism and Liberation Theology ; they conduct military operations throughout the national territory of Colombia ; in 2010, it was estimated that the ELN forces consisted of approximately 5, 000 guerrillas.

The ELN was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against the Bolivian army in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region.

The ELN rejected entering any negotiation and continued to recover itself through the use of extortions and threats, in particular against foreign oil companies of European and U. S. origin.

MOEC took part in the formation of the ELN.

Researcher Claudia López considered that the Colombian government is winning the strategic and aerial side of the war but not the infantry front, where both the FARC-EP and ELN continue to maintain an offensive capacity.

President López Michelsen helped the ELN in the hope of initiating peace negotiations with them in order to end the civil warfare.