By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Colombia captured a commander of the country's second biggest rebel force who led the group's radical wing in opposing peace talks, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday.
The arrest of Carlos Marin, known as "Pablito," may help jump-start negotiations held in Cuba between moderate leaders of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the Colombian government.
Marin, who commanded almost half the ELN's fighters, was wanted for murder and about 200 oil pipeline bombings. Marin was working to fortify the ELN's base in the capital city Bogota when he was captured on Monday, Santos told reporters.
"He was the ELN leader most hostile to any kind of dialogue with the government. He wanted to strengthen the military wing using proceeds from drug trafficking," Santos said.
The insurgent group, started in the 1960s by radical Catholic priests and students inspired by Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution, is estimated to have 5,000 members. More and more it funds itself through Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade, the government says.
Preliminary peace talks in Havana have sputtered through one round after another since 2005 as the two sides fail to agree on a framework for negotiating a cease-fire.
"The ELN was having a lot of trouble internally, in terms getting everyone on board with the peace process. Marin's capture removes one of those roadblocks," said Pablo Casas, analyst at Bogota think tank Security & Democracy.
The group, labeled a terrorist organization by Washington, has been pummeled by President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed crackdown on insurgents, including the larger and stronger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The FARC, which holds hundreds of kidnap victims, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American anti-drug contractors, says it wants no part of peace talks with the conservative Uribe.
Thousands are killed or displaced every year in Colombia's guerrilla war as armed groups fight for control of lucrative cocaine-producing land.
(Editing by Bill Trott)