The Colombian government has repeatedly stated that the FARC is no longer a political force, but a band of armed thugs involved in extortion and drug trafficking. Even a group of respected intellectuals from the Colombian left has recently published an open letter crit- icizing the guerrillas for no longer having a political- ideological program. Can one speak of a political pro- gram of the FARC? W e've come to expect these criticisms, but they ignore the fact that we have a clear proposal based on pluralistic principles. Our program is based on ten points, and we invite all Colombians who are interested in creating a country that is funda- mentally different to participate. We're talking about a government that would be truly committed to defending the interests of the nation; a government that would put a different economic model in place; a government that would be committed to social peace and to defending the country's sovereignty; a government that would attempt to resolve the problem of drug trafficking in Colombia through a truly democratic agrarian reform program; and one that would return land to the peasants without any strings attached and provide them with technical assistance for communications and market- VoL XXXI, No 1 JULY/AUG 1997 ing. This government would create subsidies for peas- ants in order to provide incentives for them to continue working in the countryside, to promote food production and to create jobs. Whenever we put forward this pluralistic and patri- otic proposal, we do so with the hope of resolving the problems responsible for the violence that has swept through Colombia. We talk about an economic model that is independent and not subservient to the demands of the IMF and the World Bank. These are the funda- mentals of our program. They all relate to the political, economic, social and cultural needs of the country. You talk about a ten-point platform for a government of reconstruction and reconciliation. What are its basic points? To begin with, we're calling for a political solution to the conflict facing our country, and an end to the years of violence that have devastated generations of Colombians. In order to attain this goal, we must address the role of the state security forces. We must change the country's military doctrine and rethink the role of the armed forces. They must exist to defend the country's borders, and never turn their arms on the peo- ple. The primary role of the armed forces, therefore, 23VOICES ON THE LEFT would be to protect national sovereignty, not to attack what they perceive as opposition or subversion, which in Colombia can very often mean anything. We're also calling for mass democratic participation on a national, regional and municipal level to make decisions about the many issues affecting our society. For us, participation means opening up the mass media to broader segments of the population. Elected officials would be more accountable, and the rights of opposi- tion forces and minorities would be respected and defended. On an economic level, directing 50% of the national budget towards social welfare issues like health, education, housing and employment, so that all Colombians may enjoy these rights. Those people who have more wealth would be taxed more to create a more equal distribution of wealth. As I said before, agrarian reform is a major component of our platform, as is the protection of our natural resources from exploitation by multinationals. These are some of our basic pro- posals for a government of reconstruction and national rec- onciliation, which the current illegitimate government doesn't even want to discuss. Is it feasible to talk about this kind of agrarian reform when such a great portion of the land you're talking about is controlled by drug cartels that have consid- erable autonomy from any state oversight or control, and to a we would call for We disti between the traffic and the ca The big are conne the political e the guer the campesino The campesir coca because h means of st great extent command just as much if not more eco- nomic and military resources than the actual govern- ment? Drug trafficking in Colombia is a social, political and economic phenomenon which must be resolved by social, political and economic means. The FARC does not consider the solution to the problem to be violence. That is why, for example, we have totally opposed the crop fumigations that have been occurring throughout the country with the support of the United States. This only creates more problems for the campesinos. The campesino cultivates coca because he has no other means of subsistence. We realize that agrarian reform is a problem that must be resolved by the state. The state has to figure out how to give land to those people who actually want to work it. It will have to resolve the problem with those who currently control the land, either by buying it from them, or by convincing them that they have to give up a certain amount of their vast holdings. But what we have in Colombia is a government that has not wanted to change its policies. We have a gov- ernment that has created a repressive apparatus that doesn't permit people to protest or to make demands. When the people say that they are hungry or that they need jobs, housing or health care, the government immediately labels them subversives. They or their families are threatened, or they wind up dead. What we have in Colombia is state terrorism. inguish This was clearly seen in the case of the Patriotic Union major drug (UP). Five thousand Colom- bians who belonged to the UP ckers lost their lives in the last decade alone. The biggest problem is mpesinos. not that there are cartels that are cartels autonomous from the state. The problem is that the state is heav- cted with ily armed and it exists to protect the interests of big capital at the lite, not with expense of working people. In rillas or fact, the government often uses the cartels as an excuse. They o movement. say, "we can't resolve these issues because we have the drug no cultivates traffickers on top of us, threat- ening us." Yet we now know e has no other that the current government is subsistence. an illegitimate government that was elected with the support of the Cali cartel. It's a govern- ment which has been proven to be corrupt. The government has been using the term "narco- guerrilla" to describe the armed opposition in Colombia, charging the FARC with being directly involved in the drug trade. What do you say to these accusations? We have always made our opposition to drugs in any form very clear, and we have stressed the impact drugs have had on the deterioration of society, not only in Colombia, but throughout the world. We also have pointed out that those responsible for drug trafficking are not the campesinos. So when we, as an organization with a nation-wide presence, find ourselves in an area where illicit crops are being cultivated, we deal with the people in the same way that we do when we are in areas where there are legitimate crops, such as coffee, bananas and corn. We distinguish between the major drug traffickers and the campesinos, because we see NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASVOICES ON THE LEFT that the big cartels are connected with the political elite, not with the guerrillas or the campesino movement. Under what conditions would the FARC be ready to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the government? What would it take to get back to the negotiating table? First, we have to point out that in Colombia, there is no real policy for achieving peace. The government would have to offer guarantees in order for the insur- gents to sit down and begin to discuss the new Colombia that we all must be involved in creating. For the moment, there are no such guarantees. They con- tinue to offer rewards for the capture of guerrilla lead- ers, and they continue to carry out political assassina- tions and massacres. The presence of paramilitary groups throughout the country is also increasing-- directed, fed, instructed and armed by the armed forces, and specifically by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Gen. Harold Bedoya Pizarro. They are the ones who are always opposed to talking about any possibili- ties of peace, because they benefit from waging war. How do you justify your struggle in an era when most armed conflicts throughout the region have been resolved politically and old Cold War antagonisms are apparently gone? Many people say that the end of history has come now that the Berlin Wall has come down, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the left has been defeated throughout the world. We all can have different interpretations about what has happened in the world during these very com- plex years. But the fact of the matter is that some things have not changed at all, and in many cases, they have gotten worse. We can see that in El Salvador they signed a peace agreement and ended a bloody war that had lasted for years. We applaud that and see it as a victory for the Salvadoran people. But even with peace, the sit- uation has not been totally resolved. Issues persist such as hunger, poverty, lack of jobs, lack of education and health, and these are the issues that led up to the war, that led people to take up arms and confront the military government in the first place. In fact, the recent neolib- eral policies of the current Salvadoran government have made matters worse for many. Nevertheless, the people of El Salvador are able to breathe a little easier now, compared to the levels of vio- lence they had to confront daily during the war years. That is correct. That is why I said we must applaud and salute the valiant and victorious people of El Salvador for what they've been able to achieve. But they were able to get here only through years of armed struggle that, in effect, forced the government to nego- tiate. And the only reason they were able to negotiate a peace accord is because there was a political will on all sides to come to a negotiated settlement after so many years of war. There was pressure from the international community, and the government was forced to provide guarantees for the rebel combatants and their leader- ship. There was a political commitment to peace on the part of all sides of the conflict, something that we can say does not exist in Colombia. This brings us back to your initial question about how we can say we are com- mitted to a peaceful solution to the conflict, while still holding onto our weapons. We will continue to fight against this illegitimate government, to defend our- selves, to protect the interests of the people, and to struggle by any means, until we see that there is a real and true commitment to peace. The credibility of the armed insurgency in Colombia has fallen off considerably in recent years. Even within pro- gressive circles in Colombia there have been many expressions of disillusionment with the FARC. What must the FARC now do to regain some of the credibility it had for many years of the insurgency, up until about 1992? The guerrilla movement in Colombia has a lot of credibility. The guerrillas are an option of power. We provide an alternative to the many problems facing the country. I think that now there are even greater expec- tations for the guerrillas than in 1992, when the gov- ernment of C6sar Gaviria broke off peace negotiations. But as always, the political and ideological apparatus of the state is going to contradict this. So it's natural that the hundreds of denunciations, the reports of massacres and assassinations of thousands of UP militants, and all the violations of human rights that are committed against the popular sectors in Colombia barely get reported. The government wants to show that Colombia is a shining democracy where no real problems exist. In this way, the media have been able to create the illusion that the most important story coming out of Colombia is the fact that President Samper received some money from the Cali cartel to fund his campaign, and that if he were to be removed from power all the problems of the country would be resolved. But the fact of the matter is that the problems in our country are much deeper than this. So it's not true that in Colombia there is a free press. In Colombia, the government lim- its a lot of information, and the journalists in turn have to limit what they repeat. Their main sources of infor- mation are the many press briefings held by the gener- als, who tell them what is going on throughout the country, which then get published as news. So it's nat- ural that every time they discuss the guerrillas, they refer to them as "narcoguerrillas" or assassins. Since information is controlled so tightly, it is not surprising that people know so little about the FARC.
