"Washington Prepares for War in South America," from FARC publication Resistencia 25, February 2001

"Washington Prepares for War in South America," from FARC publication Resistencia 25, February 2001

WASHINGTON PREPARES FOR WAR IN SOUTH AMERICA

Washington is disguising its strategy of war against the peoples of South America with its misnamed "Plan Colombia." In particular, it is compromising the sovereignty and dignity of Colombia's neighboring bolivarian countries, strengthening its expansionist plans for the domination and exploitation of the region, limiting the presence, contribution and investment of Europe in Latin America and the Caribbean, and narrowing Brazil's undeniable possibilities at the head of the "Merco Sur".

The empire's geo-strategic plan is proceeding with the unconditional support of President Pastrana's administration, the establishment and the Colombian ruling class. They are running around the world begging for millions of dollars in support to pay the high costs of the misnamed "Plan Colombia", using a pretext that has become a dangerous hook in light of the real need to combat drug trafficking.

The secret hidden behind the façade of the war on drugs, could not be kept for long because of the interest and the urgency to secure sufficient resources, with the definite tendency to openly compromise the governments and peoples of the region in the defense of US policies.

The secret is out. A great deal of information has been discovered about the real basis for this calculated, Washington designed strategy of expansion, domination and control over people, their sovereignty and dignity, and the immense riches of South America.

The White House has found in the "war on drugs" a formidable pretext for improving the operational capacity of the armed forces and police against the guerrilla movement. Meanwhile, it increases its presence with more men supplied with sophisticated weapons and sufficient resources to take possession of the water and biodiversity of the Amazon basin, the most important and uncontaminated laboratory of life for future generations.

But the hegemonic objectives of the empire collide with the political achievements of Socialist Cuba and bolivarian Venezuela, and the growing combativeness of the Colombian popular and guerrilla movements against the high levels of unemployment in the villages and countryside, low wages, high taxes, corruption in private and government institutions, domestic and foreign debt, human rights violations, and the criminal repression and intimidation of the revolutionary political opposition to the regime, for which the state is undeniably responsible.

It is obvious that, given the increasing social inequalities due to the capitalist mafias' globalization and neo-liberal model, Colombians are ever more eager to support the various political and social struggles unfolding in the region.

Aware of the perverse objectives pursued by yankee policy under cover of "aid' to Colombia, with the sophism of the "war on drugs", the FARC-EP is publicly denouncing their manoeuvre in various venues. We are giving timely warnings about the dangerous strategy of war to defer and block Latin American and Caribbean unity and its struggle for freedom. It is a strategy in which, with few exceptions, the government and ruling class - puppets serving US interests - play the shameful role of point men. Involved up to the neck in selling out national sovereignty, they disgracefully and unscrupulously insult all who refuse to participate in the domestic conflict under the umbrella of providing resources to fight drug trafficking.

Fortunately, we find sensitivity, good sense, understanding and concern in the governments and peoples of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, for the foreseeable political, economic, social, cultural and environmental effects of the confrontation.

Given the unpredictable consequences new conflicts among Colombia's neighbors might have if there is foreign military involvement on our territory, we, the FARC-EP, turn to popular wisdom and the patriotism inherited from the ideology of the heroes of our independence. We are uniting minds, forces and experiences in order to isolate and defeat the handful of puppet, despicable and adventurist leaders interested in ingratiating themselves with the empire in the obscene quest for personal and group privileges at the expense of the hunger, pain, death and destruction of the poorest and most needy. This, of course, because they are not on the battlefront.

Plan Colombia - Peace - Human Rights

Plan Colombia begins, sowing death and destruction in the Putumayo zone. It is an open attack on the unarmed civilian population, with sophisticated modern weapons, North American advisors in Colombia's army, and the intensification of the paramilitary strategy, which massacres the population with impunity.

No where can we discern the fulfillment of the hypocritical "demands" of Clinton's administration with respect to human rights. What is more, it is already out in the Colombian and Ecuadorian press that foreign mercenaries are being hired, with special training to kill. This measure is totally unnecessary, since no foreigner, whatever training he may have, could outdo the barbarity and the cruelty of the assassins trained in the Colombian army. They are the paramilitary groups and they fully fulfill this macabre task. They assassinate the unarmed with no regard to age, gender, or condition, for the sole purpose of creating terror, impeding the organization of communities, and avoiding its political response and defense.

The international community and some Colombian sectors know Plan Colombia's propositions well, and have identified it as a strategy for war which will not modify the huge drug trafficking business, and will re-vitalize the financing of the US military-industrial complex.

The international community has studied and questioned the plan and its military component, and expressed its disagreement publicly at various forums. Several governments have proposed alternatives and support for the peace process and the political solution the domestic social and armed conflict require.

Plan Colombia includes several million dollars aimed at strengthening the judicial structure, and supposedly attending to the displaced and supporting human rights projects, according to the some NGO leaders' dreams. This economic element is interesting for some, but has generated a boom of ghost organizations as the sounding drum for the official discourse in and outside the country, with a rosy and unimportant outlook of what the plan will mean for human rights. Their little voices were already sounding in Costa Rica. Hopefully they'll think more of the country's future than of the crumbs the empire will let fall for them at the cost of the blood of many.

The human rights violations situation, and the violations international humanitarian law, have not changed for decades. They are in the most serious state of decay. The number of disappearings, selective murders, and indiscriminant massacres rise daily, and the government doesn't flinch. In spite of international pressure, human rights defenders are still murdered with impunity, and their organizations are still threatened, and their files are still stolen by public forces, and domestic displacement is still on the rise - now over two million.

Today, popular and human rights organizations call for the rights of three students who were disappeared in the region of Baudó, when they went in to get to know the Emberas tribe. They call for the lives of activists from the organization of Relatives of the Disappeared, who were disappeared before the very eyes of the official authorities. They call for an immediate end to massacres across the entire national territory. They call for punishment of the assassins of leaders of student, union and popular organizations in general.

In the recent elections in Mitaca, candidates for the Patriotic Union, popular organizations, and the Communist Party were threatened. Some were killed, proving the continued existence of the plan to exterminate the legal left, however strong or weak it may be. Deputy candidate for the Patriotic Union Dr. Heliodoro Durango was killed in Medellín on September 8. Claudia Patricia Monsalve and Angel Quintana Mesa, leaders in the Association of Relatives of the Detained and the Disappeared ASFSDDES, were disappeared in the same city while they were looking for their disappeared relatives.

Community leader Octavio Romero, member of the National Tax and Customs Office (DIAN) union Daniel Guerrero; candidate to the Barranquilla Council Orlando Silva; candidate to the office of the Dean Alfredo Castro, and secretary of the Universidad del Atlántico Luis Mesa were all killed in Barranquilla. The secretary of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) union Israel Barreiro was detained.

On the eve of the elections for public corporations, zones of leftist influence were taken by the army and the paramilitaries. For example, in the historically Communist region of Sumapaz the army launched Operation Destructor II with 4,000 soldiers blocking the entrance and exit to the city. Another similar region in the Valle del Cauca is being bombed and machine gunned from army helicopters while and on land paramilitaries have killed more than forty and displaced hundreds.

In the south, in the department of Putumayo, since September paramilitaries have taken La Dorada, killing several inhabitants in the process. The FARC-EP surrounded them, so the official army came to their aid and caused more than 20 deaths.

In mid October, in Pasto, the department of Nariño in the south, student leader Adriana Benitez was killed while she was planning a forum against Plan Colombia.

In the Monte de María, departments of Bolívar and Córdoba, the paramilitaries killed 15 peasants.

In Yopal, department of Arausa, the Offical Armed Forces dressed as paramilitaries and killed 6, displacing 1,000.

The ability to torture, massacre, assassinate and disappear is inherent in the repressive institutions.

The country's prisons record incredible harassment and subhuman treatment for popular fighters, political prisoners, and fighters, who, unarmed, daily confront the threat of murder. Their families demonstrate, calling for attention to this terrible situation with no immediate solution.

The humanitarian proposal developed under the International Laws of Rights and Peoples, and the customs for war presented by the FARC-EP to the Pastrana administration, discussing the exchange of 500 soldiers, prisoners of war captured in combat, have earned no response, in spite of the many alternatives presented. The government remains inactive before the conditions its most lowly servants live in.

Before the evidence of survival the guerrilla has provided, after the visit of the families of the two detained soldiers and policemen, the reactions of the government representatives and the Catholic Church - particularly Monsignor Rubiano Sáenz - were flippant and in bad faith. The tapes show the detained in good physical condition, living the same as the guerrilleros; compare this to the lack of proofs of the situation of the political prisoners and prisoners of war in the jails of the regime.

As of April 21, 2001, this document was also available online at http://www.farc-ep.org/pagina_ingles/Resistencia25/Index.html