Peace on the Table - Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar

Peace on the Table - Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar

Peace on the Table
a summary of demands and proposals for peace from the various actors in the Peace Process

COORDINADORA GUERRILLERA SIMÓN BOLÍVAR - CGSB (SIMON BOLIVAR GUERRILLA MOVEMENT COORDINATING BODY)

I. TWELVE PROPOSALS FOR BUILDING A PEACE STRATEGY. OPEN LETTER TO THE PARLIAMENT
A. Socioeconomic Aspects
B. Natural Resources and Energy Resources
C. Social Function of the State
D. Corruption
E. Public Force
F. The Paramilitary
G. Human Rights
H. Impunity
I. Democracy
J. The Agrarian Issue
K. National Unity
L. Compensation to Persons Affected by Violence

II. PROPOSAL OF THE SIMON BOLIVAR GUERRILLA MOVEMENT COORDINATING BODY FOR A DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT
A. Demilitarization of the Society
B. A New Socioeconomic Order
C. National Democratization
D. Sovereignty, Self-determination and Independent Foreign Policy

COORDINADORA GUERRILLERA SIMON BOLIVAR - CGSB
(SIMON BOLIVAR GUERRILLA MOVEMENT COORDINATING BODY)

On January 25, 1992 the Central General Staff of the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Movement Coordinating Body addressed the following open letter to the Colombian Parliament. The letter is presented below, grouping the twelve proposals based on the terminology to be used in a possible negotiation agenda.

I. TWELVE PROPOSALS FOR BUILDING A PEACE STRATEGY: OPEN LETTER TO THE PARLIAMENT

Gentlemen
Congressmen:

An important achievement of the dialogues held in Caracas has been the joint drafting of a negotiation agenda which goes beyond the exclusively military issues regarding a cease fire and also deals with matters relating to the National crisis.

The issues on this agenda shall be tackled not only by negotiators or experts but also by all the persons who may contribute to pave the way for the future of the Nation: entrepreneurs and workers, politicians and the military, clergymen and lay persons, students, artists, intellectuals, the Government and the guerrilla, journalists, native indigenous persons and peasants. All of us have something to contribute in favor of an agreement and in favor of peace.

Therefore, we have proposed to hold three National meetings which may reflect the opinion of the Colombians regarding our society's greatest problems. Within this framework, the summoning to regional peace dialogues shall have an enormous significance. The authorities, political, social, and civic organizations and the community shall attend these meetings in order to effectively incorporate the people's opinions into the decision-making for each region and for the Nation as a whole.

As the talks are soon to be resumed and since the Parliament sessions have already begun, we demand you listen to our opinions on the issues included in the Caracas Agenda.

A. Socioeconomic Aspects

The economic opening shall be replaced by a policy which above all encourages National industry and the farming and livestock sector production, by facilitating credits, infrastructure construction, importation of modern technology, and a market for products. In this new policy economic development and progress shall mean social well-being, respect for workers' and employees' rights. This policy shall create jobs, encourage associative production methods and foster small business.

Our entrance into the interNational market must not be based on hyper-restrictions imposed by the IMF or the World Bank, but as a result of National reflection which protects the country's vital production sectors. Re-negotiation of the foreign debt is imperative to prevent the capital required for our development from being taken out of the country.

B. Natural Resources and Energy Resources

Colombian natural resources should be exploited, managed and traded using patriotic criterion, asserting our capacity as owners. The benefits of mining production such as oil, coal, gold, emeralds, platinum, nickel, cooper and others shall first and foremost benefit regional development, as a result of a National plan to be agreed upon.

The existing joint ventures with multinationals for exploitation must be reviewed for their modification so that their terms reflect immediate benefit for the Colombian State and not for the private sector. If we wish to achieve self-sufficiency, we have to build new refineries and develop the petrochemical industry.

La Comisión Nacional de Energía (National Energy Commission) shall plan the country's energy policy.

C. Social Function of the State

The social function of the State shall be strengthened to guarantee its administrative efficacy, protecting it from political maneuvering and developing its production capacity through highly efficient and productive companies.

The State shall guarantee the well-being of all Colombians through health, education, housing, transportation, culture, recreation, ecological balance and public utilities.

D. Corruption

Administrative corruption is one of the main factors that generates violence in our country. Supervision mechanisms by the people shall be strengthened; penalties for corruption shall be increased; public servants involved in unlawful enrichment shall be tried and money and property illegally obtained shall pass to the State.

E. Public Force

The Colombian State shall change its total war and internal enemy military policy. Although the East-West conflict and the cold war have terminated, the application of National Security and low intensity war doctrines continues to promote hate and tragedy in our country.

We have to demilitarize National life: Reconstruct public force with a democratic, Nationalist and patriotic doctrine representing the different trends of thought, reduce expenses and number of policemen and soldiers, disintegrate its intelligence service. The National Police shall be once again under the control and rule of the Ministry of the Interior. Colombia shall no longer participate in international military pacts.

F. The Paramilitary

Paramilitary and self-defense groups shall be dismantled. Their instigators, instructors, financial backers and chiefs as well as those responsible for killings and massacres shall be punished. Members of the Public Force engaged in dirty war actions shall be expelled.

G. Human Rights

In Colombia, human rights shall be restored and respected, thus guaranteeing life, dignity, respect and basic conditions to the citizens for them to live their lives as fulfilled human beings.

H. Impunity

Eradicating impunity implies totally reviewing the judicial power in order to provide it with all the elements available to speed up justice and render it more effective and impartial. Military special jurisdiction shall be abolished, because such extreme preferential treatment is the main cause of impunity.

I. Democracy

Colombia needs democracy without deception and without anti-terrorist statutes that only affect the opposition and nonconformists; without privileges for the powerful communication media owners; election campaigns without militarizing but making the National Registrar's office an independent body of the public power.

The election process has to be carried out with total liberty. Direct democracy expressed through the referendum and the repeal of a mandate shall be better and more widely implemented. The citizens' right to a legal proceeding for the defense of their fundamental rights shall be fully supported and the role of the bodies elected directly by the people shall be enhanced, but must and above all, the lives of the individuals as well as those of members of organizations who wish to oppose the current system shall be guaranteed.

J. The Agrarian Issue

Land shall be redistributed in sites where large landed estate owned properties prevail. Road infrastructure shall be built and the country's rural sites shall be provided with a proper transportation system. Affordable credits shall be granted to farmers and livestock breeders; crop insurance shall be granted. All generators of wealth in our rural areas shall be provided with raw materials and modern technology and the sale of their products shall be guaranteed.

K. National Unity

National Unity shall be strengthened. The centralist arrogance of governments and the lack of an agreement for social plans and development plans have disfavored several regions in this country, native indigenous groups and ethnic minorities, which are subjugated by injustice. To harmoniously integrate Colombia is a strategic priority to lay the foundations for peace.

L. Compensation to Persons Affected by Violence

Those who have suffered from violence shall be compensated. We shall prepare and develop a serious, non-paternalistic plan which commits the State, private enterprise and the international community in order to start healing the deep wounds caused by war.

We are certain that a General National Agreement on these topics shall lay the foundations for reconciliation. Our proposal contrasts with the war strategists' behavior. When they intensified the war by attacking Casa Verde on December 9, 1990, they launched the country into an abyss and thus demonstrated, once more, the government's failure in using a military option to solve the crisis.

Secretariat of the Central General Staff
Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Movement Coordinating Body
In the Colombian mountains, January 25, 1992.

II. PROPOSAL OF THE SIMON BOLIVAR GUERRILLA MOVEMENT COORDINATING BODY FOR A DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT

After the Tlaxcala talks failed, the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Movement Coordinating Body stated in November 1992 that it was necessary to preserve the validity of the proposal made during the National Constitution Drafting Assembly in April 1991. Said proposal contains four main topics:

A. Demilitarization of the Society
B. A New Socioeconomic Order
C. National Democratization
D. Sovereignty, Self-determination and Independent Foreign Policy

A. Demilitarization of the Society
We are willing to and can terminate all military manifestations in the society. New armed forces shall be built within a different National context as stated in this proposal.

1. The current Armed Forces have betrayed our origins; they have defended only one group's interests; they have been corrupted by public officials offering them money. Going on to something else, contraband and drug trafficking shall cease to exist.

The paramilitary, including the wrongly called self-defense groups (Convivir) and the narcoterrorists shall be eliminated.

2. Guided in their political and military action by their desire to serve democracy and National sovereignty, the new armed forces shall be built. Armed forces directors shall be civilian personnel with social and human sensitivity. All the country's political forces shall take part in and have a say in the education of said forces. In turn, those political forces shall be represented in the new Government and in the people's National Assembly. The current "war tax" shall become a peace tax used for the population's well-being.

3. All members of the armed forces involved in massacres, disappearances and torture shall be judged in court. Thus, once the rich men's army is terminated, the poor people's army, created to counteract the former, would no longer be required.

In addition, problems could be handled and solved under equal conditions through true agreement and understanding.

B. A New Socioeconomic Order

1. In opposition to the new economic opening imposed by international financial entities, we propose our own sovereign economic modernization model. In this model people shall not be exploited and all workers shall participate in its design.

2. Creation of an economic base for people, this means strengthening and broadening the types of social or collective property in all rural and urban production tasks. This economic base is required to balance the economic power of our society which shall be obtained through the participation of all sectors of the society in decisions regarding the National economic policy, thus encouraging fair competition.

3. Monopoly and oligopoly shall be prohibited.

4. Moratorium on the payment of the foreign debt shall be declared.

5. The labor reform which has taken away workers' rights shall be dismantled. Temporary employment agencies and the system of contractors shall be terminated. A new labor reform to be discussed and agreed upon by the workers shall be created, in which, work and the right to strike, the right to meet and the right to group manifestations are guaranteed.

6. Dismantling the privatization of health, education, State companies and institutions, and power, water and sewage public utility service companies. Their subordination to international loan agencies shall be abolished.

7. The periodical increases in gasoline prices, public utility rates and prices of articles of basic need shall be suspended. The value added tax shall be abolished. New taxes, prices, rates and salaries shall be agreed upon by all economic and social sectors.

8. People shall be entitled to food, health, recreation, housing and transportation. Pre-school, elementary and high school public education shall be free and compulsory.

9. An urban land reform shall be carried out; to do so, ownership of large extensions of land for urban development shall be eliminated and all Colombians shall have guaranteed housing. An agrarian reform shall make the motto "the land for those who work it" true, guaranteeing technical aid, credits, inputs and market organization.

10. There shall be no gender discrimination.

11. A law for ecological protection which prevents deforestation and pollution and guarantees the enjoyment of a healthy environment shall be adopted.

C. National Democratization

1. The population is sovereign. The population itself shall decide on the country's and the society's destiny, exercising its power through its own organizations.

The People's National Assembly or congress of all people shall be the expression of the people's power, the expression of the direct, participative and pluralist democracy of the masses who shall elect their representatives. This shall be the legislative body of the country.

2. The new government shall be for the people, democratic, and shall carry out the people's and the Congress's mandates. All Colombians have the right to life, to have a life with dignity. All exploitation and degradation of human beings, in particular servitude, torture, forced disappearance and crimes against humanity shall be prohibited. Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law shall be fully respected.

The population is entitled to revolt against injustice and oppression. People shall have freedom of conscience and the right to meet and the right to free expression and propose their mandates through referendum, plebiscite and other forms of participation of the people. The state of siege shall be suppressed and shall be applied only in case of external war. All current states of emergency shall be eliminated.

3. The people shall elect mayors, the Comptroller, the Procurador (the head of the office for the control of public officials) and the governors. State officials shall not be re-elected.

Honest elections shall be guaranteed, making the electorate system an independent branch of the public power.

4. The judicial power shall be strengthened and become independent and impartial. All judicial guarantees shall be granted to citizens. The wrongly called "Statute for the Defense of Justice " shall be abolished.

5. Freedom of expression and freedom of the communication media shall be guaranteed by democratizing the ownership of the broadcasting media and the existence of political pluralism. Protection of fully independent journalism shall be guaranteed.

D. Sovereignty, Self-determination and Independent Foreign Policy

1. The Colombian people has the inalienable right to exercise its National self-determination.

2. All mines and natural resources from the soil and sub-soil belong to the Nation and shall be at the service of National interests.

The Colombian people has the exclusive right to its natural resources. It has the right to recover them, collect indemnification on them or terminate all covenants, agreements or contracts that infringe upon these principles.

3. Colombia's international policy shall be autonomous and independent from the centers of power and shall advocate for Latin American and Bolivarian integration, for the peaceful settlement of border conflicts and for the implementation of development plans in frontier areas.

4. All international treaties which hinder the Nation's interests shall be suppressed. The extradition treaty shall be terminated.

Colombia has adopted International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions and Protocols.

5. Colombia shall cooperate in the international combat against drug trafficking. Without affecting its sovereignty, it shall participate in relevant regional or bilateral accords.

6. Colombians belonging to minorities or ethnic groups are entitled to have their autonomy, identity, traditions, language, cultural and territorial heritage respected. The people's cultures and the people's National identity shall be promoted.