|
8th
International Conference |
Contribution
of
PCC-M,
Colombia
1. BALANCE OF THIRTEEN YEARS OF APPLYING DOMINANT CLASSES’S STRATEGY
1.1. THE
DOMINANT CLASSES’S TASKS.
At the end
the 80’s, during Virgilio Barco’s government (1986-1990), dominant classes’s
strategy was designed to solve a deep social, economic and political crisis,
which have sharpened with the domestic war against ”drugs traffickers” and the
guerrilla. Not in vain, most of the analysts referred to the depth of the
crisis, along with the external debt crisis in Latin America and with the
pessimism in the majority of the social classes but in special in the great
bourgeoisie. At that moment the debate was if the country was o wasn’t viable
concerning the new international politic and economic
proposals.
This
serious economic, political, social and spiritual crisis, was the one that
brought the Business, Proantioquia and Colciencias Council to propose the
strategic orientation ”Towards Colombia XXI Century” which aiming to bring the
country out of that crisis, (as a result of those discussions Bogotá began its
viability process in 1995).The proposed Plan contained the following axes: 1.
Export Section and commercial policies, 2. Goldmines and Energy, 3. Employment
and labor market, 4. Health, Education, Science and Technology, 5. Farming
Sector, 6. Services and Industry, 7. Urban Development and decentralization, 8. Transport and
communications, 9. Borders year 2000, 10. Regional development, 11.
Institutional plan and 12. ”Master
Switchboard”.
Beyond
this proposal others were made from different sectors and classes, some of them
had common objectives but departing from different points of view. In those discussions was affirmed that,
since 1950 there was an important development of capitalism (economic,
population development and rising of the standard of living), but in 1986
Colombia has lost its ”development horizon” and ignored its possibilities;
besides, the State was unable to keep the public peace and to offer development,
and in other side, a deep crisis of ”collective solidarity” did exist. Finally,
while the strategic plan was been drawn
it was considered that the next 40 years will be quite critical for the
country (1990 to 2030) and that we have to take advantages from the opportunity
that the imperialists multilateral agencies offered in order to advance in the
way of globalization. One necessary prerequisite for this plan was that
different governments should generate enough employment and income for the
population, a suitable goods and services offer, supply of public and social
services and major life conditions. All this in a country where urban
concentration of population (70% in 1990) required other
policies.
On that
context was defined what kind of opening should be performed to fortify
(strengthen) the compradora bourgeoisie, lines for media and superior education
were useful for the purpose, the new information and communication’s technology
significance, the bases for a new labor reform were established ,which main
aspects are productivity, labor flexibility and low costs health law reforms
driving it towards privatization as well as public enterprise’s privatization,
and the definition of the strategic economic sectors , all along with a State
Reform. Documents like those of the
Science and Technology Mission, XXI Century Mission, Mission for Science,
Education and Development and others reflected those debates. One feature is
that, since 1986, ruling classes chose to strengthen technocrats (functional
elements in the implementation of the strategy orientated by the imperialism in
their governments, mainly with Barco, Gaviria and Uribe.
With
Virgilio Barco the strategy was designed, the process of State and society’s
fascistization advanced and the bases for ruling class agreement about the plan
were settled; Gaviria’s government (1990-1994) hold the Constituent National Assembly CAN,
promulgated the 1991 Constitution and started the three plan’s tasks: State’s
Re-estructuration (which has had as process the CAN, the 91 constitution,
the Pastrana Arango’s anti-reform
proposal and today, the Uribe Vélez’s Political Reform); Economic Opening or
Internationalization of the Economy (10 years of free market with Gaviria,
Samper and Pastrana and todays´s Globalization and ALCA); and
counter-insurgency (the
reform policy for the National Police, the Army re-estructuration and the Colombia Plan), all in
order to create conditions for a major foreign capital investment and to stop
drugs trafficking, the guerrilla and the delinquency.
With Barco
and Gaviria paramilitary troops were increased as a key element of the
counter-insurgency. Private armies of the drug trafficking barons were taken as
a starting point to train and coordinate them with military officers; at the
same time a dominant class’s sector (landowners, industrialists, businessmen and
the high clergy) was grouped together, as a fascist pole that supported this
counter-insurgency strategy. Money from drugs trafficking was used to finance
the new strategy.
By 1996,
the Colombian guerrilla became a part of the continental enemies for the
American imperialism, and this one started to propose a direct invasion with the
UN troops in the Atlantic and Pacific Cost, or indirect invasion with the
creation of a multinational army formed by Colombia limiting countries, it is
also a period of peasants and mass mobilizations which announced advances in the
democratic and popular struggle. The fight within the dominant classes during
Samper’s government (1994-1998) was very severe; the president represented an
important section of the compradora bourgeoisie originated in drugs trafficking,
which contributed with 5% of the Gross Domestic Income and introduced money
coming from drug business in banking, industry and trade broad sectors. The
dealers-government generated institutional instability, driving a boom of the
armed and no armed movement. Samper also allowed fascism to advance, as much as
the increase in popular protest criminalization. (it is being typified as a form
of terrorism) as in the promotion of the corporative
system.
1.2
PASTRANA’S GOVERNMENT
Direct
influence of imperialism and the unmasked alliance with the dominant classes
distinguished Pastrana Arengo’s government (1998-2002). It was a political and
military period where national sovereignty was violated and dominant classes and
the imperialism started to centre their efforts to defeat the revolutionary way.
The contradiction imperialism-nation got sharpened because North American
imperialism’s interests on strengthen its domain over Colombia, due to its
political need of intervention to undermine the guerrilla, support a reactionary
regime and to control the drug trafficking.
Pastrana’s
government set up a peace process to remove national and international public
opinion from focusing the guerrilla and at the same time to return to the
dominant classes’s plan, that were not unified. He passed the presidency to his
successor with the country immersed in a deep crisis, an authoritarian and
corporative regime that violated fundamental rights, fortified military and
paramilitary forces and surrendered national sovereignty to the North American
imperialism. During his government, opinion campaigns were orchestrated thru the
mass media that expressed the points of view of politicians, trade union’s
leaders, priests and bishops, intellectuals and student´s leaders in the sense
that the country problems had their origin in the ”lack of leadership”, that the
country was ”without someone who lead it. These opinions gave an orientation to
public opinion to demand the presence in the government of a ”strong” character,
like Fujimori in Perú.
Pastrana
partly achieved, with his strategy
of pacification and with the start of the application of the Colombia Plan, backed by the imperialism, guerrilla’s
political and diplomatic isolation making it lose the possibility of organizing
popular forces for the Columbian’s revolution, and not to take advantages from its national and international
allies.
Pastrana’s
government distinguished for the high figures of population displacement
(something more than 2 millions, mostly peasants), due to fumigations, the
paramilitary and military actions in guerrilla´s areas. There were alarming
number of missing persons (more than 2000 between 1999 and 2001), political
murders and activist and tradeunion´s leaders massacres, peasants, human right’s
defenders and students (almost 100.000 between 2000 and 2002). The
paramilitaries not only advanced militarily but also developed mass work and
their political representatives openly appeared.
By the end
of 2001 the situation was quite complicated, changes in national situation were
pretty obvious and framed by what happened on 11th September in New York. All
this gave rise to the launching of the Bush’s ”world war against terrorism”.
Initiative started to ruling classes hands, Uribe Velez´s advantageous positions
were imposed, the military component of the Colombia Plan became more obvious
and the dominant classes created public opinion in order to end with the Distension Zone of Caguan
were negotiations took place and
the military offensive was launched.
A new
phase started in 2001, marked by an attempt to destroy the distension zone on
January that was materialized with Pastrana Arango’s grovelling attack against
it a month later. Public expression of the New Power came to an end with
masses’s ebb and closed an important period of popular struggle in
Colombia.
Since the
year 2000, the revolutionary war was waged not only in the countryside but also
it fought to expand to the cities, not for the agrarian struggle but for the
anti-imperialist struggle and the political, economical and social country’s
crisis. Giving convincing shots to the army the guerrilla forces passed from a
strategic defensive to the strategic balance. But it was too difficult to
support the public expression of the New Power, even though power zones were
kept in other country locations, because to gain the masses and mobilize them
was not completely complied, although the guerrilla had grown
quantitatively.
Mass’s
struggles had been beaten and their demands had been lost, popular struggles
against the Legislative Act 012 didn’t reach the expected results, the
accreditation by careers at the Universities was imposed by a decree, secondary
students only succeeded on maintaining a few night schools, peasants did not
give an impressive beat against food imports and fumigations, and the collective
bargaining were not able to accrue new demands, they barely kept those they have
already. And what is more important, it was not totally achieved the
coordination of the armed movement with the unarmed movement, although there
were events where this coordination reaches certain development as in the
peasant’s mobilizations of 1999 and 2002.
In
presence of this serious situation for the revolutionary movement, where the
destruction of the distention zone implicated not only that the military problem
stepped to the foreground, but also that the tactic possibility of unifying the
armed movement with the unarmed movement was over. Since then each one, by
itself, confronts in a disperse manner the political, ideological and military
dominant class’s onslaught.
In the
middle of this, 2002 presidential campaign was developed, where the unarmed
movement gathered in agreements and alliances in the Social and Political Front
(SPF) for the Parliament elections and especially to the presidential supporting
the Luis E. Garzón’s candidature. A presidential campaign in an overall severe
crisis, where the candidates were threatened, paramilitaries made political
campaigns, the guerrilla boycotting polls, which affected part of the election
for the democratic field, mass media calling to vote for Uribe Vélez or for war.
Finally, Uribe Vélez strongly triumphs in the first turn and immediately starts
to work his fascist corporative program with cuts in people’s basic
rights.
During
last months of Pastrana’s government a military offensive against the clearance
zone was developed without declaring the Internal Commotion State because they
argued that this instrument was not useful to counteract guerrilla’s
actions.
Since the
dialog and negotiations rupture, the FARC-EP pushed Popular Majors and
government official’s renouncement, initially, in their influence zones and
subsequently in the whole country. This fact generated renouncements in a great
part of the territory. Besides, they held Senate and House representatives,
Valley’s Assembly representatives, a female presidential candidate, some
councilors of different towns and the Antioquia’s governor. All this was done in
order to impose the exchange of prisoners, to call for building the New Power
arguing that the present government is illegitimate. After several attempts to
eliminate physically Uribe Vélez, the FARC attacked with rockets Nariño Palace
the day he assumed the presidency, showing on national an international level
that in Colombia there is a war.
The
discussion in the unarmed side focused on the
proper way of building and opposition to the new government. This debate was in
the frame of the frustration for the electoral results that did not express the
SFP and Democratic Pole alliance. One of the positions posited to centre the
opposition only in the parliamentarian struggle by the seven con only
congressional representatives; the other posited to make the parliamentarian
opposition with masses mobilization and ours that had been to combine the
different forms of struggle to fortify the opposition, including the armed
one.
1.3. THE
COLOMBIA PLAN
The
Colombia Plan was conceived by North American and Clinton’s government
congressmen advisers and presented in the North American Parliament in 1999 and
approved in 2000, aiming to have a greater regional control over the Andean and
Caribbean countries, and mostly to destroy the revolutionary movement that
develops in Colombia, all this under the disguise of the struggle against drugs.
Nowadays, this plan has evolved to what is known as Andean Regional
Initiative.
The plan
was designed in 3 phases and for 6 years. The fist phase was initiated in the
Putumayo department in the south, where the paramilitaries, North American
advisories and the army, had been controlling it, not in a year as it was
initially thought although the first phase has not been totally accomplished,
the second phase has been initiated, guided to the southwest and the country’s
central places and will last two or three years, broadening with fumigations and
military operations in Catatumbo, Antioquia and Sierra Nevada and the third
phase, in all national territory in the remaining time.
In the
year 2001 the army finished its re-engineering process with North American
advising and changed its operating method. An important aspect in this process
was the increase of North American and British troops in the military bases for
counter-guerrilla training and in the increase in the United State’s economic
aid, turning Colombia into the first military aid receptor in Latin America and
the third in the World.
To the
plan, mostly North American’s resources had been assigned and had been oriented
to the military field but there are also European capital resources which are
the so called social component.
The
Colombia Plan makes part of the low intensity war, and today as Andean Regional
Initiative, it is framed in the imperialism’s military strategy. The Colombia
Plan has escalated the war, which is reflected in facts
like:
-
The
displacement of thousands of peasants, with the aim of taking mass’s bases away
from the guerrilla in order to isolate them.
- The psychological war through
the mass media by creating confusion, misinformation looking for the capture
of public opinion for the
dominant classes and imperialism’s policies.
- The waging of
civic-military campaigns, health brigades, alphabetization and implementation of
radio and TV programs looking for the support to the armed forces actions by a
part of the population.
- People’s organization
in security fronts, informants and accuser’s nets.
Nowadays,
the Colombia Plan is essentially a military plan, what has escalated the war
under the excuse of fighting against terrorism, while social investments have
been suspended, the fight against drug trafficking did not go far away from
fumigations which mainly affects small peasants.
Uribe and
the imperialism initiated the Second Phase of the Colombia Plan in May 2003.
Unfolding the reactionary theory known as ”total war”, which combines low
intensity war doctrine with conventional war strategies to fight against what in
a diffuse way the regime calls ”organized crime”, ”guerrilla” or ”terrorism”.
The American analyst Julia Sweig in the Foreign Affairs Magazine, in the Spanish
2002 fall-winter issue, asked herself ¿What kind of war does Colombia need? And
she answered herself that it was a total war. That’s why the one million
informant’s net to combat terrorism (all kinds of Government’s opposition), is
expected to combine with other
strategies departing from intelligence, the intensive use of technologies and
the swarm combat systems, based on the use of small autonomous units with big
fire power, good training and real time information, which represents a radical
change respect military conceptions based on massive deployments of artillery
capacity, armored armament, big troops concentrations and army organization in corps, divisions, brigades and big
span battalions as the mountains ones, that have not shown real effectiveness.
All this brings about that defense costs represents 1.5% of the GDP equivalent
to 3.1 billon pesos, with a projected increase to the 3% of the GDP, depending
on the budget presented to parliament for 2004.
The giant
military operations in which participates all Colombian armed forces, American
and British militaries advisors, have been of two kinds, some of them have been
operatives to hit the social bases of the guerrilla’s zones (South of the
country, Antioquia, Tolima) and the ones of north American interest’s assurance
(Rehabilitation’s Zones)
In the
first case, the Marcial operation, that lasted 6 months and was made to control
the Orient Antioquist territory and to force the ELN and the FARC to fold back.
6 battalions were used, several airborne and special forces, besides those that
are permanently in the region, left a balance of 40 to 50 dead and/or prisoner
guerrillas, 140 guerrilla deserted according to the army, several tens of
missing persons in the peasants population, thousandths of
displacements.
In the
second case, with Bush’s government economic and logistics support for more than
US$ 80 millions, the operations look for guaranteeing the Limón-Coveñas pipe
line’s security. A census was made by the Arauquita’s Counterguerrilla Number 46
Battalion, was made for the control of each inhabitant. The zone is patrolled 24
hours by two Sky Master Intelligence airplanes, assigned by agreements to the
Colombian Air Force. The Sky Masters intercepts communications, visualizes
movements by heat and coordinates military operations. The mobility of the troop
was increased al along the pipe line. Because of all this military deployment,
Defense Department strategic analysts assured that Arauca is the country zone
with greater troop’s number. FFMM General Command information accounts that in
Arauca are cantoned 24, 27, 30, 46, 49 y 52 counter-guerrilla battalions, the
number ONE of the energetic petroleum Plan, the Navas Pardo, the 43 Navy Infantry
battalion and AFC (Air Force) units with armed helicopters and Sky planes. To
this we should add up the arrival of the Mobil Brigade Number Three, which
supports the offensive against the NLA(ELN) and the FARC in
Arauca.
Anyway,
this second phase has problems that haven’t been solved:
-
-The
additional tax to the patrimony resource’s waste that denounced the controller
Antonio Hernández, propitiating disillusion in big bourgeoisie’s
sections.
-
-The
collapse of the Arauca and Bolivar’s Rehabilitation Zones with its paramilitary
apparatus, organized to protect the American and British multinational’s oil
interests and;
-
-The
outbreak of the managing anarchy in the Defense Department, propitiated by the
military chiefs which drag along ”pre modern” and crafty administrative
management forms in open contradiction with the technocracy’s styles that was
led by the Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez, lean to the managing efficiency and
efficacy
At the
beginning of this year a new reservists re-training period has started,
policemen and soldiers in activity were assigned to administrative tasks to
increase the combat force and to conform street-combat tactics in town more
systematically.
1.4.¿ WHAT
DO THE RULING CLASSES AND THE IMPERIALISM ACHIEVED IN 13
YEARS?
Evaluating
the plan of the ruling classes after 13 years you may conclude that they
advanced in the development of the productive forces that serve them and the
imperialism, modernized part of the highway net, ports, airports and free zones.
They implemented plan of territorial ordering, mainly in Bogotá and other
cities, generating infrastructure and service modifications. They introduced new
technologies and telecommunication devices, they improved quality of educative
offer in all levels (thru privatization) and at the state apparatus level they
have transformed the old bureaucracy in a modern
technocracy.
This has
been possible thru labor reforms, tax reform, and modern approaches to social
security that took away from the masses important conquered rights, also thru
the increase of the external debt that today reaches the 53% of the GDP and to
foreign investment that has taken possession of more than 50% of the vital parts
of the economy. All this happens in the middle of the distressing socio-economic
people situation.
60% (26
millions) of the total 44 millions of Colombian is living in growing poverty
conditions with a high unemployment rate and overwhelming labor precariousness,
28% of this sector (more than 11 millions) is indigent and 33% is underemployed,
30% of children in school age are undernourished, poverty reaches the 49% in
urban areas. Petty and median bourgeosie represented by the 35% of the
population form wide and diversified spectrum of social levels and sectors while
the richer and major political power sectors are only 5% of the population.
The low
economic grow and neo-liberal policies have diminished people´s incomes and
social expenses. Should be added to this the protracted economic recession that
took unemployment to a rate of more than 20% (3 millions of unemployed in 2001)
of the working population and only half of them have employments with stability
that are now threatened by the labor reform that passed in the parliament by the
end of 2003. 60% of the
Colombian population works in the informal sector.
The
increase of the GDP went since 1993 to 2000 from 5 to 4.8% and collapsed in a
2.5% in 2002. Today Uribe aspires to reach 3%. Meanwhile unemployment rate rouse
from 8.7% in 1995 to 19.5% in 1999. On 1994, the Income Per Capita was U$S 2.158
and in 2002 dropped to U$S2.043, in eight years it dropped more than 100
dollars.
In the
rural areas the situation is worst. 84% of the population lives in poverty and
30% of them in the extreme poverty. There is a crisis of agro-feeding products
aggravated by the indiscriminate importation of food (during the last 10 years
we increase the imports from 700 thousands tons to 7 millions tons) and the
elimination of traditional item of agriculture as the difficult situation with
500 thousands families of coffee growers.
On the
other hand, due to the public indebtedness (internal and external) that is
related of the movements of finance and speculative capitals owned by the
imperialism and the great bourgeosie. Public finances show a regime in
bankruptcy. In 2002 internal debt was $40.8 billions equivalent to U$S 17.930
millions that corresponds to the 57% of the total debt. And the external debt
was of $47.5 billions equivalent to U$S20.883 millions that corresponds to 46%
of the debt for a total of $88.31bilions equivalent to U$S38.813 millions
corresponding to 49$ of the GDP.
National
situation tends to sharpen and according to the great bourgeosie expectations
maybe in 10 or 15 years the country will recover its economic stability. By now,
the policies of the ruling classes are not clearly oriented toward the
resolution of the economic and social problems. These are focused to solve the
war problem and isolate the popular masses of the non armed and armed
revolutionary and democratic movement.
2. THE
NATURE OF THE REGIME.
Alvaro
Uribe Velez´s regime is the expression of an ultra-rightist political sector
that has reached a relative unity of the great bourgeosie and the big landlords
who hold the economic power and have consolidated a social base. This sector has
been represented by active militaries, priests and bishops, politicians,
intellectuals (journalists, scholars, experts in resolution of conflicts),
former policemen and militaries, lumpens from the narcos, chiefs of the paras
and some guerrilla re-inserted formed a fascist undercover party now working
openly and are trying to organize it a the Uribista Party.
The
government will continue with the State reform related with the plans of the
“Minimum Efficient State” formulated in the “Community State” (participative and
decentralize); we have already stated that the Northamerican imperialism is not
interested in a big State managing economy, focused in the beurocratic
bourgeosie, that was necessary from 1900 to 1975 to develop and consolidate the
beurocratic capitalism. The excessive control of the States and their
accumulation is not valid any longer in the new relations of the world powers
the theory of the “Minimum Efficient State” was imposed. It was focused on the
privatizations. Later on, they pass to the “Efficient State” smaller and
managing public affairs applying managing theories corresponding to the private
sector. At the same time, it created conditions for the appliance of fascist and
corporative type measures. Already in 1998 the imperialists were proposing
authoritarian governments capable to stop the social and political crisis in
order to encompass the countries with the needs of the financial international
capital imposed by the IMF, WB and WTO.
The so
called “Community State” is very similar to the proposal of the then Ministry of
Government Humberto de La Calle Lombana of the Gaviria´s government on the
“Community National System” because both looked for the corporative organization
of the countryside and city masses, at the local, regional and national level in
order to exert higher ideological and political control and to have available
free work force for public works and link the masses with health, housing and education programs
as a way of smoothing the devastating effects produced by the social and
economic crisis. The difference between Uribe and the De la Calle approach is
the higher counter-insurgency and warmonger component of the mass organization
developed by Uribe. Corporativism attempts to nullify class struggle and
struggle for different interests on behalf of positions of loyalty to
professions or crafts, were the person should not be subordinated to political
parties, the State or social classes but has to support the interests of the
great bourgeosie and landlords.
The
Community State is the fascist corporative idea that Uribe has on the state role
and its relation with the society. This idea lies on 3 axes: first, a strategy
of cuts in the State in order to make an Efficient State departing from the
re-estructuration of the State agencies focusing on the governability (security
and defense) what implies the dismissal of 30 thousands workers; second,
considers that social welfare (education, health, public services,
entertainment) should be private and burden on masses backs because they are
main users, and third, military strategy on which democratic security lies, only
expenditure that increases in the investment plans is the military
one.
Uribe adds
to this a new component: the reactionary militarization of the masses because
the Democratic Security scheme subordinates different mass organizations (trade
unions, communal committees, youth groups, etc.) to the intelligence net and
psychological operations of the Police and the Army. At the same time it seeks
to give para-militarism a legal and institutional ground.
“Democratic
Security” covers the aspects stated on the Development Plan, as
follows:
i) Some
principles; ii) national interests; iii) menaces; iv) strategic objectives; v)
instruments; and vi) security plan in order to realize the essence of its
purposes: three (3) billions of additional budget for war with taxes of 1.2% on
patrimony, a net of one (1) million collaborators in charge of the espionage to
the citizens, Rehabilitation Zones, new mobile brigades, high mountain
battalions, peasant soldiers, around twenty (20) groups of urban anti-terrorism
and sophisticated military equipment as satellite tracers and trackers. To this
should be added the Anti-terrorist Statute and Criminal Alternative Law for the
legalization of the paras.
Democratic
security is the main strategic objective of the four included in the Development
Plan. This aspect is based, among other things, in the theory they hold that
“violence exerted by different criminal organizations is the main challenge that
Colombia faces”.
The
Uribista doctrine is ultra neo-liberal. So security is an obsession and is above
justice and social justice. For Uribe security means to defeat the democratic
and revolutionary movement, and so his Community State has not regarded planning
of UN Human and Democratic Security that includes: economic security,
nourishing, health security, personal security, environmental security,
community security and cultural and political security. Uribe has and idea on
security that is reduced, in high degree, to the point four of the United
Nations, personal security, that although is important is barely a component of
this purpose.
The second
objective of the strategic plan is the economic growing that is expected to be
of the 3%. But it applies a recessive and regressive economic policy. Its
priority is the budget cut and the policy of restriction of public expenditure.
According to the Finance Ministry “our economic program is based in three
pillars: a) The strategy on security; b) The economic reforms (budget and tax)
and, c) the State reform”. That is to say, he continues and deepens the three
tasks of the ruling classes focusing in the counter-insurgency war and the
fulfillment of the agreements with the imperialism on the economic ground
(external debt) and militarily speaking, real cause for the severe deficit of
the trade balance, the huge state deficit and the serious social crisis that
Colombia faces. About the social policy, the Development Plan is anti-popular,
sweeps out the rights conquered by the trade unions movement in order to,
supposedly, orientate them towards unemployed and indigents who have only
received persecution and “cleaning” operations leaving out employment and
improvement of incomes.
The third
objective is social equity led to the so called “educative revolution”. It
proposes to drop the present deficit in the educative cover in a 50%, from 3
million boys, girls and youngsters out of school we should diminish to 1.5
millions. This means that they do not even propose to fulfill Constitutional
requirements, in the sense that they have to guarantee basic education for all
of them. They do not propose anything of importance on quality of education and
do not establish concrete aims in research, science and technology.
The fourth
objective is the economic one that lies on the tax reform widening the tributary
base of the VAT to 2% in 2005 on goods and services that today do not pay and
collection of the 2% VAT to products indispensable for life. Freezing of wages
and pensions for two years, excluded the police. As the referendum failed now
they try to make it sure thru the questioned Political Agreement among the
dominant classes parties as well as the elimination of the transference of
territories; freezing of national expenditures for two years with the exception
of those related with democratic security what will imply a saving of 4 billions
of pesos for the State.
The
proletariat and the people are affected by these measures. The employers have
burdened the patrimony tax on the back of the workers taking advantages of the
labor reform that increases working hours, wage cuts and allows dismissals and
do not generate new employment.
The
authoritarian and warmonger present approach has led to state that security is
the most important item for Colombia and so the need to govern with “abnormal
legal concepts for a society in abnormal conditions”, because, according to them
“the legal norms for a normality as the Constitution of 91 asserts, are not
useful for solving present condition of the country”. This implies that
communist and revolutionaries should defend and widen political, economical,
social and cultural rights of the people that are established by the
Constitution of 91 working for make the Popular Democratic Government a
reality.
Uribe
declared the State of Emergency that he used to create the rehabilitation and
consolidation zones in two places of the country where people´s rights have been
violated while in the rest of the territory have been restricted. The regime
took the offensive carrying on important military actions as the takeover of the
Commune Nbr 13 in Medellin and the actions in Tolima, Guaviare, Meta and
Putumayo. It put pressure on the Parliament to approve tax reforms for the IMF
and the WB blackmailing Congress with a referendum for Parliament revocation.
Besides, extraditions of nationals towards the USA and fumigations were started
again. Nets of collaborators were started and rewards announced, battalions of
peasant soldiers were initiated, there was an increase in military forces and
the first non official agreements with paramilitaries were held. Finally,
Congress yielded to the government´s aspirations and to the proposal of
Political Reform, Tax Reform and Public Expenses Referendum. Besides, the regime
of the AUV advanced creating conditions so Colombia can enter to the leonine
ALCA agreement when they signed the Law for Fees Preferences for the Andean Area
and Struggle against Drugs.
In front
of the military offensive of Uribe, the guerrilla initially withdrew and
prepared for the offensive in the cities for December that did not have the
implications they expected due to the small mass presence and to the application
of the counter-insurgency plan of the reaction. By the end of 2002, they planned
to create a democratic anti-neoliberal government get together those who agree
with the Platform for a Reconstruction and Reconciliation National
Government.
2.1. Uribe
and the paramilitarism.
Present
stage of paramilitarism grouped in Castaño´s AUC started at the beginning of the
80´s in the Magadalena Medio when the stockbreeder landlords, the Texas
Petroleum Co, the clergy and the government, started a cleaning operation
murdering peasants close to the revolutionary and democratic movements of the
area. Towards the beginning they spread towards Cordoba and Urabá and towards
the planes and the Putumayo, financed by the emerald seekers and drug dealers
but centered by the ruling classes and the military chiefs. In Antioquia, when
Uribe was the governor, he legalized them in the Convivir, since then they make
part of the fascist scheme of the AUV. In Antioquia the AUV designed its
counterinsurgency approach and its close relation with the paramilitary leaders
that then as today have played a very important role in the Uribe´s
strategy.
3.
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN COLOMBIA
The actual
war is a civil and a revolutionary one because firstly due to the unmasked
alliance among imperialism and State and ruling class against the Colombian’s
nation and the people. A section of the people assumes armed struggle as the
main way to oppose to its enemies. Secondly, the programs are democratic-popular
and the FARC, ELN y EPL combatants are mostly of peasant origin. Thirdly, because it is not an “internal
conflict” with sporadic confrontations without tactic and strategic direction,
it is a class confrontation (or civil war) with defined politic interests from
both contenders. Fourthly, due to the subjective aspect, some of the
revolutionary forces are communists.
We are
talking about present time, because if we make a historical balance, that
situation came up in the 60’s with the start of a new period of civil war in
Colombia. Contemporary history shows us that revolutionary war has been waged
during 40 years under the pattern of revolutionary civil war because it refers
to internal contradictions between the masses and the bureaucratic landlord´s
State. In a situation like the invasion by foreign troops, for example ONU’s or
yanquee’s, directly or by international troops, the war will turn into a
national liberation war. This condition may appear too, when the presence of
imperialists is too evident on country’s domestic affairs (political and
military).
In this
sense, we differ from other maoists and revolutionary forces which consider that
in Colombia there is a “reactionary war” because the contestants are all
people’s enemies (armed forces, paras and guerrilla) due to the kind of actions
that are taking place; paras’s and army´s genocides and because of the
guerrilla’s errors. They also argue that this is a “capitalist war” because it
is mostly for sharing out among them land and subsoil’s rent (hydrocarbons and
minerals) and because of this reason, masses do not take part on it. These stand
points do not analyze, neither the history nor the programs of armed
organization They do not understand that the development of the armed
revolutionary process demands to take control of territory in order to advance
for the seizing of power and this demands, at the same time, the confiscation of
the capitals and monopolist means of production as well as the imposition of war
taxes and contributions. Even worst, it blurs the dividing line between
guerrilla’s mistakes and the enemy. By this way, it could easily reach
hopelessness and approach to pacifist humanitarianism and to the stands that
reject all kinds of war or an “authentic” popular war (without problems and
always advancing). Wars should be characterized by class’s relations and
contender’s political interests.
The
approach of those who argue that what exists is a social and armed conflict
diminishes political significance of the contenders and their development, to
contradictions that can be solved without the transformation of the entire
society.
The civil
revolutionary war advanced and brought to the foreground the discussion on the
New Power during the past tree years, but it didn’t reach the unification of the
revolutionary democratic movement, situation from which fascists sectors took
advantage for their political leading role, suffering the guerilla a tactic
retreat.
Historically,
in the revolutionary civil war as a whole, armed struggle has been people’s main
oppositional way to the ruling classes and imperialism, although in specific
periods, political struggle has played an important role locking and beating the
ruling class. Both had played their roles in certain political periods of the
country. Actually, political struggle, although it has played a role (stoppages,
strikes, boycotts, participation in elections, referendum’s defeat) has not
achieved the weight and continuity that revolution needs in relation with armed
fight. The ideas about the accumulation of power thru the armed ways of
insurrectional type in the guerrilla and political electoral of a big part of
the non-armed movement, draw them a limit line to the need for power
accumulation of the entire revolutionary movement; because these two lines are
identified by their lack of efforts on increasing mass’s consciousness or on
organizing them permanently. That’s why it is indispensable to combine all ways
of struggle as a key clue for the mass’s linkage to the revolutionary
process.
When we
affirm that present war is a civil and revolutionary one, we are not omitting
guerrilla’s political and military mistakes, on the contrary, we consider them
and we will only change that definition in case guerrillas changes their
democratic program for one against the people. The PCC-M has been raising four
differences with the whole guerrilla movement that we consider are the points to
solve in order to guarantee a new unity for the armed and no armed
movement:
- A one sided approach
considers that the construction of an army is enough to reach its revolutionary
program, leaving in a second instance Party’s strategic importance and the
alliance with different classes and democratic and revolutionary organizations
in a United Front.
- The creation of the New
Power by the guerrillas in their controlled zones is not clear for the people
and in some of them the power organs are reduced to the guerrillas´ chief
military staff authority
- The military line
considers, generally speaking, that insurrection is the principal aim of their
process, but contradictorily it did not work to coordinate the different kinds
of fight and to incorporate most of the people to them. It is understood that
insurrection appears in a spontaneous way when mass’s conditions are unbearable
or intolerable and when the guerrilla´s organizations may respond to that
moment.
- An erroneous alliance’s
politic and class relations, because it tends to antagonize differences with
other revolutionary and social sections, beating indiscriminately the average
and relatively backward masses
Militarist
trends that consider only military issues and ignore the importance of mass’s
organizations in the struggle for power, that consider the cities as places full
of “gullible masses” is damaging the revolutionary movement. It is erroneous too
to affirm that there are not “innocent dead people” during a war, falling as
well in adventurer positions and indiscriminate actions which affect people. But
anyway, it is necessary to split from other revolutionaries, even communists, to
whom guerrilla’s mistakes are transformed into “atrocities” showing either the
war is not necessary or that it should be waged without mistakes, “authentic”
falling into passivity, because they really never define to wage armed
struggle.
3.1
The armed movement in Colombia
The armed
movement is mainly rural, composed by different guerrilla organizations with
different political approaches and uneven military development, and that has
played an important role in the Revolutionary Civil War development.
The FARC,
led by the Communist Colombian Party CCP up to 1990, in its VII Conference
(1982) defined in its strategic plan: to become an army and to acquire more
political presence. Therefore, it used the dialogs with Belisario Betancur and
the creation of a political movement, Patriotic Union, conformed by party’s mass
work and other revolutionary forces to participate by electoral way in class’s
struggle and as a way to enter into the cities. Patriotic Union was exterminated during
1984-1992, near 5000 of its activists were murdered in a selective way and in
massacres by the regime and its paramilitary organizations. This situation and
the SSRRU destruction antagonized the FARC differences with the CCP producing a
breakage before the VIII FARC-EP Conference (1993).
In 1990,
Gaviria ordered the military attack against “Green House”, the historical and
principal base of the FARC-EP secretariat that took them to readjust the
Strategic Plan in the VIII Conference, now like an independent political and
military organization. Since then, they have been working on the Plan: they
developed a new operation method
that allowed them to improve their armament, gain a more aggressive
mentality, create an new type of combatant and form more battalions that let
them to surround, capture and defeat the reactionary army military units. During
the period 1994-1996 the FARC-EP gave a qualitative and quantitative leap that
placed it in good political and military conditions within the revolutionary
movement, with the possibility of seizing power for the people. At the same
time, they became a big “national security” problem for North American
imperialists, taking the war to the strategic balance stage, situation that was
ratified with the Clearance Zone. On a national and international level, they
reached an important political presence with the trips to Europe and the opening
of diplomatic relations with governments and parties is several
countries.
The
National Liberation Army NLA, (ELN) during the 80’s, has an important political
and military development, becoming an attraction pole to different political and
social forces that have been absorbed by the political movement “LET´S GO FIGHT”
or trough the thickening of their guerrilla fronts. The political fight
developed by “LET´S GO FIGHT” has an important role in the nor-oriental rural
Colombian masses mobilizations and in the students, barrio and trade-union
movements. As they do not know how to manage the relationship between their mass
organizations and the military apparatus, it couldn’t advance in a coherent way
during the 90’s and this led them to a military withdrawal as strategic
defensive without possibilities of becoming a strong army and strengthening
their mass’s influences by now. The situation wasn’t better for the NLA during
the last years because it has lost influence on its historical areas and on work
among masses and couldn’t materialize its National Convention proposal. Today,
it discusses if it should make agreements with Uribe to obtain political
presence or strengthen the unity with other forces to confront the regime and to
remain as a political and military option for the people.
The EPL,
(PLA, People´s Liberation Army) led by the Communist Party of Colombia,
Marxist-Leninist, CP of C-ML during the 80’s advanced militarily and politically
too, and like the NLA has as objective to have a bigger political and military
presence with the enlargement of its guerrilla fronts and the incorporation of
the masses to the political fight though the establishment of the Popular Front.
The political option of the CP of C-ML, its army the PLA and its Front
confronted a strong internal fight about the role and validity of armed struggle
that conducted it in 1991 to the demobilization of the 90% of its combatants and
militants who turned into Hope, Peace and Liberty, a political force that decomposed during the 90’s. Some of them
went into the enemy’s files; others were chased and eliminated because of the
mistrust that their positions and attitudes provoked among revolutionaries. The
small number that did not demobilize regrouped around the then party Secretary,
Francisco Caraballo, who took care of its political and military rebuilding
because its has been strongly weakened, until his arrest (1994). Today the PLA
is on strategic defensive and the CP of C-ML has newly gained political
presence, proposing a Popular Constituent and the Patriotic Liberation’s Front,
related with petroleum defense as a strategic natural resource and the struggles
of petroleum workers.
There are
other armed revolutionary small organizations with regional influence like the
Guevarista Revolutionary Army GRA, the People’s Revolutionary Army-PRA and the
Bateman Cayón, the CAP and militia sectors in several cities. The CPC-M is
developing the construction of its armed force.
The
guerrilla movement has looked for its unity twice; firstly, with the Guerrilla
National Coordinator (1985) and secondly, with the “Simón Bolívar” Guerrilla
Coordinator (1987). Both time unity of action was reached but they couldn’t
advance towards a strategic or tactic unity because an ideological and political
attitude that made difficult to deepen that course. These two attempts have been
enough justification to theorize that unity is not possible due to the different
programs of the various organizations. Actually, programs are very alike.
Differences are presented always in the political attitude of each organization
towards negotiations with the government or in the ways each one fight in every
historical moment of the democratic revolution and on the implications of the
outcomes in the merging of different organizations. During that same period of
time, for the first time, general and national unity between the armed and non
armed movement was held. This event strengthened the democratic movement and
terrified the ruling classes.
The
Colombian people has an important accumulation of power represented by the armed
revolutionary organization’s experience that are in the “common Agenda” and
“Program” of the FARC-EP, in the National Convention of the NLA (ELN) positions
and programs and in the PLA (EPL) program and other armed and non armed
revolutionaries that agrees with the CPC-M (PCC-M) in the need of developing the
democratic revolution, of a revolutionary popular democratic government (even if
it is called in a different way), of the anti imperialist fight, in the solving
of the agrarian problem and in an economic model on behalf the people. From the
point of view of their programs there are many coincidences, but there must be a
bigger effort in gaining political stand and especially to educate and organize
popular masses that can’t be seen as something secondary or revolutionary in a
small extend.
The regime
with its counterinsurgency policy is looking for a systematic military strategy
so the reactionary army could keep the initiative and obstruct the guerrilla
strategic plan, forcing it to resign by now to the war of movements that they
used since half of the 90’s. This new military situation doesn’t mean yet that
the war is not now in a strategic balance stage and that the guerrilla could not
hinder the plan of the reactionary forces.
3.2 The no
armed movement in Colombia
The non
armed movement situated mostly in the cities is wide (with all kind of political
and social organizations), diverse (because there are different political
positions, democratic, anarchist, alternatives and communist) and important
(those movements are related with a high urban population in Colombia, 75%). We
must make clear here that the concept of non armed movement is because it wages
mostly political fight, that is not the same to say that it could not emerge an
armed fight or that it could not exert other revolutionary violent
manifestations; although it is also true that in that movement there are
pacifist positions and even NON to war positions, but because of this reason
they must not be isolated or undervalued.
The non
armed movement has recently got its higher expression in the fight against the
Uribian referendum, when it grouped in the Big Democratic Coalition, that
oriented different ways of legal and illegal fight against the regime, creating
an important public opinion which understood that the referendum was against the
people, and showing in facts that the unity of action around concrete task it is
possible.
Anyway,
the sectarian handling of the different positions didn’t allow unity processes
to advance. The old differences must be overcome to prevent the organizations to
keep harming each other and that the common ideological and political points
could be examined more clearly.
Today the
trade-unionist movement is facing two challenges: strengthen the workers central
and fight for a unique central with revolutionary and progressive content and
create the conditions to build a struggle movement for the defense of the
political, economic and social rights that were cut by this government. The
rural non armed movement is dispersed and requires a bigger coordination and
definition of its claims. The teachers´ movement is in the crossroad due to the
revolutionary educational policies that are been developed. Students´ movement
must face its unity and the policies against itself carried out by the Uribe
Vélez´s government. The barrios´ and semi proletarians´ movement require more
cohesion and ability to face policies concerning public services, railways,
health, employment and housing.
The non
armed movement is compound in the following way:
- Mass
Organizations influenced or led by the armed
organizations.
- Mass
Organizations influenced or directed by Parties and non armed organizations. The
CPC and its mass’s work (JUCO, CUT, barrios, women, peasant associations,
natives and community organizations) and parliamentarian work. The MOIR with its
trade-unionist organizations in the CUT and the CGTD, in the student the
CONCEC. The Labor Party of Colombia
LPC and the JUPA-OCE in the students movement, Farming Salvation, CGTD-CUT
and Public Services Users´s League
and work among women, besides parliamentarian speakers. Present for Socialism,
in the CUT Democratic Unity Party –DU, in the CUT, teachers and other
sectors. The Democratic Alliance
M19, DA-M19, PST among teachers and CUT and the Worker’s Socialist League (PST
fraction). El Colectivo
desde Abajo,. The PCC-M,
thru it’s trade-unionist work, work among university and secondary students,
barrios, artistic and peasant work. The MODEP and other political forces as well
as other Maoists organizations: GCR, Communist League, Work Communist Union WCU,
Revolutionary Communist Union RCU.
- Other
movements: Civilian Society Permanent Assembly for the Peace, Regional and
communal Movements, other centrals like the CTC and the Columbian Pensioner
Association, women movements (300 female organizations), Redepaz, Communitarian
Mothers Movement, Human Rights Groups, Democratic Lawyers, Prisoners and Missing
Persons Relatives, Organizations against war, youth and cultural groups,
alternative communication media, democratic scholars and their organizations
ASPU and others. A large range of
democratic
NGO.
In the
Social and Political Front, SPF, there are bounded as Parties and Organizations
the CPC, Presents for Socialism PFS, Collective Let´s Unite for Socialism,
Collective of Independent, the MODEP, Workman Dignity, Guillermo Marín
Collective. There are also Democratic Socialist Party DSP sectors, the CUT,
communal sectors, women organizations and democratic personalities. Also the
Parliamentarian Fraction bounded today with Democratic Alternative, which
projects itself as a wide democratic and leftist sector that counterweights the
Democratic Pole
The
Democratic Pole grouping the Lucho Garzón’s sector, “independents” like Samuel
Moreno Rojas, The Columbian Workmen Socialist Party CWSP of Dussan, the Social
Democratic Party of Colombia of the former minister Angelino Garzón, the Navarro
Wolf’s sector and the M19 of the Gustavo Petro Representative. The Domocratic
Pole has gathered the socialdemocracy, today is searching for accords with the
Piedad Córdoba’s sector in the Liberal Party for the presidential elections of
2006.
4. MAIN
POLITICAL ASPECT AND MAIN TACTIC.
During the
negotiations period 1998-2004 we affirmed that the main political aspect was the
existence of the new power (due to its public emergence in the Caguán), which
generated a big possibility for the Colombian revolutionary movement to take a
leap in fulfilling the democratic revolution’s tasks and advance towards seizing
of power all over the country.
Recognizing this condition, we characterize the present war as a
revolutionary civil war and inwards, all the armed and non armed
organizations that oppose to imperialism, to the great bourgeoisie and the big
landowners as revolutionary forces, which express the revolutionary classes and
national bourgeoisie’s interests, being the armed struggle the main way of
fighting of the Colombian revolution, still in specific stages and moments, the
political struggle has played an important role in the opposition against the
ruling classes and the imperialism.
Besides, we state that one of the main deficiencies of revolutionary
civil war was the scarce coordination between the armed and non armed
organizations because the revolutionary movement as a whole does not have a
strategy and unique program.
Since 2004
until today we are living in the first stage of the corporative fascist regime’s
establishment, supported and bounded to the North American imperialism’s orders,
which tries to destroy the democratic revolutionary movement; regime that still
has neither closed opposition´s space to the non armed democratic and
revolutionary movement’s, nor defeated the armed movement, generating fissures
and contradictions within the ruling class’s bosom. This relative weakness makes
the regime to repress and rabidly persecute to all the opposite and leftist
forces.
In the
middle of this circumstances a social democratic force that gathered together
the Democratic Pole, the Liberal Party and the ANAPO and other sectors that
fight for imposing a change or moderation in the Uribist authoritarianism and in
neo liberal policies and total surrendering to the North American imperialism’s
has emerged. The social democracy has contradictions with the corporative
fascist regime and also with the revolutionary and communists forces because it
opposes and condemns the revolutionary armed struggle as a historical and
political reality.
Nowadays,
the defeats suffered by the regime, its crisis and fissures, lead the fascists
to unfold a big wave of repression, threats and persecution against the
democratic and revolutionary movement in all the country and particularly in the
zones that are under its control. The main political aspect continues being
the imperialism and ruling classes attack against the democratic rights and
against the national sovereignty. The North American imperialism is today more
obviously in the head of the aggressions against the people and the nation.
This is the reason why we or other mass organizations and public opinion may
remain silent, because this will intensify repression even more, rights
violation and national humiliation.
If we, instead, launch the democratic movement to a direct fight and they
will take advantages from the opportunity to hit us, to break our spirit and
intensify the terror. It is not correct to mobilize only the advanced forces,
with banners that are still not accepted by the overall democratic forces,
because this would mean toi fall in the trap and allow them to beat and isolate
us.
To the
political terror we have to add the economic and fiscal aggressions against the
people, public expenditures cuts and the anti popular policies on employment,
health and social welfare. The regime advances in its plan, in the middle of
bends, like the revolutionary forces. The fast or slow growing of the
revolutionary forces that could or could not avoid some blows will depend on the
tactics it assumes and on the way in which our forces will organize and in the
direct or indirect coordination with the Colombian revolutionary movement as a
whole.
These
conditions require that we should have the main tactic of fighting for the
democratic liberties and national sovereignty defense, impelling the Popular
Liberation Movement that is fighting today for a Democratic Popular Government,
whose local and national emergence can only be possible departing from the
development of a strong mass movement ready to conquer the power, led by
revolutionary communists, combining accurately all ways of fighting to develop
all kinds and levels of revolutionary violence to guarantee the constitution and
defense of popular power, in revolutionary civil war or national liberation war
conditions, as a National Democratic Government. This is what
corresponds to the main contradiction that still is the one between the
imperialism and the ruling classes against the Colombian nation and
people.
For this,
it is necessary to extend our propaganda labor, to avoid all direct fight, to
win the different forces within the democratic field, to use all kinds of work
and fight, open, clandestine, legal and illegal; and to fight for the
establishment of a broad front, the Popular Liberation Movement against the
imperialism and the fascist terror that has to provide the leaders for the
Popular Democratic Government.
In the
propaganda work, it is very important to unmask all reactionary measure and
terrorist regime acts, spreading them as well in Colombia and as in the
international level. On the action, all direct fight must be avoided in
unfavorable conditions. This is not conservatism but to learn to conduct masses
and to combine all kinds of fight, since economic struggles till politic and
armed fight for power, elevating patient but swiftly mass’s consciousness,
educating them in the conscientious exercise of revolutionary violence in order
to keep and defense their achievements and organization.
In Colombia, the accession
of the present Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s corporative fascist regime has been the
outcome of the political, economic, social and spiritual crisis that has given
place to the fascistization process that we have been living since 40 years and
especially in the last decade,
Colombia, February
2004