Workers World Dec. 26, 1996: Colombian rebels

------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 1996 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------

Colombian rebels: "Our goal is socialism"

For the first time, a high-ranking leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia-Army of the People (FARC-EP) visited the United States on an official mission in November. Mauricio Lopez, a member of the FARC's International Commission met with political organizations and human-rights groups in New York and Washington.

The purpose of his trip was to open a direct channel for the truth to arrive in the United States. The national news media and the U.S. government's cynical portrayal of Colombia have distorted and obscured the reality of the political struggle now under way in that country.

Colombia is rich in petroleum, minerals and agricultural products. Twenty-four percent of its work force labors at industrial production. It also has the oldest and one of the biggest armed movements for national liberation in the Western Hemisphere.

The armed forces of the Colombian government receive more weapons, training and money from the Pentagon than does any other Latin American government.

On Nov. 9, Mauricio Lopez of the FARC was the featured speaker at a public forum sponsored by Workers World Party in New York. Lopez offered a point of view never heard in the mainstream media here. Excerpts from his talk follow.

The FARC originated in 1964, when a group of peasants who had already undertaken the armed struggle but who could not be convinced to surrender their weapons were simply silenced in an operation planned by the Pentagon.

The armed struggle didn't originate in the 1960s, but in 1948 with the assassination of the popular leader Jorge Eliezer Gaitán. The peasants who were in the region of Marquetalia after defending themselves against an attack by more than 18,000 troops organized themselves into mobile guerrilla units and committed themselves to a formidable undertaking-which even now continues to be a formidable undertaking, but which every day seems closer to us: to seize power.

This then is how we have spent the last 32 years-in the armed struggle for the seizure of power. In the armed struggle to achieve our objective: the construction of socialism in our nation.

But we have always been mindful of the fact that this is the most painful form of struggle. And for this reason, since our founding, while we take up arms with one hand in the other we uphold the banner of peace and for a political resolution to the conflict.

But if the truth be told, we hold little hope for this because the Colombian oligarchy, and the ruling classes of the world, do not give away anything. Everything we win must be seized from their grasp through struggle.

For this reason, we have launched a number of initiatives aimed at achieving a political solution. But also for this reason we have always remained clear that the arms of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia belong to the people of Colombia and will never be surrendered.

The rural workers who grow the coca leaf are not drug dealers. These rural workers have been denied the possibility to survive producing any other crop.

This is because these workers have been forced off the more fertile lands in the country by the narcotics traffickers, because they have no means of communication, no way of bringing their produce to market, because they have no agronomists or agricultural experts to provide technical assistance. And least of all do they have credit necessary to be able to develop a marketable crop.

No one lets themselves starve to death without doing anything to survive. So they have turned to the production of coca leaf. But they are prepared to abandon this crop as soon as another alternative is offered to them.

For this reason, we view these workers as having no responsibility for drug trafficking.

We believe that the international community knows very well who has the connections with the true drug traffickers, who finances the election campaigns of the traditional political parties and who avoids taking responsibility for accepting campaign contributions from the drug traffickers.

We have a presence and support throughout the national territory of Colombia. We are therefore in the areas of our country where the coca plant is grown and among the coca-leaf farmers. We are also in the zones where the workers cultivate coffee and harvest the bananas-but they have never accused us of being coffee traffickers or banana traffickers.

They also accuse us of terrorism. We believe that individual acts can never substitute for the struggle of the masses of the people.

As far as they are concerned, the struggle for justice and fundamental human rights by means of armed struggle is terrorism. The jails of our country are filled with people accused of terrorism-people who are really progressives, fighters for social justice. Less than one-quarter of those in jail among the more than 3,000 political prisoners now being held in Colombian jails have any connection with the mass armed struggle.

Thus, because in Colombia there is no political space for peaceful struggle, because the Colombian ruling class is bloodthirsty and ruthless, really terrorists-the armed struggle has full political validity and legitimacy.

We are also accused of lacking a political perspective. We refute this by always having a political proposal ready. The most recent proposal calls concretely for a government of national reconstruction and reconciliation that, in accordance with the needs of the Colombian people, resolves the structural crisis the country is currently experiencing.

This is not a proposal to resolve the problems of [Colombian President Ernest] Samper. It is a proposal to build the necessary basis for the transition to a new society.

The crisis is not one of the Samper government, but of a corrupt political system that commits violent crimes with impunity-a bloodthirsty system that kneels at the feet of the U.S. empire.

It is not the substitution of one political personality for another that can resolve the crisis in Colombia-but a structural change, a change of the system itself.

For this reason we insist that we will continue to raise our weapons in one hand and the banner of a political solution in the other. Either through a political solution or an armed seizure of power, we will achieve our objective of building a new Colombia, in which we will begin the construction of socialism.

Finally, we would like to repeat our gratitude and our salute, in the spirit of Simon Bolivar, to all those who are part of the movement of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, led by our Commander in Chief Manuel Marulanda Vélez.

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