PLAN COLOMBIA: "DECLARATION OF WAR"
FORCES LINE UP FOR, AGAINST REVOLUTIONBy Andy McInerney
11/9/00
A revolutionary process is unfolding in Colombia today. There are two aspects to this process.
On one side are the forces fighting to transform Colombian society into one that genuinely reflects the interests of the vast majority of the country's 40 million people. These forces are spearheaded by the armed insurgencies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- People's Army (FARC- EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
On the other side are those forces fighting to preserve the exploitative social system that has reduced half of the country to abject poverty. These include the Colombian political and economic elite and their armed forces, along with their paramilitary death squads. Their principle backer is the Pentagon.
The focal point for this process for the past 20 months has been the talks between the Colombian government and the FARC- EP, held in the zone of five municipalities centered at San Vicente del Caguan. The government withdrew its troops from this zone in December 1999 as a precondition for the talks.
The FARC-EP has used the talks to publicize its program of social change. Tens of thousands of Colombians who had never had a voice in Colombian society--labor unionists, peasants, women, students--have taken part in "Public Audiences" to express their views on the shape of a "New Colombia."
Today, the fate of these talks is very much in doubt. The main threat to their continuation is "Plan Colombia," a U.S.- backed proposal of military and economic aid designed to bolster the Colombian government in its war against the revolutionary insurgencies. The Clinton administration has already earmarked $1.3 billion in counterinsurgency equipment and training--including the planned deployment of 200 Special Forces "advisers."
The FARC-EP, the ELN and broad layers of Colombia's popular movement have called the Plan Colombia a "declaration of war."
EU AIDS 'PLAN COLOMBIA'
On Oct. 25, despite expressing misgivings about the military emphasis of the plan, the European Union approved $321 million in non-military aid toward Plan Colombia. The amount fell short of what Colombian President Andres Pastrana had lobbied for.
The FARC-EP insisted that any social aid should be channeled through the table of dialogues that is taking place at San Vicente.
"We demand that the aid be given directly to the table of peace talks and that those resources be strictly controlled and invested in plans for social development, not in financing the war envisioned in Plan Colombia," FARC-EP spokesperson Andres Paris said on Oct. 26.
At a recent hemispheric meeting held in Manaus, Brazil, U.S. representatives failed to convince Latin American Defense Chiefs to build a regional alliance to back the counterinsurgency war in Colombia. But Washington has made some notable inroads.
One has been the Ecuadoran government's agreement to allow use of the air base at Manta for flights over Colombian territory. The U.S. has also strong-armed the Salvadoran government to build a "Forward Operating Location" to allow espionage flights from that Central American country.
Both these initiatives have generated protests.
While Washington continues to try to generate international support for its war plans in Colombia, there are signs of an impending Colombian government military initiative. In the southern province of Putumayo, right-wing death squads working in collusion with government troops have begun to carry out attacks on the civilian population. This is undoubtedly aimed at preparing the ground for the "push to the south," spelled out in Plan Colombia and tentatively planned for the beginning of 2001.
ELECTIONS AMID WAR
In the midst of this tense situation, the Colombian government organized local elections for mayors of the country's over 1,000 municipalities on Oct. 26. Elections in Colombia are routinely marred by corruption and fraud.
In the last municipal elections in 1997, both the FARC-EP and the ELN called for boycotting the elections. This year, although neither group would take part in the elections, neither said they would obstruct the voting. The Communist Party ran candidates, either in its own name or in coalition with other leftist movements.
Candidates with a record of corruption or complicity with the armed forces were not permitted to run in areas where the FARC-EP has a strong presence. This policy provoked an alarm from the ruling class media. "Behind Colombia's election hoopla, rebels wield power," was the headline of the New York Times on Oct. 26.
Death squads targeted local candidates deemed "too close" to the left. They assassinated 21 candidates and kidnapped at least 60 others. This was a haunting echo of the period following the Uribe peace accords in 1984, when government- organized death squads wiped out virtually the entire Patriotic Union party.
The talks between the FARC-EP and the government have provided the Colombian people a political space not seen in over a decade, despite the growth of death-squad violence. It has been matched by a rise in the mass movement, like the August general strike by public sector workers that shut down the major cities of the country.
The growth in confidence by the Colombian workers and peasants is now in direct opposition to the cycle of war that the Pentagon's Plan Colombia will make inevitable. As U.S. "advisors" inevitably become combatants--and then casualties--in the revolutionary war, calls here for greater U.S. intervention will increase.
Activists in the United States need to prepare now to combat the escalating cycle of military intervention in Colombia.
Posted: November 9, 2000
