Uribe’s narco-paramilitary government, unconditional ally of US
imperialism in Latin America, has been obtaining big victories in
its repressive policy of “democratic security,” that is no more than
the continuation of a systematic low-intensity civil war against
the militant workers’, campesinos’ and popular organizations, and a
position of destroying the insurgency. With the recent “rescue” of
Ingrid Betancourt, the three Pentagon mercenaries and the 11
soldiers and cops that were in the hands of the FARC, Uribe has
gotten a big political victory, that helps him get out of a severe
political crisis that was very close to him, not only because of the
confirmed relations of his party and his milieu with the
paramilitaries (that has led dozens of legislators to court and/or
prison), but also because it is confirmed that he bribed legislators
so they would approve his reelection. It is in this context that
Chávez, in his attempts to relocate himself in front of US
imperialism, is making a change in his policy towards Uribe.

For their part, the FARC, prisoners of their own guerrilla strategy,
have found themselves in a dead end, remote from the needs of
struggle and mobilization of the workers and the poor people of
Colombia, as well as prisoners of their own “armed reformism,” that
ends up proposing a “government of national unity” with sectors of
the Colombian bourgeoisie. Uribe’s government had been raining heavy
blows on the FARC, to force them to unconditional surrender.

However, in spite of disagreeing with the method and strategy of the
guerrillas, we revolutionary socialists do not at any moment put an
equal sign between the actions of the guerrillas and systematic
state terror, that has caused 4 million displaced people, thousands
of tortured and murdered victims, hundreds of disappeared people,
and the world record of murders of trade unionists. We
revolutionaries defend the right of the FARC to be recognized as a
belligerent force, and not because they might surrender or turn over
their arms, but because they should subordinate themselves to the
needs of revolutionary mobilization of the workers’ and popular
movement.

Neither “friend” nor “brother”! Down with Chávez’ negotiations with
Uribe!

What we defend is very far from the policy of Chávez, who went so
far as to say that the FARC “is giving the empire excuses to
threaten us,” showing a disgusting political “pragmatism,” as part
of an attempt to extend bridges toward a possible future Democratic
administration in the US, has declared that he would like to “work
together” with the next US President, and is trying to show himself
as a government that, beyond its anti-US and nationalist rhetoric,
respects the regional order and the stability of the bourgeois
regimes in Latin America. He wants to show that he is willing even
to live together with the Colombian regime, in spite of its
outrageous support for the US.

The “progressive” governments of the region like Chávez join the
bourgeois chorus that denounces kidnapping but does not say a word
about the hundreds of worker militants, campesinos, poor people and
leftists that are rotting in the jails of the Colombian oligarchy.
They call on the FARC to surrender because the FARC has ceased to be
fashionable, [and they are] in reality disputing the right of the
exploited to rebel against the military power of the bourgeois
state, in this case, the Colombian state, advised and armed to the
teeth by the US. With that same logic with which they question
guerrilla warfare, they also dispute from workers’ and campesinos’
self-defense organizations, up to insurrection itself by the
exploited. Because of all this, we cannot do less than express our
firm solidarity with the Colombian workers, with the campesinos and
the poor people of Colombia, and categorically denounce Chávez’
embraces and peace-making with this murderous regime.

Uribe, get out! Down with Plan Colombia!

For the release of all the activists, workers, campesinos and
guerrillas imprisoned in the jails of Uribe and Bush!

US advisors and soldiers, get out of Colombia and Latin America!

For the unity of the workers and poor people of Latin America
gainst imperialism and its servile governments!

LTS, Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo

11/07/2008

Translation by Yosef M.