A-Infos (en) Interview with FARC Guerrilla Commander, Misc. Communiques

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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            FUERZAS ARMADAS REVOLUCIONARIAS DE COLOMBIA
                  EJERCITO DEL PUEBLO (FARC-EP)
                      Comision Internacional
                 E-mail: elbarcino@laneta.apc.org
        http://burn.ucsd.edu/~farc-ep/ (Revista edicion #17)
       http://members.tripod.com/~farc/ (Revista edicion #16)
     http://www.contrast.org/mirrors/farc/ (Espejo Revista #17)
                      - Sunday, 17 May 1998 -
 
                              -----
 
        Interview with Guerrilla Commander Raul Reyes:
_________________________________________________________________
 
  `THE SANTA FE DOCUMENT II IS STILL APPLIED IN COLOMBIA TODAY'
_________________________________________________________________
 
                              * * *
 
     Q: The military often says they have discovered drug
laboratories protected by the guerrilla movement. Do you have a
comment about this?
 
     RR: This is absolutely false. It is part of the
misinformation campaign, part of the Army's inability to
demonstrate results. These factors justify their presence in some
areas by discovering alleged laboratories which are actually mere
workshops a few peasants have, places they set up to work the
coca leaf.
 
     They grow nothing more. These are not laboratories, but
merely places where they store some gas and some salt to process
the leaf which they will later sell to intermediaries. That's it.
But the military makes it into something big to justify to the US
the use of US aid for the war against drugs. They are trying to
fool not only Colombians but also the North Americans themselves,
because anyone who doesn't know that says: "so these guerrillas
are winning the war" and that's why they show off thousands of
hectacres they've fumigated lately, and that also is untrue.
 
     If the North Americans wanted to verify this, we can get
them the necessary information, we could show them the coca
regions, take them to the laboratories the military has allegedly
destroyed and they will see that this is all a farse, that it is
deceit, a lie that is being told not only to Colombians but also
to the international community.
 
     Q: I understand that you have formally invited
representatives of the US government and Colombian anti-narco
trafficking authorities to the zones where the FARC-EP fronts are
located so that they can verify in person that there are no links
between the narco traffickers and the FARC-EP.
 
     RR: It would be very interesting to have a means of
communicating with them, to allow them access to places that we
indicate, in any department because the FARC-EP are all
throughout Colombia, so they can see and get information on the
other Colombia, the Colombia the Colombian government and
military hide.
 
     That would be very important because it would allow the
North Americans and their government to see the reality they are
not aware of. It is very important for us because our policy is
to communicate with everyone, our policy is to talk with
different goverments and their parties, with social
organizations, intellectuals and all religious expressions. This
is how we have spoken with various European governments,
neighboring and other Latin American governments. Likewise it
would be equally important and very positive to be able to speak
with the US, all the more so since they have put their government
forth as a possible participant in the dialogue process to
facilitate the terms to be approved of with the FARC-EP.
 
     This could be a possible beginning to look for methods for
peace, because it is also clear to us that the governments that
will participate in a possible dialogue must participate with the
approval and the request of all parties concerned, including the
FARC and the guerrilla organization that represents part of the
Colombian society and State. We will not accept any government or
organization appearing as facilitator in representation of both
organizations (both States, both governments - Bogota's and our
own) which has been invited by Bogota alone because we must also
be included in the process. All of this would then allow us to
advance with our proposal, which may turn into something very
important in making the Colombian reality known so we can all
work together to solve the current political and socio-economic
crisis.
 
     Q: But the US tendency toward Colombia is one of handing
over more war material to the government in Bogota. Is this not
contradictory?
 
     RR: Yes, this is well known and the press in Colombia makes
a big deal out of it. It is skillfuly manipulated also to show
that they have North American aid because everyone knows that
North America is not satisfied with President Samper because of
his involvement with the mafia, and his profits from narco
dollars.
 
     So they want to demonstrate that this is not so, because the
US is still providing a lot of financial aid and the so called
plans for the war against illegal crops in Colombia. If they
receive any aid at all, large or small, they magnify it, make it
larger than life evidence of the fight they are not really
fighting. It is not true that they are fighting against drugs
traffickers, the ones they are fighting are the peasants, the
poor, those who have no other choice.
 
     We think that the North Americans lack information, they
lack the knowledge of where their resources end up, and who
benefits from them.  Those resources do not end up where they
were assigned to go.  Supposedly allocated for the war against
drugs the resources are really used in the war against the
guerrilla, against the peasants, and to contribute to financing
the paramilitaries. So we would like to be able to show the North
Americans whenever they like what our vision is regarding these
matters. We would like to show such public figures as Mr. Carter
and others, so they may have information about what the Colombian
political class is, and how it acts to deceive not only
Colombians but also North Americans.
 
     This is a problem that is part of Colombian politics.
Perhaps the North Americans do not realize that if the resources
they gave were invested in other areas like agrarian reform,
roads, health facilities, and education, then it would improve
the image of North America in Colombia. It would not contribute
to what they are doing today, which is actually creating more
pain for the people by protecting the corrupt, the narco
traffickers, and the mafioso government represented by Dr.
Samper.
 
     Q: But do you really believe that the North Americans are so
naive and so misinformed that they do not know exactly what is
happening in Colombia with respect to narco trafficking?
 
     RR: No, they are not naive, but they get information from a
State and they are a State. At the State level there are
exchanges; they have political, economic, and military relations.
We also know that North American policy has various
interpretations, and not all North Americans agree with the
policies. For example, not all agree with Mr. Helms concerning
the embargo against Cuba, or the repressive laws against
Colombians, or against Iraq or other regions in the world.
Likewise they must see that in Colombia there are also various
interpretations, but that this can strengthen and benefit
Colombia and her friends to find ways besides North American
repression. This can happen if they have accurate information and
not only reports from Colombian intelligence, General Serrano
Cadena, the Colombian army, DAS, or the President himself, be he
Samper or Serpa.
 
     Q: How do you view the creation of a new Anti drug Center in
Panama by the US?
 
     RR: This is part of a strategy to protect their interests. 
We all know that above all US policy is to protect what they
consider theirs, and they believe that everything in the world
belongs to them. So they are on the Panama/Colombia border in
support of Panama's government, and by request and in support of
Colombia's government as well. So that is where they are going to
stay, and they are going to set up some bases that will be not
for mafia control, but rather to control the revolutionary
organizations on the continent. So this has some political
implications that naturally affect the US and of course all of
the people in the region, countries not part of the empire but
rather dependent on the US.
 
     But perhaps the US has not thought that this may complicate
the future for them, because in the Colombian case anti US
sentiment is increasingly strong. This is a product of their poor
policies, and it is why many people in Colombia see them not only
as their enemies but also as meddling in their domestic affairs.
This is why they are looking toward Europe. They think that
Europe is different, and of course its behavior is different from
US behavior because the US is closer to Colombia and South
America than Europe.
 
     Q: In any case, can you summarize that the Santa Fe II
Document (which was drawn up by US foreign policy advisors in
1989, editor's note) is still in effect because there is a
concern reflected in the document with respect to Colombia's
socio-political development, the growth of the armed movement,
etc.?
 
     RR: Yes, even though the East-West conflict disappeared with
the "fall of true socialism in Moscow," in Colombia the Santa Fe
II document is still applied. This is evident in death squads,
the application of the theory of national security, and the
internal war that massacres political opposition, where social
protest is criminalized, and where anyone who protests because of
hunger, thirst, desire for education, to be paid for a job, or to
have a job, is henceforth considered subversive. This is the
application of the theory of national security which allows the
government to maintain fear in the population so they can impose
the neo liberal model with force. Economic opening is another
element that contributes to Colombia being in such a serious
situation. This also gives the revolutionary movement led by the
guerrilla more elements to justify its existence, expressed by
growing numbers of armed men and women, and by entering into new
areas of the economy, and in society.
 
                              * * *
 
     The Jose Maria Cordoba Block of the FARC-EP hereby makes
     known that:
 
1. In combat with units from the 17 Brigade of the Army and its
paramilitaries 10 soldiers were killed, the Convivir headquarters
in the center of Medellin was destroyed, and a powerful explosion
was placed against Uniban. Furthermore a hacienda and two buses
from the paramilitary company Rapido Ochoa were destroyed in the
jurisdiction of Altamira, the village of Betulia, Antioquia, when
five paramilitary murderers were killed. Later in Carepa in
combat with paramilitaries from the Army's 17 Brigade, ten were
killed and five more were seriously injured. Confiscated for the
people were 10 AK guns with 1,000 bullets.
 
2. There were no guerrilla losses.
 
Jose Maria Cordoba Block Command
The Mountains of Colombia
April 1998
 
                              * * *
 
1. What do the FARC think about the presidential candidates and
their peace proposals?
 
     We must know who among all the candidates will be the new
President of the Republic and then know his peace proposals as
Chief of State. We must not forget that historically in the
period of electoral debate many promises are made that are not
kept in the presidency.
 
2. What do you think about this possibility in relation to the
other actors in the conflict (the State, the ELN, EPL and the
paramilitaries)? Is there a possibility to take this process up
as the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Coordinator? What do you think
about the proposal of the National Convention of the ELN as a
basis to begin the process?
 
     Rest assured that the revolutionary organizations are not
stepping back in the peace proposals with social justice set
forth time and again.  The State has the responsibility to create
the political conditions for rapprochement with the various
political forces in order to begin dialogues, for which is is
necessary to assume the challenges implicit in the construction
of understanding, tolerance and the solution to the causes of the
conflict.
 
3. What requirements or conditions do you feel are necessary in
order to sit at a negotiation table in the future? Are there
political, social, economic and cultural conditions necessary to
begin this process?
 
     In various documents and public speeches we have noted that
in order to begin serious peace talks we must see the evacuation
of troops from the municipalities of Uribe, Mesetas, Vistahermosa
and Macarena, the department of Meta and the municipality of San
Vicente del Caguan in Caqueta. We also will attend dialogues as
an armed revolutionary organization and will not accept them
under denigrating name calling far from the raison d'etre of our
organization. Thus, we demand true commitment and political will
in dismantling paramilitary groups and death squads in the army.
These organizations go unpunished after murdering and displacing
unarmed civilians, under the pretext of defending State policies. 
Everyday Colombia is closer to a larger war stimulated by the
devastating effects of the neoliberal model, corruption in all
parts of the government, intolerance, lies and blackmail made
possible by the governmental regime. These are sufficient reasons
for reacting responsibly in true civilized solutions which must
be the result of the patriotic meeting of all social, political,
economic and religious sectors who are interested in changing the
dangerous direction our country has been taking to this day.
 
4. Would your willingness to begin a reconciliation process be
for the long term, medium term or the present, and under what
arguments?  
 
     Since there has been a true political decision to abandon
the path of war and the government has seriously begun the
construction of peace clamored for by the poor, we feel that it
is not wise to attach time limits because peace demands immense
resources of every kind, and time counts too.
 
                              * * *
 
                  PRESS RELEASE FROM THE FARC-EP
 
     To the wives and other relatives of the North American New
Tribes Missionaries who were disappeared on the frontier of
Colombia with Panama, we confirm to you again that the FARC-EP
carried out a careful investigation in the entire region of the
Antioquian Uraba regarding the worrisome case and to date we have
no other information than that made known in a Press Release from
December 1997, attached. The guerrilla organization cannot assume
the responsibility for acts we did not commit and it is unjust to
make statements regarding alleged actions lacking any objectivity
at all.
 
     We would like to believe that the humane, explicable tasks
of relatives worried about the disappearance of their loved ones
have nothing to do with the various pretexts the Pentagon and the
White House use with the approval of their country's extreme
right. They seek nonexistent motives to openly intervene in the
domestic affairs of Colombia with more dollars, planes and combat
helicopters, military advisors, experts in communications and
mass destruction arms to support the Armed Forces and Ernesto
Samper's government. Elected with drug money and known throughout
the world for the high rate of Human Rights Violations and
International Human Rights Violations, besides corruption, Samper
covers his delinquent acts under the wide umbrella of impunity,
threats, indiscriminate murders and forced displacement of
peasants and the unarmed civilian population.
 
     The FARC-EP would like to alert the people of the US of the
dangerous outcome US (or other foreign) military intervention
against the revolutionary organizations fighting for peace for
the 30 million poor will have. So we make the urgent call to your
people, to social organizations, the progressive and the
democratic forces to demand that their government avoid another
dangerous venture similar to or worse than Vietnam, part of our
sad memory.
 
Attached is the press release referred to.
 
In the spirit of Bolivar,
 
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION
May 1998
 
                              * * *
_________________________________________________________________
 
          THE INTERNAL CONFLICT AND NARCO-TRAFFICKING
_________________________________________________________________
 
TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
 
     The Colombian military government has launched the largest
and most desperate propaganda campaign based on their admitted
incapacity to militarily or politically defeat the Guerrilla, in
order to sell the International public opinion on the idea of an
alleged link between the Guerrilla and narco trafficking. This is
a resource copied from the Hitlerian practice of repeating and
repeating a lie until attaining its acceptance as a truth.
 
     In some ways this campaign is a remake of the story about
the birds throwing themselves into the line of fire. Is not
Samper, against all ethical grounds, enjoying the seat of Bolivar
thanks to the money he received from the Cali cartel? Was not
General Bonett, Commander of the Armed Forces, Commander of the
III Brigade of the Army when the Cali Cartel moved with complete
freedom, in the center of crime? Perchance was not General Bedoya
the one who commanded the VII Brigade when the coca zones spread
across the Eastern Plains? Not to mention the Attorneys General,
controllers, lawyers, and congressmen who also benefitted from
the dirty mafia money.
 
     Joe Toffal is right on when he declares the Colombian regime
a narco-democracy.
 
     The dirty campaign designed to link the Guerrilla and narco-
trafficking lies on two essencial propositions: on the one hand,
it seeks to delegitimize the Guerrilla and reduce it to common
delinquency to avoid it being considered as an alternative for
change and power; and on the other hand, it seeks to open a space
to justify direct US intervention in the internal conflict. The
first is impossible for an oligarchical government which has sown
injustice on Colombian soil for decades; the second is starting
to motivate the Pentagon.
 
     US intervention in domestic affairs in Colombia is not a new
event: the US has granted military aid and advisors to the
Colombian Army since the attack on Marquetalia, including the
attack on Casa Verde and the combats in Yari, during which
General Bonett himself admitted receiving electronic and
satellite aid to fight the Guerrilla.
 
     We would like to send a clear message to the US and the
international community: The FARC-EP do not engage in the
cultivation of coca leaves, we do not tend crops or processing
laboratories, and do not traffick cocaine. As a principle we
condemn narco-trafficking for the horrible evils it causes human
beings and especially young people. The cultivation of the coca
leaf and the poppy in Colombia is doubtless a serious social
problem. It has to do with hunger, unemployment and forced
displacement caused by State violence. The solution cannot be
simply irrational repression of the poor peasants. If we have
attacked fumigation helicopters and planes it is not only because
they are an obvious military target, but also and above all
because we do not agree with the devastation of the environment
and the irreversible damaged caused to the flora, fauna, water
springs and the people by spraying toxic products. Surely the US
would not permit similar sprayings in their own territory.
 
     The solution to the narco problem must take up the social
causes which generate it. The truth is that the Colombian
government, because of its vested interests, has never been
politically willing to carry out the urgent task of the
redistribution of land. It has been busy adopting economic
policies for the exclusive benefit of monopolies while the
majority of Colombians hear only demagogy and redeeming promises
that are never kept. It is necessary to implement a coherent plan
of crop substitution to open new perspectives for the sustenance
of peasants, complemented with the execution of a true
development program including land titles, credit which is
favorable to the peasant, highways, health and educational
facilities, a market for their products, the construction of
ports and airports, among other urgent necessities. Of course, in
this effort the solidary participation of the International
Community is necessary.
 
     In Colombia the Medellin and Cali drug cartels have almost
been dismantled, but their activities have resurged with the
tolerance of the Army by the paramilitary cartel led by the
Castano Gil family, while in the US the most notorious
distributors remain untouched. If we solve the social causes
which push the peasant to illegal crops, and if we educate US and
other international youth for non consumption, the Cartels which
still persist in Colombia and in the US will have no incentive
and narco trafficking will then begin its descent into history.
 
The International Commission of the FARC-EP
 
                              * * *
 
 
     PRESS RELEASE
 
     The 34 Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
     Army of the People, hereby informs the national and
     international public opinion:
 
1. On Tuesday April 28 a 60 unit patrol from the Granaderos de
Frontino Battalion, Antioquia, occupied the town of Encarnacion
in the municipality of Urrao. There it began to gather together
the townspeople in the name of the Autodefensas de Cordoba and
Uraba. They later opened fire against the town, leaving 23
peasants murdered, 10 on the outskirts and 13 in the Canon del
Maravillo. They also burned the hospital, looted the stores and
broke down doors to various houses.
 
This military operation was completed in conjunction with Captain
Osorio, Urrao military base Commander. This base has been linked
to other massacres in the region, totaling more than 150 dead.
 
2. As a result, this new massacre is the responsibility of the
Official Armed Forces, which made good on the threats they had
previously made known in the village.
 
3. Now as always some public officials seek to manipulate the
facts, and are presenting them as the result of confrontations
with the guerrilla and paramilitary groups.
 
4. This massacre is the continuation of the dirty war, the
expression of the Doctrine of National Security, which leads the
Official Army and converts the people into the internal enemy to
defeat.
 
34 Front of the FARC-EP
The Mountains of Antioquia, April 1998
 
                              * * *
 
     The 9 Front of the FARC - EP denounces the following:
 
1. The peasant murders in the villages of Ingenio, Topacio, San
Julian and Agua Bonita, in the municipality of San Rafael in
Antioquia, are being carried out by troops in the Barbacoas
Heroes Battalion; more precisely, by members of the Rancho de
Lata military base dressed as paramilitaries.
 
2. We accuse General Carlos Alberto Ospina Ovalle, Commander of
the Army's IV Brigade, of managing or scheming these murders,
which have already provoked the massive displacement of the
population.
 
3. We call on Human Rights Defendor NGOs, on the Catholic Church,
on the International Red Cross, the Attorney General, and the
Press to intervene so the IV Brigade will respect Human Rights
and end their attacks against the civilian population.
 
COMMAND OF THE 9 FRONT OF THE FARC-EP
The Mountains of Antioquia, April 1998
 
                              * * *
 
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