[News] The Colombian Negotiations - An Interview With the FARC-EP Peace Delegation

[Anti-Imperialist News]

August 07, 2013
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/07/an-interview-with-the-farc-ep-peace-delegation/


*The Colombian Negotiations*


  An Interview With the FARC-EP Peace Delegation

by HERNANDO CALVO OSPINA

/Havana, Cuba./

/Even in Havana they get up early. "We get up at 4:30 to wake up the 
roosters so that they can start singing," grins Ricardo Tellez, better 
known as "Rodrigo Granda."I have an appointment at 7am to interview 
three members of the Secretariat, the highest authority of the FARC. 
They are at the forefront of the dialogues between the insurgent 
organization with the delegation of the Colombian government in Havana. 
In a great hall of a house in "El Laguito" (1), where they live, "Ivan 
Marquez" and "Pablo Catatumbo" arrive, too. Granda lights a cigarette 
and drinks his second cup of coffee. Marquez has a big Cuban cigar in 
his hand, which he`ll start "after breakfast". Catatumbo is sipping 
coffee and says to me: "If the three of us are going to say almost the 
same, why would you interview me?"/

/It is the first time a journalist has the opportunity to talk to these 
three guerrilla leaders together./

/Hernando Calvo Ospina: Commanders, you have been talking for seven 
months, negotiating with the government's commission in this peace 
process. Are you still optimistic?/

*Ivan Marquez:* The optimism of the FARC is determined by our willpower 
to find a political solution to this confrontation, which has lasted for 
almost fifty years. Because they haven´t been able to defeat us 
militarily, nor have we, we must seek an alternative. In addition, the 
circumstances, today's realities, both in Colombia and on the continent, 
indicate that it is time to find a pacific solution. Wars are not 
eternal. And that´s why we make any necessary effort to come to an 
understanding with the government.

HCO: /How does it feel to be so close to your enemy?/

*IM:* In spite of sitting at the same table two groups with very 
different views, almost antagonistic, we have to tolerate and understand 
each other. At a negotiating table one should respect the other party, 
and I think that respect should be mutual. There are moments of algid, 
strong discussions, but soon things turn back to normal because we know 
that we must come to an understanding.

HCO: /Negotiations in war move between two opponents. It seems to me 
that you put more emotion on it./

*IM:* You're right. The government has always had a tendency to seek the 
subjugation of the guerrillas as a synonym for peace, not peace through 
structural changes. The oligarchy wants peace for free. We are making 
great efforts for them to understand that you need to generate an 
atmosphere for peace, and that it can be achieved through institutional 
and political transformations. We are sure that the most important thing 
for Colombia is to ensure real democracy, where the sovereign people can 
determine strategic policies, where the opinion of the people is taken 
into account without being stigmatized and murdered.

HCO:/ Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that at various times President Juan 
Manuel Santos has wanted to pull back./

*Rodrigo Granda:* I don´t think he wants to withdraw, but he does seem 
afraid. It's as if he were afraid of former President Alvaro Uribe, of 
the cattle-breeders, of narco-paramilitary power and the obscure sector 
within the Armed Forces. Santos recoils despite having the support of a 
significant sector of industrialists, bankers and churches. For example, 
according to reports we have, Sarmiento Angulo (2), one of the most 
powerful men in Colombia, supports the dialogue process. Surveys say 
that 87% of Colombians also want peace. The correlation of forces in 
favor of peace is indisputable. Uribe aside, nobody speaks about war 
anymore. But it seems that Santos does not want to face those sectors 
led by Uribe, he wants to fight us militarily, and assumes intransigent 
positions that do not allow a correct development of the dialogues. We 
know that Uribe has prepared 13,000 paramilitaries, known unofficially 
as the "anti-land restitution army." Is it that the Armed Forces and 
Santos don´t know about that? Of course they do! Is that what Santos is 
afraid of? Or is he taking it as part of a possible move against us?

HCO: /Clearly Uribe tries to torpedo the negotiations. Do you think he 
wants to return to presidency?/

*RG:* And he wants that to protect himself, because he's afraid of being 
sent to Miami for drug trafficking, or to the International Criminal 
Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. It would be favorable 
for him if the negotiations failed, so that he can appear before the 
country as the solution. Although he wasn´t able to resolve the 
"problem" of the guerrillas during the eight years he was in office. 
Pablo Catatumbo: Anyway, Santos and Uribe have the same idea about the 
negotiations: a peace process by submission. They are blind, deaf and 
quite wrong, but think they're smart. And that is where we must continue 
with wisdom to prove that they are wrong, and that like this, the war 
will continue.

HCO: /In statements you´ve made and documents I've read, you are asking 
for reforms in state institutions and the modernization of the State 
itself, which may be contradictory for a Marxist-Leninist communist 
guerrilla./

*IM:* At the table we are not proposing radical changes to the political 
or economic structures of the state. Over there, we don´t mention 
socialism or communism. We try to create conditions to reach an 
understanding with the government. A place where two different views can 
meet. We know that some leftist organizations, not only in Colombia, say 
that we became a reformist guerrilla.

We have made minimum proposals, for example the hundred proposals about 
the agrarian system, which as you´ve already said, are nothing more than 
a modernization of the Colombian countryside, but fact is that we are 
still living in feudalism there. Imagine that even this way, the 
government puts obstacles.

HCO: /What has ever signed between the parties?/

*RG:* We have signed some things, but they are not final signatures 
because nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. There are points 
on which we haven´t agreed yet, and we let them out to discuss them 
later on. Otherwise there won´t be any progress.

HCO: /Dialogues in Havana, and strong military confrontations in 
Colombia .../

*RG:* The government doesn't want a ceasefire, so both parties have to 
dialogue under fire. We are having heavy confrontations every day, to an 
average of three per day. We have done large-scale military actions, 
which they hide to the nation. Now, both parties have decided that what 
happens in Colombia is not going to affect the Table.

We have made some gestures of peace, as was the unilateral truce for 
Christmas, although we had to defend ourselves against the attacks of 
the army. And what has been hidden is also in that same time span 
multinationals could increase their profits, they did not have our 
pressure. That's why one of the major reasons for ending the guerrillas 
is that the transnationals can steal whatever they want without any problem.

HCO: /So far, what has been the main government's intransigence in 
negotiations?/

*IM:* Without any doubt, the determination not to touch the property of 
the big land-owners, most of which has been obtained through violent 
dispossession. They`re afraid of that. Their representatives, when they 
talk to us, have said that that could "unleash the demons of 
paramilitarism." They are afraid of cattle-breeders and landowners, to 
touch one third of the 30 million acres they own, although not even the 
cows occupy them.

But land reform without touching the big property isn't reform. There 
must be set limits for land property. The government has not even 
thought about putting taxes as a punishment for unproductive land 
tenure. When we proposed taxing these big properties, the government 
responded that there is no reliable census; that nobody knows where they 
are or what their extension is. They suggest that first there should be 
a census, which can take up to 7 or 10 years. What they don't say is 
that during this time the landowners can lease or sell the land to 
multinationals, which is their strategy.

HCO: /If the Colombian government decided to negotiate with the FARC, it 
was because Washington agreed. You know that that is not an exaggeration 
of mine. What is the current political attitude?/

*IM:* Recently, 62 U.S. congressmen, including two Republicans, led by 
Jim McGovern, signed a letter of support for the talks. This letter was 
sent to Secretary of State John Kerry. We welcomed this altruistic 
gesture. The White House and the State Department have also expressed 
their support. Of course, there are always different interests because 
the Colombian conflict produces money. The powerful arms industry 
doesn´t want to let loose of that business.

HCO: /You are determined to stop the armed struggle. What should the 
government offer you for this to be achieved? And you, what would you 
become?/

*RG:* President Santos, during the initial interchanges with us, said he 
wanted to open the floodgates to a real democracy in the country. That 
struck us because we have never said that the armed struggle is the only 
way to change the country. We got up in arms, and we still carry them, 
because violence has closed the doors to political participation. If the 
possibility of doing politics legally becomes real, without the constant 
threat of assassination, in equal conditions and with political reforms 
that could lead the country towards participatory democracy, we are 
there. Because there could be created a favorable correlation of forces 
for the revolutionary movement, which routs the necessary radical 
changes. We accept that challenge.

*PC:* You need to build a strong mass movement to impose changes, 
because the establishment doesn't give away anything for free. That is a 
task for us, leftists and Democrats. It is important to create a power 
block of people who want a new Colombia. That is the challenge, and it´s 
not a small one.

But you see, as we talk about it at the conversation Table, the 
repression continues all around the country. The government hasn't 
changed anything regarding the treatment of social protest: they are 
stigmatized, associated with the guerrillas to criminalize them and 
attack them with bullets. And if there is something we have very clear 
is that we are not willing to repeat the experience of the Patriotic 
Union, during which nearly 4000 members and leaders (3) were killed.

History, if it's not manipulated, doesn´t lie: they have been the 
violent ones. When we remind the governmental team of these facts, they 
tell us that they are not here to talk about that. Why? What do they 
feel ashamed or afraid about? Without knowing the history of political 
violence in Colombia, how are we to know why we got to the current 
situation and how to resolve it?

*IM:* There are three items on the agenda to be discussed: guarantees to 
exercise political activity, political participation and bilateral and 
definitive ceasefire. The latter discusses the surrender of weapons and 
under what conditions. But let it be understood: that´s not handing over 
weapons. We cannot talk about these points until they are discussed in 
the table, and they will be the last ones on the agenda.

HCO:/ What will happen with the paramilitaries?/

*IM:* They must definitively be eliminated; if not, there would be no 
certainty for an insurgent organization to incorporate into legal 
politics. That's an insurmountable condition to reach a peace agreement. 
And it is the government who has to give the order to his generals to 
stop the state's counterinsurgency strategy.

HCO:/ Are you determined to apologize for the suffering you have caused 
in this war?/

*PC:* We have made mistakes, some serious, indeed. But whatever official 
propaganda says, aggression to the population has never been a strategy 
of the FARC. On the contrary, we have defended them against the army and 
its paramilitaries, mainly on the countryside.

I have no problem in saying to a woman or a family: "I feel sorry about 
the pain we have caused with the death of your loved one." But this is 
much more complex. Are we going to apologize? Very well. Let´s also 
invite the economic associations that financed the war and 
paramilitaries; let´s invite all State institutions, because they 
guarantee repression and impunity; let´s invite the mass media, too, 
because they reproduced the stigmatization made by security agencies, 
which have led to the murders and massacres; the rightist political 
parties should also sit down and assume their great responsibilities; 
the former presidents of the republic who gave the orders. Not even the 
Catholic Church can deny its responsibility! And the governments of the 
United States, Israel, some European countries and others that have 
supported various criminal governments of Colombia cannot be left 
outside of this ceremony. All together, we can decide who the terrorists 
and murderers of the people are.

HCO: /You point out, and rightly so, that the government, its armed 
forces and the mass media are responsible for psychological warfare and 
propaganda against the insurgency. But I think an important sector of 
the so-called intelligentsia have savaged the armed struggle they 
supported before./

*PC:* Most intellectuals in Colombia, and probably in the world, are 
suffering from cowardice, accommodations or both things. Almost all were 
put by the system in the matrix of lies, and are used to "theorize", 
create and repeat falsehoods. Many of them spend time writing discourses 
against media manipulation, but when the system starts a campaign 
against someone or somebody, they start talking like parrots.

In Colombia, the system told them that the guerrillas are guilty of 
everything. Although many of them believed, or believe, they are from 
the left, they repeated in unison that we are responsible for violence, 
drug trafficking, kidnapping, poverty, rising gasoline and even the high 
price of the bananas. I assure you that if tomorrow the birds stop 
singing, these "intellectuals" repeat what the government and their 
media say: the guerrillas are to be blamed. They have fallen into such 
poverty regarding research and argumentation, that their analyses and 
theories don't endure any discussion, at least with us. They think that 
if they discuss with us, we´ll kill them afterwards. They are not even 
capable of realizing that if that was true, in Colombia there would be 
very few "intellectuals" left right now. Their brain doesn't have the 
capacity to see that those who safeguard their intellectual and 
political independence are those who are said by the government to be 
friends or accomplices of the subversion.

HCO:/ I must admit, and I´m about to end, that I'm not very optimistic 
about these dialogues. I believe that Colombia and Colombians deserve 
peace with social justice, but I know the Colombian State, I know the 
United States, who support that State and who ultimately decides. 
Hopefully the long night, imposed by State terrorism stops and finally 
dawns. I wish it with all my heart./

*PC:* Look, political conditions in Latin America have changed. Who 
could have imagined what happened in Venezuela and Bolivia with the 
arrival of Chávez and Evo? Who would have thought that other Latin 
American governments one day would demand respect for their sovereignty 
from the U.S.? There are unpredictable things, like the end of the 
Soviet Union for example.

In Colombia there is an accumulation of hunger, exclusion, injustice and 
repression. The time will come when people simply won´t take it anymore. 
There is an accumulation of ongoing processes that can make a leap any 
time. There is a boiling that could explode tomorrow.

Besides, Colombia is not an island. The neighboring countries are 
pressing the government because they are tired of the conflict that 
affects them. Venezuela received about 4 million displaced Colombians, 
Ecuador almost two million. We believe there are 13 to 15 million 
Colombians in neighboring countries, that is, the third part of the 
Colombian population. And these countries must provide housing, food and 
health. For how long? Apart from the budget they spend to protect their 
borders. Just because the Colombian government insists on not 
negotiating a conflict they will never win! We have asked the 
representatives of those nations to demand for peace, so that all our 
compatriots can return to their country.

We are optimistic. Revolutionaries must be optimistic, even in the worst 
situations. And we believe that peace will come to Colombia because we 
deserve it. The other possibility is total war. That´s why I say the 
moment has come, but that doesn't mean it´s easy. This peace process is 
too complex, but we believe it is possible. We insist on striving for 
peace, so we will not fold our arms.

I do have hope, although I think the authorities and the Colombian 
oligarchy lack greatness and humility to start solving this conflict.

/*Hernando Calvo Ospina* is a Colombian journalist. He can be reached 
through his website <http://hcalvospina.free.fr/spip.php?article459>./

*NOTES:*

1. "El Laguito" is a residential complex in Havana. Their houses are 
separated by trees and gardens. In the center is a small lake. Since 
November 2012, the delegations of the FARC and the Colombian government 
are located in this peaceful scenery.

2. According to the magazine Forbes (edition 2012). Luis Carlos 
Sarmiento Angulo listed as the first billionaire in Colombia, and would 
rank 64 in the world.

3. The Patriotic Union was born in 1985, as a result of the talks 
between the government of Belisario Betancur and the FARC. According to 
the Colombian justice, there was a "political genocide" against the 
Patriotic Union.

*Translation:* http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/g... 
<http://en.firatnews.com/news/news/governments-of-united-states-israel-and-europe-not-blameless.htm>

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