[News] Peace in Colombia Should Mean Land Reform and an End to Hunger
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Jun 4 13:43:35 EDT 2021
Can't see this email? Read Online
<https://go.ind.media/webmail/546932/850184853/d1c6570494297e513cc339daf0c94965a1b1e3629b9efa526109d1bd14adeb49>
GLOBETROTTER
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-media/k6f1xl/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
*_Be a part of the change—
support our work! We need you. _
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-media-donate/k6f1xn/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>*
*Peace in Colombia Should Mean Land Reform and an End to Hunger*
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ean-land-reform-and-end-hunger/k6f1xq/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
*By Vijay Prashad and Zoe Alexandra*
Since the end of April, Colombia’s streets have smelled
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/f-national-strike-in-colombia-/k6f1xs/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
of tear gas. The government of Colombian President Iván Duque imposed
policies
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/n-and-militarization-continue-/k6f1xv/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
that put the costs of the pandemic on the working class and the
peasantry and tried
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/he-blood-of-the-working-class-/k6f1xx/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
to suffocate
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ek-of-anti-government-protests/k6f1xz/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
any advancement of the Havana peace accords
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/iva-Paginas-Acuerdo-Final-aspx/k6f1y2/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
of 2016. Discontent led to street protests, which were repressed harshly
by the government. These protests, Rodrigo Granda of Colombia’s Comunes
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/farc-/k6f1y4/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
party told us in an interview, “are defined by the wide participation of
youth, women, artists, religious people, the Indigenous,
Afro-Colombians, unions and organizations from neighborhoods of the poor
and the working class. Practically the whole of Colombia is part of the
struggle.” A range of concrete demands
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-against-neoliberal-onslaught-/k6f1y6/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
defines the protest: running water and schools, the disbandment of the
riot police (ESMAD), and the expansion of democratic possibilities.
The Comunes party was formed in 2017 by members of the FARC-EP
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army). Granda, who is
known internationally for his former role as the foreign minister of the
FARC, is now in the national board of the Comunes party. As a legal
political party, Comunes is a direct product of the 2016 Havana peace
accords
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/iva-Paginas-Acuerdo-Final-aspx/k6f1y2/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
signed by the Colombian government and the FARC. Over the past two
years, members of the Comunes have been on the streets alongside their
fellow Colombians who are fighting to bring democracy to the country’s
economy and politics. Granda spoke to us about the ongoing protests and
helped to put these protests in the context of the long history of
struggle in Colombia.
*Colombia’s Violent Oligarchy*
The current protests remind Granda of the 1977 national civic strike
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/34s80kY/k6f1y8/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
that he participated in, with one difference: then, he says, there was
“no international solidarity,” while now the global media attention to
Colombia’s struggle allows the people in his country “not to lose heart”
during a difficult fight. The 1977 strike emerged out of a long struggle
against the country’s oligarchy.
Years before the strike, Granda looked forward to the Colombian
elections of April 1970. He hoped that the former president and general
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of the National Popular Alliance (ANAPO) would
win. Rojas Pinilla was not a leftist, but he offered the country a way
out of the grip of Colombia’s oligarchy. Young people like Granda hoped
that an ANAPO victory in Colombia and then, later in the year, the
victory of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity in Chile would help change
the character of South America’s politics. But Rojas Pinilla’s victory
was embroiled in fraud
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/3uBoCBG/k6f1yb/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>,
and while Allende won the election, he was ejected from power
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/en-articulo-208813/k6f1yd/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
in 1973 in a coup. Looking back over these 50 years, Granda told us that
he feels an “internal frustration” with the theft of that election in
1970 and the tortuous path his country has had to take since then.
The fight has been difficult because the ruling bloc of Colombia,
including Duque, is unwilling to honestly participate in a democratic
agenda. None of the major political parties that have controlled the
state since 1948 have been eager for any kind of change. Suffocation of
politics since then and the routine assassination of political leaders
moved the left—through the FARC and other groups—into armed struggle
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/af91d139ae41a2abd06fdcdf86a7da/k6f1yg/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
in 1964. The FARC regularly called upon the ruling bloc to open
negotiations, but with little success. However, talks with President
Belisario Betancur in 1982 opened the way to the 1984 La Uribe Agreement
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/28-Acuerdos20De20La20Uribe-pdf/k6f1yj/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>,
which resulted in a ceasefire from 1984 to 1987. Members of the FARC
joined with others on the left to create
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/acaso-mas-sangriento-colombia-/k6f1yl/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
Union Patriótica (UP) as a legal political party. Attempts to move a
reform agenda by the UP came alongside a policy of assassinations by the
state against the left. No genuine liberal sentiment pervades the
Colombian ruling bloc, which refuses to share even a modicum of power
with other groups.
The situation deteriorated under President Andrés Pastrana—who was in
power from 1998 to 2002—and U.S. President Bill Clinton, who both signed
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/statements-2000-000115b-html/k6f1yn/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
Plan Colombia, which proved to be the beginning of a policy to define
the FARC as “narco-terrorists
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tablas-r25967-pdf/k6f1yq/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>”
and conduct a war of extermination against the rebels. Incidentally, it
was Pastrana’s father who stole the election of 1970 from Rojas Pinilla.
Brutality characterized the Colombian state’s approach toward the FARC
and toward anyone else who questioned its policies. Gradually, the
ruling bloc was led by more and more ruthless men, none more so than
President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). Uribe, Granda told us, “promised to
exterminate us [the FARC] in four years, but he could not.”
*Peace Accords*
Granda understands why peace had to define the agenda a decade ago.
“After the failure of Plan Colombia and a stalemate in the war,” he told
us, “we could not defeat the Colombian army in a short time, and the
Colombian army could not defeat the guerrillas in a short time either.
Therefore, a political solution through dialogue was necessary.”
President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) wrote a letter to the FARC
saying that he recognized the internal problems in Colombia and also
recognized that the FARC was a political organization and not a
narco-terrorist organization. This set in motion the negotiation in
Havana that resulted in the accords.
The accords put in place a plan for integrated agrarian reform and
democracy, as well as restitution for the victims of the long war. “We
put down our arms,” Granda said, “but we did not disarm ourselves from
an ideological point of view.” The signing of the accords is only one
part of the FARC’s plan toward peace, since their implementation is key
before other kinds of meaningful change can be made. But the Colombian
oligarchy, Granda said, has an entirely different view of what peace
would mean. For the oligarchy, peace means that the guns of the FARC are
silent. “For us,” he says, “peace means an attack on the factors that
generate the violence in the first place.” These include factors like
hunger, dispossession and the frustration with the oligarchy and the
harsh violence by the state against which the people of Colombia
continue to protest.
/*Vijay Prashad* is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a
writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-/k6f1ys/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>,
a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of
LeftWord Books
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2021-06-04/k6f1yv/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2021-06-04/k6f1yx/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>.
He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial
Studies
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/y2hdjcpo/k6f1yz/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>,
Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books,
including/ The Darker Nations
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1595583424--tag-alternorg08-20/k6f1z2/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
/and/ The Poorer Nations
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1781681589--tag-alternorg08-20/k6f1z4/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>.
/His latest book is/ Washington Bullets
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/catalog-product-view-id-21820/k6f1z6/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>/,
with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.
*Zoe Alexandra* is a journalist with Peoples Dispatch
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2021-06-04/k6f1z8/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
and reports on people’s movements in Latin America./
*_Join IMI’s circle of supporters who understand the power of
independent media—we really need it._
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-media-donate/k6f1xn/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>*
GLOBETROTTER
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-media/k6f1xl/850184853?h=REVeajBg_0wR9YFDM4a8yV4Q1V9bkOQdAa8TSb6sK88>
18 West 21st Street, Suite 901, New York, NY 10010
© 2021 Globetrotter. All Rights Reserved.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20210604/bdfc9ce2/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list