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Weekend Edition June 12-14, 2015<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/12/the-war-in-colombia-and-why-it-continues/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/12/the-war-in-colombia-and-why-it-continues/</a></small></small></b><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><b><big><big>Where Ecocide Turns Into
Genocide</big></big></b></div>
<h1 class="article-title">The War in Colombia and Why It Continues</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by W.T. WHITNEY Jr. </div>
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<p>In Havana, representatives of the Colombian government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been
negotiating peace for 30 months. The war they are trying to end
has killed or disappeared 250,000 Colombians over 25 years. The
future of the talks is uncertain.</p>
<p>“Today the mountains and forests of Colombia are the heart of
Latin America.” At an international forum on Colombia on June 8,
former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica was saying that
developments in Colombia, including the peace process, are “the
most important in Latin America.”</p>
<p>Interviewed on May 30, head FARC negotiator Iván Márquez,
asserted that “confidence at the negotiating table is badly
impaired and that only a bilateral ceasefire can help <a
href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/politica/el-tema-de-justicia-una-mula-muerta-el-camino-de-paz-iv-articulo-563635"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.elespectador.com']);">the
process advance</a>.” He said deaths of “human rights
defenders [including] over 100 members of the Patriotic March
coalition” and “persecution of leaders of the social movements”
were poisoning the atmosphere.</p>
<p>Since March in Cúcuta, thugs have killed four labor leaders,
including on June 2 <a
href="http://www.pacocol.org/index.php/comite-regional/n-santander/14053-asesinan-a-un-lider-sindical-y-defensor-de-derechos-humanos-en-cucuta"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.pacocol.org']);">Alex
Fabián Espinosa</a>, a member of the MOVICE human rights
group. In May assassins killed community leader Juan David
Quintana and professor and social activist <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=199565&titular=asesinados-en-las-%9Cltimas-horas-dos-l%92deres-comunitarios-"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.rebelion.org']);">Luis
Fernando Wolff</a>, both in Medellin. <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=198655"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.rebelion.org']);">Analyst
Azalea Robles</a> says that “a total of 19 human rights
defenders were murdered in Columbia during the first four months
of 2015.”</p>
<p>On April 15, FARC guerrillas killed 11 Colombian soldiers in
Buenos Aires (Cauca). According to Márquez, “They were defending
themselves following the disembarkation of troops [from
aircraft] who were advancing on them.” In apparent retaliation,
the Colombian military, bombing from the air, killed 27
guerrillas on May 21 in Guapi (Cauca). The FARC immediately
ended the unilateral, indefinite ceasefire it declared in
December, 2014. <a
href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/alias-roman-ruiz-ya-son-mas-de-40-los-miembros-de-farc-articulo-562664"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.elespectador.com']);">Within
days, government</a> forces killed 10 guerrillas in Antioquia
and five more in Choco Department. The dead included two FARC
peace negotiators who were in Colombia updating guerrillas on
the talks.</p>
<p>Negotiators have reached preliminary agreements on three agenda
categories: land, narco-trafficking, and political
participation. But now they’ve have spent a year on the
“victims” agenda item; reparations and assignment of blame were
prime topics. On completion recently of their 37th round of
talks, they did agree to form a truth commission as “part of the
integral system of truth, justice, reparation, <a
href="http://farc-epeace.org/index.php/communiques/communiques-peace-delegation/item/761-joint-report-on-commission-for-clarification-of-truth,-coexistence-and-non-repetition.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://farc-epeace.org']);">and
non-repetition</a>.” Work on that project may divert
government negotiators from their steady focus on “transitional
justice” which entails punishment and jail time for FARC
leaders.</p>
<p>A pilot project on removing landmines and discussions by
military leaders on both sides about ceasefire mechanisms are
other markers of progress. Márquez insists on “reconciliation on
the basis of actual history, far-reaching justice, comprehensive
reparation, and no repetition [and] all of this is tied to
structural transformations.” This last promises to be a sticking
point.</p>
<p>Azalea Robles <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=198655"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.rebelion.org']);">explains
why</a>: Emphasizing Colombian government dependency on
powerful economic interests, she implies that the hands of
government negotiators are tied. “The Colombian reality,” she
says,” is shaped by dispossession and territorial
re-accommodation destined for all areas … that are of economic
interest. It’s a capitalist logic that allows no scruples and
constitutes ecocide turned into genocide. In Colombia strategies
of terror are promoted and they relate to capitalist plunder.”</p>
<p>For example, “80 percent of human rights violations and 87
percent of population displacements take place in regions where
multinationals pursue mining exploitation, [and] 78 percent of
attacks against unionists were against those working in the
mining and energy areas.” Some “40 percent of Colombian land is
under concession by multinational corporations.” She counts 25
environmentalists killed in 2014.</p>
<p>Capitalism in Colombia, Robles insists, rests on “state
terrorism.” She cites “physical elimination” of the Patriotic
Union party, “6.3 million dispossessed and displaced from their
lands for the benefit of big capital,” and “60 percent of
assassinations of unionists worldwide” having taken place in
Colombia.</p>
<p>The fate of <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=199205"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.rebelion.org']);">Wayuu
Indians in La Guajira</a> Department epitomizes the terror of
extreme poverty and powerlessness. Some 600,000 of them occupy
northern borderlands in Colombia and Venezuela. In 2012, 14 000
Wayuu children died of starvation and 36,000 survivors were
malnourished; 38.8 percent of Wayuu children under age five
died. La Guajira’s El Cerrejón, owned by the BHP Billiton and
Anglo America corporations, is the world’s largest open-pit coal
mine. Mine operators have destroyed Wayuu villages and poisoned
soil and water. They pump 35,000 liters of water out of the
Rancheria River each day thus depriving the Wayuu of water they
need for survival</p>
<p>While ongoing violence and terror serve as backdrop for the
peace process, that reality, ironically enough, originally
prompted President Juan Manuel Santos to initiate the talks. He
and his political and business allies worried that for civil war
to continue might frighten off multinational corporations and
international investors. To protect Colombia’s capitalist
economy and its integration within the U. S. – led globalized
system, they wanted it to end.</p>
<p>But, one asks, where is the common ground shared by a
capitalist regime habituated to criminal brutality and Marxist
insurgents still in the field after 50 years?</p>
<p>Maybe compromise is not to be, and civil war will continue.
Writing for rebelion.org, Colombian political exile <a
href="http://rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=199433"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://rebelion.org']);">José
Antonio Gutiérrez D.</a> accuses the Santos government of
using negotiations exclusively to create space for strengthening
its military power, while beating up on its political opposition
and the FARC. Peace, he implies, is not the government‘s
objective.</p>
<p>In fact, the government anticipates a “neo-liberal peace.” Were
that to occur, the FARC would be giving up on its basic
objective of securing justice through political action. FARC
negotiators have long called for a peace with mechanisms in
place allowing for social justice and structural transformations
to flourish. A constituent assembly is a prime example.</p>
<p>Commentator <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=199587&titular=es-preferible-una-"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.rebelion.org']);">Fernando
Dorado</a> gives voice to the government’s line. Fearing that
the FARC itself might use a bilateral truce to restore military
capabilities, he specifies that, “The only solution is to
de-escalate confrontation voluntarily and speed up the talks.”
He regards ex-President Uribe’s recent switch to supporting
peace on neo-liberal terms as facilitating <a
href="http://www.diarionacional.co/index.php/politica/174-principales/5875-el-expresidente-uribe-es-un-patriota-y-quiere-la-paz-dice-el-ministro-de-la-presidencia-rectificando-al-presidente-santos"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.diarionacional.co']);">
this approach</a>. Until now Uribe has masterminded
obstruction to the peace process. Dorado claims the U.S.
government is insisting that “the bloc of hegemonic power [in
Colombia]’ unify itself in order to achieve its objective:
‘neo-liberal peace’ with tiny ‘democratic’ concessions.”</p>
<p>The spilt among conservative forces stems from the Santos-led
group’s face-off against right wingers – ones Uribe speaks for –
who are loyal to traditional forms of oligarchical power, among
them: large landholdings, ranching, military force,
paramilitaries, and more recently narco-trafficking.</p>
<p>The government now is riding high in the negotiations on
account of its power, which is military in nature but rests also
on its command of the economy and its U.S. alliance. To both
achieve peace and rescue its goals, the FARC must, by any logic,
also project power; good ideas are not enough. Indeed, ever such
since negotiations began in 2012, FARC strategists have been
clear on how to do that. They’ve called for popular mobilization
in Colombia for peace with justice – for a people’s uprising.</p>
<p><a href="http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article17038"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://prensarural.org']);">In
a recent interview</a> FARC commander Carlos Antonio Lozada, a
delegate to the Havana peace talks, explains: “What with
vacillations by Santos and growing pressures from militarism
against the peace process, the only guarantee of its continuing
and its definitive consolidation is that the majority sectors
who believe in a political solution to the conflict mobilize in
its defense. Peace with social justice for our people will not
come as a present from the oligarchy.” He regrets that, “Still
there is no success in structuring a broad front that brings
together and decisively mobilizes all the social and political
forces that crave a peace with democratic changes.”</p>
<p>In the end, the outcome of negotiations probably will depend on
what happens in Colombia. Jaime Caycedo, secretary – general of
the Communist Party, announced on June 4 that “social and
political organizations will be preparing a national
mobilization in favour of peace and the demand for a <a
href="http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&idioma=1&id=3860191&Itemid=1"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.prensa-latina.cu']);">bilateral
cease fire</a>.” It takes place in late July.</p>
<p><em><strong>W.T. Whitney Jr.</strong> is a retired pediatrician
and political journalist living in Maine.</em></p>
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