FARC responds to Washington Post report on U.S. killings in Colombia
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). To view this and other news form the FARC peace delegation in Havana, Cuba go here: http://farc-epeace.org/ Public Statement on the report of the Washington Post
On December 21, 2013, the Washington Post published a report about the latest covert action by the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon, that is, of the United States of America, in Colombia's internal armed conflict. This involves decisions and authorizations by at least the last three governments of that country.
Interesting revelation, that shows many incredulous people that the interest of the US government is one of the main triggers of the long war Colombians are going through. More ambitious studies could easily show that the same thing has happened since the days of Operation Marquetalia in 1964, which was publicly recognized in Colombia. However, whenever the nature of the conflict is being studied, this fact is silenced with astonishing irresponsibility.
According to the report, the covert action program has helped the Colombian Army to kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 serving or retired officers in the United States and Colombia. At the same time, the National Security Agency was carrying out electronic eavesdropping and wiretaps. All these operations were financed with a secret budget of billions of dollars, additionally to the nine billion dollars aid from Plan Colombia.
President Santos, according to the same report, tried to downplay the issue when he was interviewed by that North American newspaper. Minister Pinzón (Defense), on the contrary, had no qualms about openly recognizing it in the media and abate it as part of the traditional military agreements between the two countries. It is clear that neither of them feel the slightest appreciation for Colombian sovereignty, since gringo impositions on drugs and terrorism are more important to them than any consideration of national interest. Not to speak about Colombian General and Admirals; their knees are calloused.
It is not that we didn't know or didn't have any idea about it, but some things do become clearer with the report of the US newspaper. For example, that the columnist Oscar Collazos is completely right when he suggests that the greatest contradiction that generates debate between former Colombian presidents, is about showing which of them is responsible for the major part of killings of their citizens. This debate is also reproduced with clear interest by the Colombian media, which are always so prone to publish and enhance the crimes of the guerrilla, as they are called by such nefarious individuals. We could now parody Senator Piedad Córdoba, when she said that Colombia was a huge mass grave. saying that with the consent of recent governments, Colombia is a victim of the most blatant and unpunished wiretapping on behalf of the intelligence services of a foreign power.
Similarly, the cited report includes disclosures that give the shivers. The article states that according to President Santos “part of the experience and the efficiency of our operations and our special operations were the product of better training and knowledge we have acquired from many countries, including the United States”. This endorses what the report states about the transfer of the American experience in Afghanistan and the struggle against Al Qaeda to the Colombian conflict, ie intelligence procedures including bribery, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and illegal pressure on people who are expected to give information.
This makes clear that the ongoing degradation of the methods used by Colombian military, police and security forces originates in the instruction and advice given by the Americans. The government of Juan Manuel Santos is aware of the kidnappings, blackmail, death threats and attacks employed by the Colombian intelligence service to obtain, through the families of the guerrilla commanders and fighters, the location of these in order to kill them. Methods that have even been employed against the families of the FARC-EP members of the Peace Delegation in Havana. He also knows perfectly well, because of his time as defense minister under Álvaro Uribe, the true story of the military intelligence that led to the gruesome murder and mutilation of Comrade Iván Ríos.
The analysis of the report also mentions the opportunistic and unilateral interpretations of international law by successive U.S. governments, submissively accepted by Colombian leaders. Mr. Reagan authorized military intervention on behalf of his country in any nation under the pretext of combating drug trafficking; Mr. Clinton authorized the interventions to secure his country's control of strategic resources located anywhere in the world; Mr. Bush acted the same way, under the pretext of preventing what his government qualified as the terrorist threat. All this was enough for the notions of independence, sovereignty and self-determination of people to be put in the museum of history, next to the corpse of the fundamental rights of human beings.
Only such a brazen reign of arbitrariness, born out of brute force, can explain, as corroborated by the report, the aggression of the Colombian military against the sovereignty of Ecuador on March 1, 2008, and the subsequent treacherous murders of Colombian guerrilla comandantes outside of combat, through the use of the cynically called “smart bombs” or the actions of the special forces. The report reveals the efforts of the CIA and the Pentagon to get the reprehensible legal interpretations, with which these crimes are perpetrated. It also exposes the wickedness of the American law schools in which all these new legal theories are cooked and which are responsible for legitimizing terror as a respectable method of political action.
It is true that more brainy scholars may draw many more implications from this report, but in addition to what is already said, we should ask ourselves now, when the discussion on the issue of illicit crops is coming up: What is the true role this oligarchy of vendepatrias (nation-sellers) grants to the peace talks with the FARC-EP, or possible talks with the ELN, when the interests that produce an intensification of the conflict in our country are exposed on national and international level? This report leaves many doubts about the desire for peace by the Colombian state and its imperial boss. Which confirms our idea that a true peace in our country can only be achieved with the massive and decisive participation of the millions of Colombian victims of this regime, who have just suffered one more mockery with the ridicule increase of the minimum wage while the military budget grows geometrically to crush their dissatisfaction.
SECRETARIAT OF THE CENTRAL HIGH COMMAND OF THE FARC-EP Colombian jungle, January 2014, year of the 50th anniversary of our uprising