Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Peace Delegation of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The statement is addressed to a conference on the problem of illicit drugs which is taking place Bogotá, Colombia. The peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government are taking place in Havana, Cuba.

FARC-EP welcomes the National Forum on the problem of illicit drugs

Havana, Cuba, site of the peace talks, September 25, 2013

The peace delegation of the FARC-EP welcomes the participants of the National Forum “Solution to the problem of illicit drugs”, wishing you success, in the idea that its conclusions should provide important tools for discussion on this subject within the framework of the General Agreement of Havana, signed between the national government and our insurgent organization to advance in the dialogues towards a stable and lasting peace for Colombia

Our intention, in incorporating this point in the Agenda, parts of an overall vision on the crisis of the Colombian capitalist model and its political regime, which have created the conditions for the so-called drug-trafficking to be a socioeconomic reality, in which vast sectors of the population participate by necessity. Different segments of transnational and oligarchic power adopt attitudes and make policies that have stimulated deformations in our economy with its subsequent negative impact on the poorest part of society.

Our point of departure is to condemn drug trafficking and we participate in the active political battle aimed at unmasking the fallacies and contents of the so-called War on Drugs, as it's called by the current U.S. policy, country that invented this media matrix aimed at giving its interventionist and imperialist strategies a new look.

According to our point of view, it is the development of the same old script according to which, in the past, the problem was the so-called war against communism, or the defense of the interests of United States' citizens, as paltry excuses to unleash wars of subjugation against weaker nations. Today, the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism from that part of the country that most consumes narcotic and uses terror as a weapon of domination, are excuses for the development of an imperialist, expansionist strategy, to achieve economic and military domination over the world.

With these old concerns, the policy of the U.S. military and its local subsidiaries is unfolded, and its development is complemented by the guidelines outlined in the strategy map of the Southern Command. And it is within this strategy that the Yankee Military Bases on our national territory have been created and now strengthened; it's within this determination that the Southern Command laid its eyes on the military base of Palanquero, reinforcing it, arguing that they are developing an “old security and cooperation agreement with Colombia”. It is within this strategy that the bases of Larandia and Tres Esquinas have been deployed, which are now conceived as Yankee bases, together with military points like Barrancón (Guaviare), Bahía Málaga, the Cartagena naval station, the Malambo air base or bases like Tolemaida and Apiay, among others.

We recall these data, considering that under the signature of a peace agreement, we must incorporate the issue of resolving the problem of illicit drugs inevitably linking it to integral agrarian reform, but mostly and mainly, to the issue of respect for national sovereignty.

The whole history of our concern to solve a social problem that has its roots in the endemic misery imposed by the regime, forces us to emphatically reject the perverse intention of some media to reduce the issue that is being discussed today, to the idea that this is a matter in which the responsibility of its creation and continuation corresponds to the guerrillas, creating the misconception that it is in our hands to solve such a complex phenomenon whose causes, as we have stated before, are to be found in poverty, inequality and exclusion imposed by the ruling classes to the majorities.

To discharge the main force of the combat on the weakest link, located in the poorest regions of underdeveloped countries, and against peasants who have had to resort to such crops by physical absence of economic alternatives, is not only a mistake and injustice of the size of the Mariannes Abyss in the Pacific, but a true act of cynicism and hypocrisy of countries, states, institutions and individuals who profit directly or indirectly from trafficking, but who, in an embarrassing way, try to show results attacking those who have the least responsibility in this business, generating true false positives.

The equitable distribution of land, equipped with road infrastructure, storage facilities, hospitals, schools, colleges and universities as well as an economic policy aimed at ensuring supportive prices, subsidies and grants, comprehensive and universal social security, technical and mechanical assistance are all measures, feasible and probable, that with the participation of the affected communities allow creating the necessary conditions for a solution that addresses the real causes.

Determining the origin and essence of the phenomenon that brings us together here is very important, if there really exists willpower to resolve it thoroughly. Let's look at two central aspects of the problem:

First, drug-trafficking is a capitalist business as a whole, which produces more than 600 billion dollars a year in profit. Virtually all of this money is laundered through the global financial system and organically linked to economic circuits, knowing its origin. More than 95% of these earnings are for the imperialist financial centers, mainly in the United States, and the remaining 5% is basically appropriated by business, banking and investment companies, created by drug-traffickers in partnership with entrepreneurs and traditional politicians that serve as proxies.

Second, the drug-trafficking, based on transformation of natural plants into psychoactive drugs is a business that works in stages or levels, ranging from the cultivation of raw materials, through processing and transport to marketing and distribution in the consumption centers of the developed countries, which is also where, in economic terms, the goods are made, and it is with this capital that the process starts again.This is the drug-trafficking that is being fought against, and not the mega-industry of synthetic drugs.

Why don't we observe the peculiar and relevant fact that the elite, coming from the highest levels of financial capital, when they are making their policies of national security organizations, they also connect them with international drug cartels, which extract annually 8,000 tons of opium in U.S. war zones, and wash 500 billion dollars using transnational banks, half of which are located in the U.S.? Only with common sense we could find the best solution to this problem. Let's hope that such quality can still be found even in those stratospheric circles of society, to which the Colombian elites serve.

On behalf of the FARC-EP, we ratify our clear willingness to move forward in the peace talks, on the route of changes, reforms to the economic and political structures that are the roots of the Colombian conflict. This is a principle that is signed by the parties in the preamble of the General Agreement, which guides the discussions and clearly calls for the participation of all Colombians without distinction in building what may become a true Peace Treaty for our country.

PEACE DELEGATION FARC-EP

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