Meredith Aby-Keirstead, of Fight Back! interviews James Jordan, with the Alliance For Global Justice in Tucson, Arizona. Jordan recently returned from the Accompaniment Delegation to Support Colombia’s Peace Process. Fight Back!: Want do Colombian activists say about the prospects for peace?

James Jordan: We just got the good news that an accord was signed on June 23. This is really exciting -an end to more than 52 years of war.

However, the accord still has to be voted on in a plebiscite to be fully implemented. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) are in favor of a much more extensive discussion and inclusion of the popular and social movements, with a constitutional assembly. That's a good idea because it doesn't just reduce the conflict to an up-down vote. The armed conflict is an extension of conflicts that are still all too present. Even so, this is a huge victory. Conditions are different today than they were before, including that a majority of people want the war to end. The hope of the Left, including the FARC-EP, is that space is being opened for a new and revitalized political movement that will ideally be able to operate without the fear of violence and repression by the state and paramilitary death squads. More than 70% of political violence has been at the hands of the state [the right-wing Colombian government] and paras [paramilitary armies which are an offshoot of the government], and Colombia still is one of the three countries in the world with the highest rate of impunity for political murders. But the left is more organized than ever, and national and international observers are better equipped to monitor the situation. It will take a truly internationalist effort to make this peace durable.

Fight Back!: What evidence did you see of U.S. intervention in Colombia on this recent trip?

Jordan: Lots. First of all, there's the legacy of $10 billion in funding for Plan Colombia, mostly to pay for arming the military and police and to build new jails – that sort of thing. The U.S. also has thrown up many roadblocks to the peace process. They have refused to allow FARC negotiator Simón Trinidad [also known as Ricardo Palmera] to leave his jail in Florence, Colorado even though his conviction was based on a frame up. The U.S. government has also been denying visas to major progressive political and labor leaders from Colombia. We need to hear from these people because awareness of their struggles is key to making sure this peace is just, and that it lasts. And to top all this off, the Obama administration has proposed a new “Plan Peace Colombia” that actually increases military aid and other for other repressive institutions.

Fight Back!: How is the Colombian labor movement fighting back against U.S.-promoted free trade policies?

Jordan: It's not easy. I'm mainly familiar with Fensuagro, the agricultural workers union, and USO, the oil workers union. We also visited with people from the miners union, Sintramientergetica, including strikers near Valledupar. All of these unions are waging battles against transnational corporate exploitation and privatization of national resources. Since the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement was approved, Colombia has become dependent on big agriculture from the U.S. This is despite the fact that historically, Colombia has had no problem producing enough food for its population. However, a recent national strike led by farmers and indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities quickly forced important concessions from the government. The popular movements are strategizing around building unity among rural, student and labor movements. That, along with their class consciousness and militancy, is a winning combination.

Fight Back!: What can Americans do to support the people's movements given the peace process in Colombia?

Jordan: We have to stay aware and vocal about abuses and threats we hear about. In this age of empire and globalization of capital, we have to realize that our solidarity as workers and students must be stronger than that of the capitalists and their political servants. If we workers can learn to be loyal allies to each other whatever our nationalities then we will have removed a big obstacle to revolutionary change. A good place to start learning this lesson is for us to be vigilant in our defense of peace, justice and human and labor rights in Colombia.

#TucsonAZ #AntiwarMovement #Colombia #PeoplesStruggles #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #PoliticalRepression #Americas

FARC invites Miss Universe to Havana

Ms. Paulina Vega

Miss Universe

We read with interest about your desire to contribute with your good offices to peace and reconciliation of the Colombian people.

We welcome your willingness to travel to Havana and we invite you to materialize your visit to update you about the development of the peace talks, the progress and the enormous contribution that you and the majorities who desire peace can make.

Be assured that we are willing to address your concerns and consider your views a valuable contribution to peace; we are waiting for your confirmation and your contribution.

Sincerely,

Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP

#Colombia #Americas #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #MissUniverse #Havana

“I don't have guaranteed the right to defense; they don't allow me to send documents to my lawyer and judges in Colombia, in which I can prove my innocence; this has to be shown by my compañeros to the government delegation in Havana. They won't even let me talk to the ICRC”.

This is the protest of Simón Trinidad, chained and shackled, from the dungeons of the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, United States, to the judge who is judging him from the city of Neiva, Colombia.

This outstanding fighter of the FARC-EP has already been confined behind the bars of the empire for ten years, without bowing down, without breaking down, without any wavering in his conscience, despite the cruel and degrading treatment he has received by U.S. authorities.

Simón was extradited due to the perfidy of former President Uribe, supreme commander of paramilitarism in Colombia. This sinister figure is Washington's favorite, despite his involvement in international war crimes and crimes against humanity. And Simón was extradited in violation of the constitutional provision which prohibits the extradition of national citizens for political reasons.

Since Álvaro Uribe Vélez couldn't send him to the United States for the charge of rebellion, he fabricated a legal pretext -the false charge of drug-trafficking-, to achieve his repulsive purpose. It was an act of revenge and blackmail, in criminal association with military intelligence and the Attorney General, Camilo Osorio.

Thus, Simón was extradited by the gangster government of Colombia. The country remembers his photo, at the moment he was led by the gringos to the airplane, when he raised his handcuffed fists and shouted: Long live Bolívar, long live Manuel Marulanda, long live the FARC!

There, in the courtrooms of the North, accused in a foreign language, he defeated the lies of the deserters and the false witnesses brought from Colombia, with irrefutable arguments. With the assistance of his public defender, attorney Robert Tucker, Simón Trinidad was acquitted in the U.S. of drug trafficking charges, defeating the manipulation of wicked judges, such as Joyce Lamberth.

But the United States, determined as they were to send a “strong signal” to the FARC, decided to condemn Simón for something he was never involved in: the capture of three gringo mercenaries working for the CIA, after the aircraft in which they were carrying out technical intelligence against the FARC, had been shot down in the Caquetá jungle. To be able to blame him, they falsely claimed that Simón Trinidad was a member of the FARC Central High Command. When the FBI realized that this argument was implausible, they withdrew the evidence of a video of the launching of the Bolivarian Movement for the New Colombia, in 2000. This video had previously been manipulated by them, to make Simón appear as a member of the Central High Command of the FARC.

Still, Simón Trinidad was convicted, after two flawed trials, to 60 years in an underground prison where he can't see the sun, nor does he have the right to see the night. He's in the maximum security prison in Florence, where the worst criminals are imprisoned, and as he is accused of terrorism, which in the United States is the worst of crimes, his rights as a human being are totally violated, every day.

The shameful extradition treaty, by which Colombia transfers its legal sovereignty to a foreign power, reads you cannot condemn an extradited national citizen to life imprisonment. Well, Simon is 60 years old, which means that he would achieve freedom when he is 120. This is, in fact, a life sentence! However, no protest or request has been made by this submissive Colombian government.

Simón is not only buried alive in Florence, Colorado. He's in absolute solitary confinement, there's no appropriate medical care, they took away his glasses and some cards he used to play Solitaire. He is always taken to the court with his hands and feet chained and shackled. he isn't allowed to have any newspapers or books. These were the circumstances in which he received the sad news of the death of his compañera Lucero and their daughter Alix, in a bombing by the CIA in Putumayo. He isn't allowed to access the files for his defense in Colombia, and the embassy in Bogota systematically denies his lawyer, jurist Ramiro Orjuela, a visa to visit him. Meanwhile, the schizophrenic Colombian justice, which opened 104 charges against him, base their accusations on the false assertion that this guerrilla fighter belongs to the Central High Command of the FARC. Neither the government nor the intelligence, nor the Prosecuting Attorney or anyone else has evidence of his participation in the acts alleged against him. There is no evidence, that's why some judges have dropped the charges, declaring him innocent.

From Havana, Cuba, the Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP urges the ICRC-Switserland, to carry out a humanitarian visit to Simón Trinidad at the U.S. prison where he is confined.

We urge the Colombian government to enable Simón, as member of the Peace Delegation of the FARC, to dialogue with his compañeros in Havana.

This is an SOS to all human rights organizations in the world, to jurists and experts in international humanitarian law, to political and social organizations of the five continents, the UN, UNASUR, CELAC, the Vatican, churches, Nobel Prizes of peace, well-intentioned people, to call for the immediate release of Simón Trinidad and, in the meanwhile, to demand the U.S. authorities improve his conditions.

The Colombian government has done little or nothing for the release of Simón. It doesn't make gestures of peace as its counterpart does in the peace talks. It doesn't know what reciprocity is, and we encourage it to act decisively. The government should take the legal remedy of exequatur in its hands to have Simón's sentence recognized in Colombia. He could serve his prison term in his homeland and once he arrives there, the judicial authorities could authorize him to go to Havana, to play a leading role in the construction of peace, as we have asked for.

We send an embrace to all our friends in the world, and the message that the spiritual strength and ideological firmness of Simón Trinidad continue unscathed, untouched, above the arrogance of his gringo prison guards.

Simón is the Nelson Mandela of Our America.

Freedom for Simón!

Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP

#Colombia #RicardoPalmera #PoliticalPrisoners #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #USImperialism #Americas

Over the past six months the revolutionaries of FARC have held exploratory talks with Colombian government representatives of President Santos. Negotiations will take place in October in Oslo, Norway, to be followed by more negotiations in Havana, Cuba, with Venezuela and Chile acting as observers. The FARC is advancing a people’s agenda that includes land reform for family farms, good jobs, healthcare, education, housing and the eradication of poverty. There is a great need for guarantees concerning the assassination and murder of trade unionists, community organizers and political candidates.

Tom Burke of the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera said, “The U.S. government has no right to put Colombian revolutionaries on trial or in prison. The U.S. should pursue the crimes against and murders of union workers, poor peasants and indigenous people by Chiquita, Coca-Cola, Drummond Coal and big U.S. oil companies. The U.S. government ignores those crimes while militarily fighting the FARC and wrongfully punishing revolutionary leaders like Professor Palmera. The U.S. government should set Ricardo Palmera free immediately so he can plan a role in negotiations.”

The current FARC/Colombian government agreement advocates “Bilateral and definitive cease of fire and hostilities,” so the FARC proposed a bi-lateral cease-fire this week. President Santos immediately rejected it and demanded a one-sided cease-fire by FARC. President Santos’ negative response makes it likely these negotiations will be a contentious process.

The last time peace negotiations took place in 1998-2002, the FARC continued to wage war against the Colombian military. A decade before that, the FARC called a ceasefire in the mid-1980s while negotiating. This ceasefire led to the formation of Colombia’s most successful left political party, the Patriotic Union. However the Patriotic Union suffered close to 5000 assassinations and murders at the hands of the Colombian military and government death squads over the next few years. It was at this time that Ricardo Palmera left the Patriotic Union and joined the FARC in fighting the corrupt Colombian government. The U.S. government continues to spend nearly $1 billion per year funding, arming, training and directing the Colombian military.

#Colombia #RicardoPalmera #NationalCommitteeToFreeRicardoPalmera #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #PoliticalPrisoners

Detroit, MI – Fight Back! interviewed Tom Burke, spokesperson for the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera, at the U.S. Social Forum.

Fight Back!: Tom, can you tell us about Ricardo Palmera and why he is in jail in the U.S.?

Tom Burke: Ricardo Palmera is a Colombian revolutionary imprisoned by the U.S. empire because he is fighting for the freedom for his own country. He has done nothing wrong, only opposed the U.S. war and exploitation in Colombia. He dedicates his life to ending the poverty and misery of peasants and workers.

Professor Palmera was a leading peace negotiator of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP). The FARC is the largest and most well-organized revolutionary insurgent group in Latin America. They fight for justice, to end corruption and poverty and for freedom from U.S. domination. They want a new Colombia. The rich people who run the U.S. and Colombia fear Ricardo Palmera and the FARC.

So the U.S. makes a dirty war and directs the Colombian military, backing a corrupt death-squad government, what they call Plan Colombia. Instead of waiting for the pro-government death squads to kill him like they did most of his friends, Palmera joined the FARC. Now the U.S. outrageously treats him as a criminal. There is also a brave woman named Anayibe “Sonia” Valderrama, another FARC leader, who is held in a U.S. prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Their trials were corrupt and unfair. Judge Hogan was forced to step down after the first Palmera trial because he was caught cheating with the prosecutor. These U.S. State Department-sponsored trials were designed to criminalize the Colombian struggle for national liberation. It backfired on them.

Fight Back!: You are the spokesperson for the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera. When did you establish the committee and what is your aim?

Tom Burke: We formed the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera following a Colombia Action Network conference at DePaul University in Chicago, summer of 2005. The conference leaders met and discussed Ricardo Palmera’s extradition and imprisonment by the Bush State Department. There were dozens of activists from the U.S. and Colombia with as many views as there are flowers in Colombia. We decided to organize protests against U.S. extradition of Colombians and U.S. trials of revolutionaries – especially Ricardo Palmera.

The trials are a violation of Colombia’s sovereignty and the U.S. has no right to judge revolutionaries in other countries who are fighting for their freedom, whether it is Colombia, the Philippines or Palestine. There is no court in the U.S. that can deliver justice to a Colombian freedom fighter.

Fight Back!: What makes Palmera so important for the U.S. government? In what way is his imprisonment connected with U.S. national and foreign policies?

Tom Burke: Ricardo Palmera was on a peace mission to meet an envoy of the UN Secretary General when the U.S. intelligence and Colombian agents in Ecuador kidnapped him. In Palmera’s four court cases, the U.S. judges would not allow a UN official to testify. The UN official witnessed a peace negotiation between the Colombian government and the FARC where Ricardo Palmera’s safe passage was agreed to. The U.S. did not want to see a peace process in Colombia, – the White House wanted more war.

While most Colombians and Americans want peace, the wealthy few that rule our countries want more profits and will pursue wars to that end. The U.S. government did not and does not want a peace process in Colombia.

Now under Obama, the U.S. is occupying seven military bases in Colombia. Many Europeans, like many Americans hoped Obama would turn towards peace. That is not what is happening, instead, Obama is escalating the war in Colombia.

Fight Back!: Can you tell us where Ricardo is currently and about his situation and prison sentence?

Tom Burke: Ricardo Palmera is in solitary confinement in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. These prisons are inhuman and designed to break the human spirit. The U.S. government holds him under ‘Special Administrative Measures.’ Ricardo Palmera is not allowed to read the letters we write to him; the press cannot interview him; when he is moved out of his cell he is shackled head to toe and hooked to a machine that will shock him if he moves too quickly. The U.S. government is abusing this Colombian freedom fighter. It is sickening.

We continue demanding the U.S. government release this brave revolutionary and allow him to travel to a country of his choice. We are organizing a petition drive to target Attorney General Holder.

The petition to free Palmera can be found here.

#DetroitMI #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #PoliticalPrisoners #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #USSocialForumUSSF #Americas

Tom Burke, a founder of the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera, was interviewed by RT (previously known as Russia Today) on the case of Ricardo Palmera, a Colombian rebel who is being held here in the United States. The National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera currently has a petition campaign underway, demanding Palmera’s immediate release.

#UnitedStates #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #PoliticalPrisoners

Despite solitary confinement in the Florence, Colorado Supermax prison, Ricardo Palmera continues his fight for freedom. Born into a wealthy family, Palmera spent most of his life organizing with peasants, workers and professionals to make reforms benefiting the people. However, wealthy landlords and big business, backed by U.S. corporations and the U.S. military, opposed progressive change. Most of Palmera’s fellow activists were tortured and killed by the Colombian military and their death squads. At the age of 37, Palmera’s dedication to the Colombian people in their struggle for equality, peace and justice led him to join the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As an armed guerrilla in the countryside, he spent much of his time travelling to collect economic data and teaching peasant fighters. He also became a peace negotiator in talks with the Colombian government.

In this new role as peace negotiator, he travelled to Ecuador on his way to meet UN officials. Despite an agreement with the Colombian government, U.S. intelligence kidnapped Palmera, extradited him to a Washington DC prison and put him through four trials. The trials were slanted and corrupt. Chief Judge Hogan was caught cheating with Prosecutor Ken Kohl and forced to step down. The U.S. government repeated the trials until they won. Despite never committing a crime in or against the U.S., Ricardo Palmera is now serving a 60-year sentence.

Jeremy Miller of the Colombia Action Network said, “The U.S. government is mistreating and abusing Ricardo Palmera. It is part of U.S. intervention in Colombia and Latin America. It sends a message to anyone who rebels. If you are someone who loves your own country and your own people, then the U.S. will make you pay!” Miller continues, “Now the Obama administration is escalating the U.S. war in Colombia by occupying seven new military bases. Support for revolution grows in Colombia, while the U.S. is losing its grip on Latin America. The Pentagon has command and control over the Colombian military, but is still losing after ten years. So direct U.S. intervention is the next step in the war. Just like Vietnam, Obama is looking more like Kennedy.”

As a U.S. prisoner held under ‘Special Administrative Measures,’ reporters are not allowed to interview Palmera. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons denies letters from his American supporters and his lawyers are not allowed to speak about his trials. The latest oddity is that the Colombian government is conducting a trial of Ricardo Palmera while he sits in a U.S. jail cell. This ‘virtual trial’ means Professor Palmera cannot face his accusers in person, just by video. This virtual justice adds to the perception that Ricardo Palmera is a political prisoner of the U.S. empire.

The petition to Free Ricardo Palmera can be found here: petition to free Ricardo Palmera.

#UnitedStates #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #NationalCommitteeToFreeRicardoPalmera #PoliticalPrisoners #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP

As you read this, Professor Palmera is held as a political prisoner in solitary confinement by the Bush regime. However, it is the war criminal President Bush and the corrupt, narco-trafficking President Uribe of Colombia who are the criminals deserving of punishment.

The extradition, trials and imprisonment of Ricardo Palmera have nothing to do with justice. Those who fight for the exploited and oppressed, both our brothers and sisters in the oppressed countries as well as those of us within the U.S. empire, cannot receive justice in U.S. courts. U.S. courts are of, by and for the rich.

Ricardo Palmera’s trials are a joke, a mockery of justice. Chief Judge Hogan was caught cheating and forced to step down, only to be followed by the biased rulings and extreme sentencing from Judge Royce Lamberth. The U.S. judges and prosecutors are more corrupt than those in Colombia. As Palmera himself said, “My trials are political from start to finish, no matter how much the U.S. government denies it.”

Ricardo Palmera should not be tried in U.S. courts. It is a violation of the sovereignty of the Colombian people. Colombia is its own country; the U.S. has no place putting any Colombian revolutionary on trial. The Bush administration is expanding its interference in Colombia through these trials. It furthers the U.S. war strategy, known as Plan Colombia, that brings nothing but poverty, misery and death to the Colombian people.

The U.S. has intervened in Colombia’s civil war for 44 years. The civil war involves the armed insurgency of the FARC – peasants and workers – against the corrupt thieving elite that runs the Colombian state. The U.S. is on the wrong side; it is on the side of the big capitalists, big landowners and those who are up to their elbows in the blood of Colombian trade unionists and peasant organizers. U.S. corporations are robbing Colombia blind of its natural resources while arming and paying paramilitary death squads.

The U.S. military commands the Colombian military through the Pentagon’s U.S. Southern Command. There are at least 800 U.S. ‘military advisors’ and 500 ‘military contractors’ participating in Colombia’s civil war. The U.S. Command, the Colombian military and the paramilitary death squads kill thousands every year, displace hundreds of thousands from their homes and unleash a reign of terror upon the people. The U.S. is losing its counter-insurgency war in Colombia, so it is thrashing around for new ways to preserve the rule of the rich Colombian oligarchs.

The trials of Ricardo Palmera and comrade Sonia are a desperate attempt by the Bush regime to criminalize the Colombian national liberation movement, to claim FARC are not freedom fighters. Under Bush and company’s new paradigm of the ‘war on terror,’ national liberation struggles are portrayed as criminal, not political.

From the sands of Iraq to the mountain peaks of the Philippines to the rain forests of Colombia, we know the armed people’s movements against imperialism are gaining strength and strategically defeating the might of the U.S. and its military. Uncle Sam is growing older and weaker, while brave men and women – ordinary peasants and workers – along with revolutionary and patriotic people rise to join forces to overthrow corrupt despotic regimes backed by the U.S. The true criminals are the imperialists of the developed countries, led by the Bush administration and its massive military. Anti-imperialists, revolutionaries and communists throughout the world stand in solidarity with Ricardo Palmera and comrade Sonia.

In the 21st century, the FARC carries forward the legacy of Simon Bolivar, of Che Guevara, of Colombia’s revolutionaries. Today, FARC commander Manuel Marulanda represents the living embodiment of these revolutionary icons. The Venezuelan government recently recognized the status of belligerence the FARC-EP is entitled to; it recognized the FARC’s legitimacy as a political-military force for national liberation and swept away the ‘terrorist’ label that Bush wrongly promotes.

The FARC-EP stand firmly at the head of an unstoppable movement that will bring peace and justice to Colombia and Latin America. The revolution in Colombia promises to turn all existing social relations upside down and put workers and peasants in power!

Free Ricardo Palmera!

You can jail the revolutionary, but you will never jail the revolution!

Long Live the FARC!

#UnitedStates #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #Statement #PoliticalPrisoners #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #JudgeHogan #JudgeRoyceLamberth #USSouthernCommand

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the murder of Raul Reyes.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization mourns the death of Colombian revolutionary Raúl Reyes. The attack that killed Raúl Reyes and 17 others while they slept at a camp inside Ecuador's territory on March 1 was carried out by the Colombian military and directed by the U.S. government. It was an act of cold-blooded murder.

This act of aggression by the U.S. and Colombian governments trampled on the sovereignty of Ecuador and it may be the prelude to a regional war. Progressive and revolutionary people should denounce this act of cowardice.

Raúl Reyes was the voice of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP). One of seven members of the FARC’s Secretariat, he will be sorely missed. A man whose manner reflected his caring and humanity, Raúl Reyes was the FARC’s chief negotiator in talks with the Colombia government during the presidency of Andres President Pastrana from 1999 to 2002. In this leadership role, Reyes became known worldwide as a diplomat and leader of the Colombian people. Born into a life of struggle, his father was a poor farmer and his mother a schoolteacher in rural Colombia. Raúl became a young communist and then a trade unionist, eventually joining the FARC to advance the people’s struggle.

Over the decades, the Colombian revolution grew and developed under the leadership of the FARC Secretariat, including Raúl Reyes. During a period of retreat for national liberation struggles and socialism around the world, the FARC marched forward. Like Raúl Reyes himself, the FARC set an example for and inspired others. By the 1990s, when many of the armed Latin American revolutionary movements were disbanded or destroyed, the FARC not only held their ground, but also advanced and won big battles. The FARC was doing what many imperialists, and even some leftists, thought impossible. They were winning. Today, the FARC continues to grow and expand, reaching into departments, towns and cities where they never existed before.

The FARC, embodying the lessons of four decades of struggle and guided by Marxism-Leninism, is a great representation of 21st century socialism. The FARC’s victories are the victories of the Colombian people, made possible because of women and men like Raúl Reyes. Raúl Reyes brought the peoples of Latin America closer to fulfilling the dream of Simon Bolivar – an independent, unified and peaceful future without U.S. domination.

The FARC leads the Colombian revolution against a corrupt and criminal class of rich elites who use death squad terror and repression to stay in power. Every reform movement in Colombia, whether leftist political parties, trade unions, or peasant collectives, is met with violence from the Colombian government; this has been the case for 50 years. The Colombian military is soaked up to its elbows in the blood of workers, peasants and progressive people. The murderous Colombian military officers train in Columbus, Georgia, where the U.S. military is the target of huge protests calling to shut the School Of the Americas. Bush is backing the narco-paramilitary government of President Alvaro Uribe, the most reactionary and criminal regime in the history of Colombia. President Bush is responsible for the death of Raúl Reyes.

The FARC is waging a courageous and heroic fight to liberate their country from U.S. imperialism and for the Colombian people’s control over their own land, labor and lives. We believe the FARC-EP stand firmly at the head of an unstoppable movement that will bring peace and justice to Colombia and Latin America.

We know that the loss of Raúl Reyes is great, but that the women and men of the FARC will continue to fight for the dream they shared with Reyes: a Colombia free from U.S. imperialism, led by the workers and peasants for the benefit of the people!

Freedom Road Socialist Organization salutes the living example of Raúl Reyes and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia! You can kill the revolutionary, but the revolution lives on in the hearts and minds of all who want to end oppression and exploitation.

¡Raúl Reyes presente!

¡Viva la lucha Colombiana!

¡Viva las FARC!

#UnitedStates #RaulReyes #Colombia #Editorials #Remembrances #Statement #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP

Born into a peasant family, Marulanda joined Colombia’s Liberal forces fighting against the Conservatives. He became a guerilla in La Violencia, the civil war following the 1948 assassination of presidential candidate Gaitan, a popular and national democratic leader despised by the U.S. government. This civil war continues to this day, with the U.S. intervening on the side of the Colombian elites. As Marulanda said, “I did not go looking for war, war came looking for me.”

In the late 1950s Marulanda joined forces with Jacobo Arenas, a Marxist fighter and admirer of Che Guevara. They became the important leadership team of the newly founded FARC in 1964. From a small, tightly knit group of revolutionaries, the FARC today is a formidable force that threatens the whole of U.S. imperialism's plans in Latin America. Marulanda is largely responsible for the revolution's success.

Marulanda was ideologically firm, a Marxist-Leninist applying the scientific theory of revolution to the conditions of Colombian society. He was a great strategist, like Mao in China or General Giap in Vietnam, understanding the capabilities of his own revolutionary people's army, the FARC-EP, while anticipating the moves and capabilities of his enemies – U.S. imperialism and the Colombian oligarchy.

Marulanda and the FARC learned from the peasants and working classes, studying and struggling. They remained tactically flexible, moving forward and retreating according to the situation, whether in military conduct or with political initiatives like the Patriotic Union or peace negotiation. Always, Marulanda kept politics in command. In times when other revolutionaries stumbled or faltered, the FARC took strides forward, methodically cutting a path through the layers of confusion and disinformation sowed by the enemies of revolution and socialism.

The last decade of Marulanda's life was dedicated to defeating Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia is the U.S. Pentagon's dirty war, bringing death and destruction to the doorsteps of peasants and workers in Colombia. Like the Vietnam War, the U.S. government is waging a large-scale counter-insurgency war. Colombia's armed forces have more than doubled their size over the past eight years. The Colombian military murders peasants in cold blood, driving millions off their land, villages are destroyed, death squads assassinate trade unionists, and U.S. planes spray chemical agents across wide areas of the countryside to scorch the earth. Funded by U.S. taxpayer at nearly $5 billion, planned by Pentagon generals, and conducted by U.S. military advisors and private contractors, the war is brutal and fierce but rarely reported on by the U.S. media. Still Marulanda was able to organize an orderly retreat by the FARC and they are hitting back at the U.S. intervention, with many small battles every week.

Plan Colombia, like the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is a failure. Lapdogs like President Uribe may announce bigger and greater victories, exaggerating and crowing, but their gains are temporary and futile. The Colombian people, like the Iraqi people, will triumph.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization honors the life and leadership of Manuel Marulanda, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army. Marulanda, nicknamed, Sure-shot, passed away in the arms of his partner, surrounded by guerrilla fighters. He died from natural causes at the age of 77 after leading the life of a revolutionary warrior since the late 1940s. We are all living things and all that lives must pass on. The ideas and example of Marulanda will continue to live in the minds of all those continuing the fight to end barbarism and win back our humanity. The FARC has chosen from amongst its many capable leaders the veteran fighter and Marxist-Leninist Alfonso Cano.

Long live the sprit of Marulanda!

Victory to the FARC!

#UnitedStates #Editorial #Colombia #Editorials #RicardoPalmera #Remembrances #PlanColombia #ManuelMarulanda #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #LaViolencia #MarxistLeninist