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Today in La Uribe, Colombia
The FARC-EP Commission
FOR Dialogues
Doctor Victor G. Ricardo,
High Commissioner for Peace, Presidents of the Senate and the House of
Representatives; minister of justice and attorney and comptroller generals
of the nation, and the people’s defender. Signatories of the
Caquetania political accord: Doctors Horacio Serpa, Omar Yepez Alzate,
Nohemi Sanin y Jaime Caycedo; Doctor Gustavo Carvajal, honourary president
of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America,COPPAL;
members of the former Commission of Dialogues, Doctors Fabio Valencia Cossio,
Maria Emma Mejia, Nicanor Restrepo y Rodolfo Espinosa Meola; bishops representatives
of the Episcopal conference, Rev. Francisco Javier Munera, bishop of San
Vicente del Caguan, governors and deputies of the departmental assemblies
of Meta and Caqueta; mayors and municipal councils of the five demilitarized
municipalities; members of the San Vicente Peace Council.
Dear residents
of the municipalities of San Vicente del Caguan, La Macarena, Vista Hermosa,
Mesetas, Uribe and compatriots in general:
I convey to you the revolutionary
and bolivarian greeting of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s
Army. With our presence here today we confirm our desire for peace with
social justice, independence and sovereignty for all Colombia, which is
the unchanging foundation of our struggle for the people from Marquetalia
to present and for ever.
With many difficulties we
have reached the installation of the table, the moment when the Colombian
people acquires the spaces for exposition of its problems to the Thematic
Commission, thus linking itself directly to the process which is pursuing
definitive and lasting peace for the nation.
In this stage, the political
decision of the national government, the state, the ruling class and its
parties to allow structural transformations of the state, if they really
have such a decision, shall be put to the test. Likewise for the serious
commitment to effect programmes of significant social, economic and political
investment to resolve in the short term the growing unemployment, the flood
of indirect taxes, the accelerating loss of the Colombian peso’s
purchasing power in relation to the U.S. dollar, the lack in health care,
education, and housing and to definitively dismantle the UPAC system and
not just as a hoax or name change; to examine the recovery and repayment
of all the illegally charged interest and the return of the homes seized
in foreclosures based on the policy of institutionalized usury. A government
policy for the real promotion of housing for the people must be implemented,
the true purpose of which is social benefit and not the profits of construction
companies and finance capitalists. As well, there is urgent necessity to
solve the grave crisis asphyxiating the agricultural sector as a result
of the neo-liberal model’s policy of uncontrolled trade. With
it , we have gone from being a country exporting agricultural products
to being an importer of rice, corn, potatoes, plantains and even meat.
This can only be changed by the urgent revision and change of the basic
model.
The costs of
peace with social justice and with neither exclusions, intimidation's,
or assassinations must be paid by those who have brought Colombia to the
worst crisis of its history.
Neither the workers nor
the people nor the mass organizations are responsible for the continuing
robbery of the immense wealth of our country on the part of the corrupt
politicians who have administered only for their own enrichment during
the last 50 years. Now they resist returning to the poor a part of what
has been taken from them in so many years of exploitation, marginalization,
deaths, mutilations, starving children and elderly, millions of refugees
and indiscriminate institutional barbarity against those who justly demand
their rights.
The FARC-EP,
as part of the people in arms, acts in solidarity with each one of the
Colombians in order to win better living conditions, which would dignify
them and their families.
Although those to blame
for the bankruptcy in which the country finds itself are in plain view,
we consider that all of us must contribute and commit ourselves to the
solution of the social and political crisis which afflicts Colombia. This,
in order to finally say: no more state paramilitary terrorism; no more
impunity for generals and other soldiers implicated in the violations of
human rights and international humanitarian law; no more increase of the
war budget, no more yankee military aid; no more threats against the NGO’s
and other organizations in defense of life; no more refugees; no more exiles;
no more impositions by the international monetary fund; no more external
indebtedness; no more interference by the U.S. state in the internal affairs
of Colombia; no more privatizations or indignity and sell out of our sovereignty;
no more censorship and manipulation of the press; no more illiteracy; no
more corruption or dirty politics; no more homeless Colombians; no more
criminalization of social protest; no more massive layoffs of workers;
no more faceless justice; no more packing of the jails or inhuman treatment
of prisoners; no more discrimination against women and ethnic minorities;
no more peasants without land or credit; no more large land holdings; no
more cuts to social investment; no more sell-out of our strategic and energy
resources to the transnationals; no more contamination and destruction
of the ecosystem by spraying of herbicides.
With respect to the phenomenon
of production, sale and consumption of narcotics and hallucinogenic, we
understand this above all as a grave social problem which cannot be dealt
with by military means. Rather, it requires agreements with the peasant
producers of the illicit crops with participation of the national and international
communities and the commitment of the big powers as principal sources of
world demand for narcotics. It is necessary to make a definite differentiation
between peasants who cultivate coca as their only means of survival and
those who traffic the derivatives of the illicit crops.
For this reason, the FARC-EP
maintains its proposal to the national government to demilitarize the municipality
of Cartagena del Chaira (where coca production is large) in order to undertake,
with the community’s collaboration, a programme of substitution
of legal crops for the illicit ones. This, in order to demonstrate to the
national government and the international community that this problem requires,
instead of police treatment, an socio-economic approach which would require
a considerable economic investment. This should be contributed by the Colombian
state and the international community, which must also guarantee the market
for the new crops.
On our part,
we will remain alert in order to prevent unscrupulous persons from diverting
these funds to personal benefit.
With respect to the extradition
of Colombians, the FARC-EP, standing on principal and its revolutionary
and bolivarian political convictions, has opposed, opposes and shall oppose
the extradition of compatriots for trial in other countries for whatever
pretext because we consider this to be a grave violation of our sovereignty
and independence.
We believe it is necessary
to restructure relations with the United States of America on the basis
of mutual respect and the free self determination of the peoples.
To conclude,
we call upon all the poor and the friends of peace with social justice
to redouble their efforts in the daily battle to save Colombia from the
cancer of corruption, patronage, dirty politics and pitiless, unjust and
institutional war against a worthy people which protests against exclusion
and the plunder and unjust distribution of the wealth.
We Colombians have the
obligation to fight for that which belongs to us, to achieve a better life
for our children and we are certain that if the popular struggle dissipates,
there shall be no victory in the battle for peace with social justice.
Long live the FARC-EP, long
live Colombia and its people!
Commission for Dialogue
of the FARC-EP
Raul Reyes, Joaquin Gomez
and Fabian Ramirez
Many thanks to all of
you.
International Commission FARC-EP
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