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Colombian civil war - the old lefts new cause celebre?

Harold | 04.12.2001 03:38

The response I received to my comments on the story "Colombian state losing war, calls for truce" (posted Nov 30, updated Dec 2)suggests that some people think any one critical of the country's guerrilla movements at best doesn't have a clue and at worst is deliberately spreading lies. This is not the first time such responses have appeared in discussions on Colombia, and is painfully reminiscent of how in the past it was sacriledge to criticize the USSR, the ANC and other state 'socialist' parties, movements and regimes.

Is the Colombian civil war the left’s new cause celebre?

I recently replied to a mainstream media article posted up at the end of November regarding the recommendations made by a Commission set up by the Colombian government and the guerrillas (the Comision de Notables), and consisted of two people picked by each side The recommendations were aimed at breaking the peace talks deadlock. As the item was from September and gave the impression that the Commission’s recommendations were about to be put into practice, I thought I had better update readers information by telling them Commision’s proposals had since been ‘sunk’. Especially as one reader already asked in response how come these proposals were going to be accepted at the same time as the Plan Colombia was being stepped up.

In looking at the reasons the Commission’s proposals have not been accepted by the state and capital, I also called into question the headline “Colombian state losing war, calls for truce”, added by the person who sent the news item. Basically, I commented that firstly the Colombian state is not losing the war, as evidenced by the huge upsurge in paramilitary activity and subsequent balance of forces. Secondly, given the composition of the Commission, which I detailed in my post, it could hardly be described as a body representing the Colombian state. I gave the guerrillas separation from mass movements as an additional reason.

Well, it looks like I committed heresy. Despite having lived in this country (Colombia) for the best part of the last decade, and having been close to people involved in all kinds of social struggles as well as those just trying to survive without getting shot each time they step out the front door, I was told by the first poster that I hardly knew what was going on. For example, he reliably informed me that 50% of municipalities were liberated and run democratically! But Colombia is a huge country, and many municipalities have a population of approximately 3 people and a dog. The point I tried to make in my posting was that while the guerrillas may have expanded in rural and jungle zones, it is the paramilitaries who are taking over control of anything resembling an urban area. But the reader seems to have been blind to the information I gave.

The second reader calling himself ‘IRA’ went even better – he titled his piece ‘Harold MI5’. Now it is true the British intelligence services have aided repression in Colombia, but I plead innocent! Seriously though, it seems a pretty crap and even dangerous way to discuss things, by calling each other government spies when we haven’t got decent arguments.
And the second reader didn’t have any arguments. He just pasted an excerpt of what I said, added a question mark, and referred to ‘you and your spooky fellows’. I guess that means spooky as in spooks, as in spies and inflitrators? He also said that as the FARC and ELN (Colombian guerrilla groups) were the only ones waging revolutionary war, we ought to support them. Well it seems to me there is nothing very revolutionary about these organizations. Communism in my book has nothing to with trying to achieve full speed technological ‘development’ and welfare reforms as both the world’s capitalist AND authoritarian ‘socialist’ regimes have done. The Maoists and the Trots call them ‘armed reformists’, and for once they are right.

Well, the general point I want to make is that it seems you cannot criticize the left nationalists of the Colombian guerrillas without being told you are totally ignorant, without being fed Orwellian type wartime information figures, and without being told you are at best an ‘anti-communist’ and at worst a government spy. Now where have we heard these attitudes before? This is the worst kind of blind support for ‘3rd world’ national liberation struggles. It is the fantasy world of first world leftists who think the Vietnam war was fantastic and, can’t we have another one?
The funny thing is that most Colombian comrades far more sympathetic to the movements in question than I am are far more critical. But when you’ve dealt with top-down Leninist organizations at first hand, you’re far more likely to be, unless you have a lot of status within such organizations.
It was bad enough having certain third worldist and stalinist groups calling for critical support for Bin Ladem and co. If the heat gets turned up in Colombia they’re all going to be at it, the whole old left. The heat might not be turned up for a while, if at all: Colombia is lower down the list than say Somalia or Iraq in terms of post Sep 11 targets. Its far more convenient for all concerned to avoid a DIRECT U.S. intervention and just keep the war going in its current form. War is the health of the state... and capital.

Harold
- Homepage: www.banderasnegras.yahoo.com

Comments

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You are so right!

04.12.2001 14:27

It does seem as if the authoritarian left is so enamored with FARC and the ELN that anyone criticising them for kidnapping and murdering peasants and running a gangster-style economy is accused of being 'brain-washed' by the White House. In fact, unarmed trade unionists and peace activists are often the victims of the guerrillas and the AUC death squads which are allied to the US-backed military. For the Trots and Maoists (particularly comfortable middle-class whites in Europe), there is only black-and-white - it's all revolutionaries against capitalists. And quite often they will castigate human rights and peace campaigners as holding a 'false consciousness' or even being in league with the 'imperialists'. Personally, I'm in favour of people running their own lives, free of fear, intimidation and poverty. That means an end to the repressive state and the equally terroristic authoritarian guerrillas.

Daniel Brett
mail e-mail: dan@danielbrett.co.uk


I sympathise with you

04.12.2001 17:25

I get your point Harold of your article ..
But don't take it so hard a lot of the people on indymedia seem to be homers who have never actually been anywhere and base their ideas on standard lefty student doctrines, which sound good down the local pub, most of them would need special reinforced palstic underwear to even set foot in Colombia,they shit 'em selves at the first roadblock/control.
Bit like the what to talk about menu on monty pythons meaning of life. Then again the majority of readers don't make comments. Your lucky to get off with being called a spook most people who come up with anything different are dismissed as either conspiracy theorists or even fascist or nazi's.
But it's not all bad. There are eejits like me !!!!
I have been to Columbia and also spent a fair bit of time in Nica' San Salvador and most of central america.
I was also in Pananma but not since the yankee invasion.
I hear that since Noriega's removal the cocaine market really took off and that the reason that he was removed was because
his monopolising of the trade had slowed progress, once they got him out of the way other people got a share of the action and things really took off. Which is bad news for Colombiam folk cos Pananma was the main staging/ shipping post for Colombian coke, is that still the case ??
I have photo's of the campsino's demonstrating in San Jose, Costa Rica about the yankkkees running the coke into small airstrips in the south nr the Panama border, or was it the north, shit I think it was down south nr Golfito, we got seriously checked out by some US narco types and had to do some james bond driving to lose 'em. This was when When Ollie 'god save america' north was on the case.
There was a game (tarpon) fishing resort, we went in for a drink after we had been asking the farmers questions and taking photo's we then realised that these two 6ft 6 types with big black shades were following us... had to do some
james bond style driving to lose them nothing too special
yankee driving looks good on films but having lived for a while in Rome you kinda pick up a few tricks from the italians .. but we were shitting it and put a hundred miles
in between us and them pretty damn rapido.

If I remember rightly i also have some tico newspapers with articles on the subject which even names some of the yanks who were accused of smuggling weed !!
One thing that struck me was how little value human life has in whole the region I was sick while in colombia, so I didn't see too much and was only on a stoppover, never been back.
But I remember being on a beach in San salvador during the 'saints weeks' there was no running water and it was not too hygenic, the place was ok but we were told 20,000 people were on there way so we decided to move on to some where a bit quieter. During the three or four days that we were there 5 young people drowned in the surf, one of the guys i was with saved a boy of 12's life dragging him about 500 yds out of the ocean through the surf and onto the beach. If the death squads dont get you the surf will, perhaps they prefer to go that way. No one seems to really care, sure they grieve for their dead children but premature death seems to be some kind of relief from the nightmare that is living in this region.
Another thing that really makes sucks is that it's easy to see who the culprit for all the suffering is, the good old U.S of A , but even in Salvador the people club together and
save what amounts to a fortune to them to send one of the family to, you guessed it the U.S A.
The americans have screwed up the whole of central america and the caribbean and I suppose in reality looking at the crisis in Argentina the whole of the south american continent. i dunno what the indymedia types will make about this, I must dig out some of my old slides and post a few.
They might think I'm a spook and it's been done on photo shop.
The nasty place for me was Honduras I travelled through there on my jack jones as the NZ guy I was travelling with needed a
visa to go through Honduras and we had a meeting in mangua
with an american friend who had flown down from Costa Rica at the request of the Sandinista's to put out the fires nr Blue fields after the hurricane in 88 or was it 87..
He blagged me as his assistant and I went up there with him by helicopter which was some luxury after travelling by bus
in nicaragua, where if you lifted up your foot some one else would nick your space and you had to stand on one foot till
some one else made the same mistake. Often there was no bus and you hitched a lift on a flat backed truck. I was amazed at the resilence of the people and it made me ashamed to see woman and young girls who could sit there for hours in the blazing sun with out a drink and carry huge packs or water containers and yet they could still smile and never complained. I was totally knackered and thinking of my western comforts. dreaming of cold beers...
While I was in Bluefields we found the bodies of two doctors who had been murdered by the contras... evidence of the low intensity war, the sandinista's had copies of the CIA manual which was probably one of the low spots of american culture
if such a thing exists .. it even explainded how to block a toilet by sticking a whole bog roll down it ...

I would love to go back to the area, but i have two kids of my own and I feel a bit irresponsible going to a region where human lives are worth about the same as a bottle of coca cola which is of course is the most popular drink even if they sometimes have to serve it in a plastic bag cos they aint got no bottles...

I know this is not completely relevant to your posting but just to let you know that there are people out here who read your your articles and even if some of the comments are bollox others appreciate hearing from someone who is actually on the scene and doesn't work for the yankkkee corporate media.
Talking of which I was at penas blancas once, on foot, as we had vistited Danile Jenson, an american scientist based in Santa Rosa national park Costa Rica, he was trying to re create a dry rain forest.
It's not possible to board the San Jose/ Managua bus on the border so we had to walk, at the time the Nicaraguans had pulled back 5 K from the border as a gesture of good will, the contras had burnt the Nica border post, it was hot so after a while I sat down under a tree and pulled out my short wave trannie to listen to the news on the BBC, I was shocked to hear them announce that Nicaragua was invading Costa Rica, just then a little mini bus camp along and picked us up, when i told the people what I had heard on the radio they just laughed they were used to the yankkkees propaganda.....

so what is for dinner beans and rice ???
( arroz and fracoles) I can't spell in english so you can imagine spanish italian...



LB

Luther blissett


bit confused

10.12.2001 14:01

Harold says 'Trots and Maoists' have criticised FARC and ELN as armed reformists. Dan says 'Trots and Maoists' are guilty of uncritical defence of FARC and ELN. Do you disagree or have I misunderstood?

(genuine confusion, btw, I'm not being rhetorical!)

internationalist