An all-powerful menace is flying over America, spreading its wings and covering the region with shadows. Itfs slow, deliberate circling over the continent forbodes a changing wind for the inhabitants. This chan-ge has the smell of gunpowder and the taste of blood-where todayfs adversity could turn into a holocaust.

That menace is embodied in gPlan Colombia,h todayfs incarnation of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine (gAmerica for the Americansh) and the most recent attempt in that nationfs quest for absolute domination of the area.

The last ten years have passed amid the general crisis of capitalism. Capitalismfs mentors, while renouncing the neoliberal model, cannot agree on a substitute for it, so they keep pushing it. For this reason, the contradictions in the centers of economic power have reached a higher level, giving rise to political positions that are, if not contradictory, at least differentiated.

Important events are occurring which frame the present historical moment:

Oil prices are going up and OPEC is awakening from the lethargy of low yields. The European bloc is consolidating and challenging the U.S. empire, albeit still timidly, for a place on the continent with its own currency. China is developing the socialist market economy and is making its own way. Japan, South Korea and even Vietnam are opening new cutting-edge technologies in the course of their own development. New nuclear powers are coming onto the scene, making nuclear blackmail every day less effective.

Brazil is strengthening Mercosur. Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela are trying to revitalize the Group of Three. The Andean Pact, almost deceased, is prolonging its death throes. The Caribbean states are proudly displaying their CARICOM. Unfortunately for the peoples of the continent, they are all getting ready to face the FTAA, led by the U.S-not in search of choices, but rather to determine who will win the best positions in the carving up of the Americas.

The twenty-first century was born in the midst of this turbulence, full of the signs of war in different parts of the world. It could not be otherwise, given the criminal nature of imperialism which, as a last resort to hold off recession, has opened a Pandorafs box of demented proposals for nuclear umbrellas and global militarization, instigating wars everywhere. This is the fundamental reason for Plan Colombia, carried out under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.

Another cause driving Plan Colombia is the growing popular demonstrations for real changes in the democratic, sovereign and dignified building of their countries. In the forefront of this direction, opening new Bolivarian paths, is Venezuela, which is attempting to consolidate the process led by Hugo Chavez Frias, putting an end to the bipartisan corruption of the last forty years as it searches to give new expressions to the state, oriented towards social well-being, sovereignty and moral strength.

Plan Colombia brings grave environmental, social and political problems to neighbouring peoples and governments because of the large number of displaced people, exiles, deaths, wounded, widows and orphans who flee in fear and with no future, seeking relief in the territory of their neighbours. Behind this is hidden the gringo aspiration to occupy the Amazon militarily and set off an arms race in the area.

The last gringo governmentfs campaign to promote alliances of a political and military nature in the region is still in place. The visits of Thomas Pickering, Under-Secretary of the State Department, Madeleine Albright, chief of foreign policy, and the meeting of the Ministers of Defense in Manaus-a campaign which culminated with William Clintonfs trip to Cartagena de Indias-demonstrated the importance of this objective for the U.S. agenda, as well as its total failure to get any agreements.

Some Latin American governments that were in bad shape, fearful of the possible consequences of the Planfs application, shifted between speaking with a gringo accent and doses of the mother tongue for their compatriots, speaking of the benefits which could be reaped with the economic, social and military gaidh they would receive.

However, the Latin American countries are united in rejecting this undeclared imperial war that is beginning in Colombia and is unleashing unpredictable consequences beyond. Because of this, the Amazon countries (Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Guyana, Ecuador) are starting to wake up in the defense of their patrimony that has always been coveted.

It is Colombia, a prisoner of state terrorism and with its democratic and popular opposition drowned in blood, which is discovering a ray of hope for a future with peace with social justice in the guerrilla struggle being waged by FARC-Peoples Army to put and end to more than 50 years of violence. And it is the FARC guerrillas who are the popular anti-imperialist vanguard in denouncing the atrocities of Plan Colombia before the world.

The actions undertaken initially by the workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, intellectuals, students and journalists have won support in parliaments, governments and trade unions in the continent and are reaching other latitudes.

The struggle has just begun. We have won over public opinion internationally. The U.S. objectives are now clear. Because of this, strange voices like that of Kissinger are showing up, casting doubts about the success of their adventure.

President Pastrana, facing the fragility of the dialogues, came to the meeting with Commander Manuel Marulanda Velez and accepted there that the coca crops could be eradicated manually by the peasants themselves, conditional on agreement being reached with those communities involved in the cultivation. It is quite apparent that the spraying and use of warfare can be done away with for this purpose.

But this is not enough, since the original intentions of the U.S. government still stand. It is not going to be easy to make them back down. For that, it will require uniting our efforts inside and outside of Colombia from this point on, to confront this Plan with all forms of mass struggle possible.

The unity of the Latin American peoples today under the Bolivarian banner will continue to rise-not only in opposition to Plan Colombia, but also for their second and final independence