interesting article the points raised are real. It's terrible to think how many people have to suffer thanks to the true evil empire.

Viva FARC.

May god bless the people of Colombia. The good people of the world is with the Colombian Revolution.

LONG LIVE SOCIALISM!

LONG LIVE BOLIVAR'S AMERICA!

Support the Columbian workers---

U.S. imperialism get out of Columbia!

In the aftermath of Sept. 11th U.S. intervention in Colombia is being stepped up. This intervention is in support of the Columbian government as it wages war against several insurgent forces, as well as against workers and poor peasants struggling independent of these forces. The civil war has been going on for years, and to try to justify stepping up intervention on the reactionary side of it on the basis of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in N.Y. and Washington is absurd. (But this hasn’t stopped Bush from labeling the insurgent forces as "dangerous terrorists" as he got the O.K. from the Democrats to send more money and arms.) As a matter of fact, the increasing U.S. intervention in Colombia starkly reveals that the U.S. ruling class has used the 9/11 terrorist atrocities as a pretext for militarily resolving several political contradictions in the world which undermine its ability to increase the export of U.S. capital, maximize profits of the U.S. multinational corporations, monopolize sources of raw materials, and fatten the stockholders in the war industry.




Overview




Colombia is a rich prize for the monopoly capitalists. It has 40 million people who are quite literate by world standards---a large pool of candidates for exploitation as sweat-shop laborers. Its gross domestic product is $88 billion, with almost 14% of this coming from manufacturing: textiles and garments, chemicals, metal products, cement, cardboard containers. This, along with the service sector, is already a lucrative field for the export of capital, and the imperialist bankers want to export more. It's rich in raw materials: petroleum (the U.S. imports 10% of its oil from there), coal, ferronickel, gems, gold, logs. It’s also rich agriculturally: coca, coffee, bananas, cut-flowers, cotton, sugarcane, livestock, rice, corn, tobacco, potatoes, soybeans, sorghum. And its yearly imports are about $11 billion: machinery and equipment, grain, chemicals, transportation equipment. The U.S., Venezuela, Germany, Japan and Holland are its main trading partners.

The country is ruled by a capitalist oligarchy which works in alliance with U.S. imperialism to violently crush anything getting in the way of maximizing profits---from efforts of the working class to organize resistance to their exploitation, to indigenous peoples defending their ability to live from the land, to environmental activism, to the domination of areas of the country by guerilla armies. Human rights workers reporting on the atrocities being carried out are also subject to being murdered. In fact Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world for working-class organizing. Just last year 170 trade union organizers were murdered (sometimes in front of plant gates on the way to work, at other times after being taken from company vehicles at gun-point, and often their bodies have been mutilated and put on display as a “warning”. 79 others were “disappeared”. And since these figures come from mainstream sources, they no doubt leave out many murdered rank-and-file activists with no connection to one of the big trade union centers. This has been going on for many years. As has the killing of 3000 people per year in the civil war. According to almost all human rights groups 80% of the class political murders in the country are carried out by right-wing paramilitaries connected to the capitalist establishment being supported by the U.S. government.

This gruesome reality didn’t prevent “friend of labor” Bill Clinton from waiving requirements that the Colombian government adhere to basic human rights standards when he pushed through his “Plan Colombia” in early 2000, however. This is because the Democrats, like the Republicans, follow the same imperialist agenda. The $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid authorized by Clinton made Colombia the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world. Clinton’s bill had some essentially phony restrictions in it which Bush now wants removed. (For example, military assistance was only supposed to be for counter-narcotics operations. But if you’re building up one part of a military you’re inevitably building up all of it.) Bush also wants to remove the restriction on the number of U.S. troops allowed in Colombia.




From a “war on drugs”…




Of course U.S. officials have no moral compunctions about the drug trade. In Southeast Asia the C.I.A.’s Air America ran drugs in the 60s and 70s. Under Reagan the same planes which secretly flew arms to the Contra armies in Central America carried drugs back to the United States on return trips. Etc. But at the same time the U.S. and Colombian ruling classes don’t like various aspects of the drug trade. Perhaps part of this is because the capitalists involved in it don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes (government officials, army and police officers collecting bribe money is not quite the same thing). Further, with coca said to be Colombia’s largest export (estimated $3.5 billion annually) another problem arises: Colombian society is wracked by uncontrollable drug rivalries and murders right up to the highest ruling circles. This no doubt creates an unease in the ruling class, especially among those members not dependent on the drug trade for revenues. Meanwhile the masses of people in both the U.S. and Colombia hate to see so many of their compatriots’ lives destroyed by drug usage, hate to see them involved in the gun-slinging trade rivalries which inevitably develop in an illegal and lucrative business like this, and they want something done. The U.S. politicians played to the latter to line up support for their hypocritical “war on drugs”. And it was under this banner that they stepped up military intervention in several Andean countries in the 90’s.

After $billions have been spent for military hardware, training, and operations supposedly to wipe out drug trafficking, what has been the result? Well in Colombia, while U.S. military aid has increased ten fold since the mid-90s, coca production has doubled! This is not to say that the U.S. imperialists and their Colombian allies have done nothing to affect the drug business. They’ve carried out some bloody raids, and sprayed scores of thousands of acres of fields and forests with dangerous poisons. This has not only destroyed coca crops, but also maize and yucca fields which the farmers depend on for food. The U.S. Congress has budgeted money for developing alternative crops, but it’s little more than one fourth that budgeted for chemical spraying. (And both taken together are dwarfed by the military expenditures.) In departments like Putumayo only 8% is being spent for the development of alternative crops.

This exposes the sham nature of the alleged “concern” of Washington and the Pentagon for the peasantry. Their means of livelihood is destroyed. Their environment and they themselves are poisoned. So some pennies are tossed their way as “compensation”. Moreover, Colombian agriculture is in crisis, with prices for farm products languishing. This agricultural crisis is rooted in the fundamental laws of the capitalist system of production itself as they’re being played out in the conditions of giant agribusinesses of the imperialist countries driving small farmers to the wall the world over. The peasants have no control over this, and if a peasant can only make $300 a year growing legal crops s/he is almost forced to grow coca and perhaps make $2,500 per year just in order to survive. The other alternative is to migrate to the cities, which many do. But with a 20% unemployment rate this is a desperate move. In fact the masses of people in cities and countryside alike live under desperate conditions. Capitalism doesn’t have within itself the ability to alleviate these. So for show its political representatives can budget a very small amount for alternative crop development in the countryside, but it budgets $billions to build up a military force whose main purpose is to crush resistance to its naked rule.




...to a “war on terror”…




While the Colombian civil war is several decades old, the main rebel forces gained broader support in the latter 90s. The government’s hold on power was also somewhat shaky as a mass movement against neo-liberal capitalist policies spread among the masses in Colombia and neighboring countries. This movement continues, with strikes against privatizations, and other actions. President Andres Pastrana was elected based on promises to recognize the guerillas and negotiate peace with them. The guerillas were not losing the war, politically or militarily, but they were not winning it either. Moreover, according to interviews reported in the world press, many of their leaders were exhausted and yearned for a “normal” life. In these conditions they took up Pastrana’s offer, and the main group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), settled for a partial control of the southern Caqueta department, where it financed itself through taxation, was allowed to run the local elections, etc.

But the government kept the military pressure on, including through murderous expeditions by its extra-curricular paramilitaries, and further negotiations broke down. Then, in the aftermath of 9/11, it used the assassination of a Colombian senator as pretext for launching its own “war against terror” to wipe out FARC and other rebel forces, even though FARC hotly denies having anything to do with this murder. (Meanwhile Bush had added FARC and the National Liberation Army, ELN, to his list of world “terrorist” organizations.) In February this year the U.S.-trained and supplied military launched well over 200 bombing raids into the FARC-held area “Farclandia” (a zone with a civilian population of over 100,000), and then conducted major ground operations. Of course both the Colombian government and Bush knew they would not crush the insurgency with one blow, and they haven’t. However they’ve now shown their real hand, and committed themselves to an even crueler war, and not just against FARC or the ELN, but against all Colombians resisting their neo-liberal agenda: a capitalist class war against the masses. What this war is going to look like may be indicated by the fact that while the insurgent forces have grown in recent years, the murderous paramilitaries have grown five times faster. It’s illegal for civilians to own guns in Colombia, yet the paramilitaries have lots of them, and lots of money. Part of the latter comes from the drug trade, but another part (along with guns) comes from payments for “services provided” to the capitalists. Meanwhile the “clean” fighting will be carried out by the legal military.




...to a very partial admission of the truth




Meanwhile, also in February, Bush asked Congress for $98 million in new Pentagon training and equipment for the Colombian military. This was over and above the $731 million requested for continuing the Andean “war on drugs”. The stated aim was to protect the California-based Occidental Petroleum Corporation’s pipeline which was blown up several times last year by insurgent forces. So here we have it: open admission that tax-dollars looted from the masses of American working people not only go to the big stockholders of the military contractors, but to build proxy armies to protect the interests of the U.S. multinationals as they rip off the world’s resources for profit. But of course it’s just not Occidental, nor just the oil companies, nor just the multinationals involved in resource extraction, nor even just the multinational corporations themselves. Behind these stand the interests of a financial oligarchy which is based on mergers of industrial and banking capital which took place long ago.




Support the struggles of the Columbian toilers!




That Clinton and Bush had to turn Colombia into the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid says something of power of the forces U.S. imperialism wants to crush (or contain in the case of the drug industry). More than a hundred trade union activists are murdered year after year, yet new organizers keep appearing. The indigenous peoples are driven from their lands by lumbering, mining, and other capitalists, but they mount new struggles, form international alliances, etc. There have been massive privatizations, yet new movements against privatization and the IMF/WB continue to plague the regime. Moreover, the U.S. also looks at it from a strategic angle: if it doesn’t severely deal with FARC and the ELN, it risks dangers of similar movements being emboldened in neighboring countries.

FARC and the ELN both say they have something to do with Marxism-Leninism, but they’re not working-class parties fighting to overthrow capitalism at all. Programmatically, they fight for a reformed capitalism, where “foreign monopolies and investment will be limited and controlled…They will be subjected to the parameters of national development, favoring entrepreneurial and industrial competitiveness but without detriment to small and medium enterprises” (the ELN). Following the Cuban state-capitalist model, the ELN favors a mixed economy of state-owned and private enterprises. But with Cuba today increasingly going over to private capitalism and opening the door to foreign investment, the amount of nationalization of enterprises (to be run on a capitalist basis) the ELN envisions is unclear. It fosters the illusion that the laws of capitalist production (renamed “socialism”) can be overcome if good people working in the national interest dominate the government. Although FARC doesn’t promote Cuba and Che Guevara in the same way as the ELN, its programmatic views are very similar. Both deny that no amount of fine-tuned state intervention can do more than slow or shift around the negative effects of capitalist production. The rich will get richer, and the poor poorer. Competition will force the capitalists to rape the environment. The working people will be exploited. (And the very word exploitation disappears from their vocabulary whenever they begin to elaborate on their national-reformist visions of the future.)

Of course the imperialists and their Colombian junior-partners aren't willing to give the reforms for which the guerillas are fighting. And the social welfare measures, land reform, right for the masses to organize without being gunned down by the forces of the state, etc., for which they fight are supported by every progressive person. The problem however is that such reforms can only be brought about through an intensification of the class struggles of the workers and peasants. Yet the guerilla organizations downplay the class struggle. For example, when FARC was engaged in peace negotiations with the government it politically pacified the masses with ideas of a “national reconciliation”. The intense class contradictions in society were just slurred over. ELN did the same thing with its campaign for a National Convention at almost the same time. This is misleading the masses. To defeat the increasing U.S.-supported campaign of class suppression and murder, to wrest concessions from the capitalist government, and to achieve its ultimate liberation, the Colombian working class needs to continue to develop its class struggles. To do this requires it seeing sharply the role of every class in society, rather than slurring over the class contradictions a la FARC and the ELN. It needs to develop its own independent politics and fighting organizations. We should support its every effort in this direction.




Proletarian internationalism---




The basic laws of the capitalist imperialist system are what is driving the U.S. to intervene in Colombia. Our main support for the Colombian toilers must therefore be to build the movement against U.S. intervention on an anti-imperialist basis. Fundamentally this must be based on working to build a revolutionary movement to overthrow imperialism here at home. This raises that in the U.S., just as in Colombia, we too need to develop independent working-class politics and organization to accomplish this historic necessity.

Seattle Anti-imperialist Alliance flyer, spring, this year

Frank, that so-called "seattle flyer" is politcally inaccurate and needs a lot of work. The FARC is the militant arm of the Communist Party of Colombia. Your talk of "promoting" countries or organisations is suspicious. Both the ELN and FARC are admirers of Che Guevara and have posters and badges of the great communist martyr all over their bases and even on their uniforms. You need to read up on Maoist and Guevarist guerilla strategy of class struggle. The class war in Colombia is high intensity and has nothing to do with laying down arms for mere "capitalist reform". It is the real deal.

Dear FARC supporter:

The tyrants leading the "Communist" Party of China today say they're communists (the "real deal"), but few on the left would deny that this is fraudulent. Stalin said he was a communist, which he no doubt was in his earlier days, but he went on to build a state-capitalist tyranny. Trotsky also said he was a communist, but his fight with Stalin was premised on many anti-Marxist-Leninist ideas which they both shared. So the fact that the leaders of the "Communist" Party of Colombia say they're communists does not impress me. And if I agreed that Che was a Marxist revolutionary I wouldn't be impressed by the fact that FARC members wear badges of his likeness. Till the very end the leaders of the "C"PSU(B) wore badges of Marx and Lenin, and swore in their name, while enslaving the working people under a state capitalist system at home and practicing social imperialism abroad. That's what revisionism is about: flying the red flag while opposing it in reality.

I would hope that you don't think my saying the preceding is "wierd". The entire positive history of scientific (Marxist) communism is bound up with its defense against distortion (revision), i.e., look at the volumes of material written by Marx and Lenin themselves against opponents in the revolutionary movement! However sincere or well-meant, revisionist ideas undermine the movement for a proletarian revolution which the world today so much demands. They ultimately reflect the standpoint of other classes, and thousands of "communist" parties or groups are built around them. So practically speaking, when FARC slurred over the class contradictions manifest in Colombian society with talk of a "national reconciliatiuon" it was fostering illusions that progress can come by a route other than an intensification of the class struggles of the oppressed. For the proletariat to sharpen its struggle and have an independent political role requires that it see sharply the role of every other class in society (as the flyer says)...and see the actual class strivings or sentiments represented by various political trends---including those adopting an anti-oligharchal and revolutionary phraseology. Moreover, for the working class to consistently maintain an independent political struggle it needs real (anti-revisionist) Marxist-Leninist theory and organization. But FARC (and the "Communist" Party of Colombia, and the ELN) have ideas representing non-proletarian class standpoints. Therefore they pawn off working against proletarian independence as some kind of wise "tactic". Yet this is a well-worn path that has repeatedly hamstrung the working class for at least 70 years (no matter how red the banner under which it was raised).

You advise that I read up on the Maoist and Guevarist strategy of class struggle. Actually I have (and written on Maoism). Have you ever read an anti-revisionist (not Trotskyist, ivory-tower "Marxist", anarchist, or rightist) criticism of Che or Mao's politics? If not I would recommend looking at  http://www.communistvoice.org (articles listed under "the debate on Cuba" and "China", and another article on Colombia).

Sincerely,
Frank

Frank, Your analysis of Latin American political history comparing it to capitalist China and Stalinist Russia is flawed and no more credible than a right wing nut source.

In all my years of activism and having met all sorts of people and collectives, I have never met an organisation more sectarian and politically ludicrous to the point of religious doctrinal fanaticism than these guys running around opposing everything except themselves.

Che wasn't a Marxist revolutionary???? Why because he wasn't a member of your phoney organisation? My dear unstable friend you need help. Furthermore, why wouldn't any true revolutionary not wear badges of a great man who fought and died for the poor and whose virtues of humanism and internationalism are respected and remembered to this very day?

Why shouldn't the FARC want peace for Colombia? War is a terrible thing. The FARC is the only thing standing in between brutal state repression and poor peasants, trade unionists and student activists. They deserve respect and support for being the most well organised voice demanding peace and social justice.

You might know a lot about your organisation's politics but obviously nothing about about the popular insurgency if you say the FARC and ELN "have ideas representing non-proletarian class standpoints". This is deliberate disinformation rubbish! If you read James Petras a well respected scholar and leading Latin Americanist or Alfredo Molano an exile journalist, amongst many, or the history of the Colombian peasantry, you would know that what you are saying is nonsense and that the insurgency's mass base of support grew from the peasantry and is now trade union based. Everybody knows that. Not good enough for your organisation? If not, what is your organisation doing for "revolutionary theory" in the United States or where ever you fruitloops live? That's if you're good for anything at all! Groups like yours cannot be taken seriously.

Your website:
"Communist Voice a magazine of revolutionary theory"
 http://www.communistvoice.org/

Is good for a laugh and nothing else...

"It opposes market capitalism and the state-capitalist regimes...it opposes Stalinism, Trotskyism, anarchism and reformism..." Do you oppose all forms of socialism too?

You can oppose everything if you like, but don't expect solidarity or support from anyone outside your sacred organisation. This attitude is like a curse that needs to be cast out, it is as bad as imperialism itself. CIA or MI5, I'm sure, really appreciate what you guys are doing. Marx would have replied to your organisation's idiocy in some way like this: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist".

Viva FARC.

Miguel, a nonsensical comment since I made no analysis of Latin American political history! But the class struggle and its laws are universal are they not? And political trends like Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism, Guevarism, anarchism, liberalism, social-democracy, right-wing nuttism, etc., etc., exist on every continent do they not? Each has certain distinct and definable features and theories which cause us to call it what we do. Hence, whether Argentine or Scottish, a Trotskyist group will defend certain theories peculiar to Trotskyism which harm the development of the proletarian struggle for class emancipation. So if you want to speak to what I actually wrote (and not write nonsense) you must prove to me that Colombia is an exception to the laws of the class struggle in the rest of the world, and that the struggle against revisionism is not needed there. (FYI: In his day Che Guevara certainly recognized that there was a world-wide struggle against revisionism, including in Latin America. Unfortunately he didn't see its value, preached reconciliation with the revisionists, and maintained that the social-imperialist USSR of the '50s and '60s really was socialist and would help Latin American societies achieve socialism! This despite his well-known, but minor, criticisms of the revisionist chieftans.)

My dear Jonathan Russel, since I’m associated with a political trend which the established left (a left dominated by reformism and its revisionist helpers) once stigmatized as “the crazies” I smile when you say I’m unstable, in need of help, a fruit loop, etc. But I frown when you raise the issues of counterintelligence (in your title yet!), deliberate disinformation, and even the CIA or M15 “really appreciat(ing) what you guys are doing”. True, you don’t stoop to calling us agents, but since some defunct opportunist and revisionist circles once resorted to this filthy sectarian tactic in order to close minds to what we said your introducing these issues worries me. And obviously you don’t want IMC readers to consider our ideas. You proclaim that groups like the CVO are not to be taken seriously, they’re a "good laugh", represent "idiocy", and so on.

Moving to the heart of matters, since you’ve raised the issue of sanity I would ask if you are so insane as to believe that serious IMC readers won’t see the flaws in your hasty commentary. Some examples:

Everyone on the left agrees that Che eloquently expressed many noble sentiments of the oppressed, that he considered himself a Marxist fighting for socialism, and that he courageously fought and died for his beliefs. And it’s very true that today he’s honored by millions of toilers all over the world. But in touching on these facts you beg (actually) two questions: Was Che a Marxist? Can his ideas lead the working class to liberation? Of course to really answer these questions is more than an IMC comment, so that’s why I referred “FARC supporter” to a relevant article in Communist Voice. But you just throw a fit at the very idea that Che may not have been a Marxist revolutionary (I would never deny that he was a revolutionary): I allegedly say this because he was not a member of my organization, I’m a dear unstable friend in need of help, etc.

Your paragraph beginning “Why shouldn’t the FARC want peace…” contains several ideas which do not flow from one another, and which taken together neatly evade the issue of the FARC’s working to blunt proletarian class consciousness under the slogan of national reconciliation.

The next paragraph asserts the FARC’s mass base of support is now trade union based. But this does not in any way prove that its leaders do not have a non-proletarian class standpoint. Many petty-bourgeois or outright bourgeois parties or trends have (or had) mass bases in the trade unions---from Labour, the U.S. Democrats, and world social-democracy, to Trotskyists, to (in some times and places) even anarchists. You must know this. If you do then you should ask yourself if you are not perhaps evading the issue of the FARC’s actual class standpoint and politics.

Lastly, you note that the Communist Voice opposes market capitalism and the state-capitalist regimes…opposes Stalinism, Trotskyism, anarchism and reformism (doesn’t sound bad to me!). You then wisely ask “do you oppose all forms of socialism too?” But how on earth does the latter question flow from the former facts? It can’t (unless one considers one of the mentioned political trends socialist). However, if one’s aim is to tar people as carping opponents of everyone but themselves with no positive ideas which they are for then “mistakes” like this can happen. Be that as it may, the comrades whose views are given at  http://www.communistvoice.org are sincere activists who are definitely fighting FOR something. (An honest perusal of any issue must tell the reader this much.) Most succinctly, I would say that within the limits set by today’s objective realities this something is to prepare conditions to storm heaven in a proletarian revolution. Of course preparing conditions requires a fight for clarity on the nature of various political trends. This horrifies you. Hence you say our attitude is “a curse that needs to be cast out”. Sounds almost religious.

dear communists, socialists, anarchists and progressives, just ignore him he's a nutcase.

As is clear to anyone with eyes and a functioning brain, none of the defenders of FARC's revisionist politics have anything exceptionally enlightening to offer the readers of IndyMedia UK: only showers abusive nonsense. Though none of Frank's polemical opponents have offered a single argument that bears the lightest scrutiny, Susan oh-so-condescendingly caps it all off by telling the activists to, in essence, "never mind all this ideological debate". Evidently, thought is avoided like the plague in these circles. Evidently, it's beyond Jonathan Russel's ken that a movement can have a mass base and still have ideas which represent a non-proletarian, i.e. non-Marxist, class standpoint. "The FARC is supported by the peasantry and is trade-union based, therefore it must be Marxist", he declares. By this logic all Marx's polemics against anarchism and other ideological trends in the revolutionary movement, are worthless, and can be replaced with the simple call to win over the peasants and the unions. Wear any silver badge you like, your complete dearth of intellectual honesty outshines it.

US out of Columbia!
Down with bankrupt theories in the revolutionary movement!
Viva scientific, revolutionary communism!

And so what if the FARC has anarchist tendencies???? And if the FARC (a collective of workers, peasants and slum dwellers, what do you call that then??? bourgeois??? you fools!!!) have been successful in organising and resisting the state what are you afraid of???? Very strange. This talk of meaningless phraseology is nothing more than intellectual masturbation. What are you doing in Colombia? Nothing! So shut your trap imbeciles!!! Isn't it time that we move on to more open minded ways of revolution? Or do you expect us all to think, live and breathe like in the heydays of the Russian revolution 1917??? Wake up and smell the coffee you sectarian "against all" text book "this is the only way" haters. It's provocateur organisations like yours (and that's all you are) that does damage to the socialist movement by dividing people for the sake of just YOUR personal interpretations of revolutionary literature for YOUR ridiculous ANTI-COMMUNIST party doctrine. This attitude is not communist! and has nothing to do with communism!! It's more of the tradition of some right wing maniac!!! To get to the point...I say it's more to the tradition of CIA or MI5 counterintelligence or something. Because you're all just too wierd to be taken seriously. Get a life assholes.

Viva FARC!

Provacateurs and armchair revolutionaries go jump in the lake and debate alice in wonderland politics in the comfort of your own homes!!!!

The popular insurgency has been well documented by knowledgeable observers and has frequently been made accessible on this medium. The so-called "communistvoice" group do not seem to be aware of even a PARTICLE of the literature available on the subject.

Frank may come across as a purist sectarian and so on, but beneath the jargon he makes some fair comments. All these people signing off "Viva the FARC" come off, in my view, somewhat worse.
Firstly they display all the worst faults of traditional leftist 'solidarity' movements: don't criticize! Let the people of the country in question decide! (always assuming of course that some or other organization innately represents the 'will of the people'). Being uncritical is downright patronizing.
This is complimented by a totally uncritical approach to third world "national liberation" movements, of which the FARC is one. That is why they cannot apply any critical faculties to the situation in Colombia - and that doesnt necessarily mean agreeing with Frank!
They talk as if the only forces in Colombia were FARC and the state: a gross simplification and an injustice to those colombians who have different groups and/or analyses, and who have also suffered for their revolutionary dreams. But then they're not interested in knowing about them.
So we get ludicrous statements along the lines that the FARC have never hurt innocent people. The military mentality accepts civilan casualties as collateral damage, and the apologies issued by the FARC after, for example, they mistakenly lobbed a pipe bomb into a church the other month killing 120 peasants are a match for the kind of statements NATO comes up with after its bombing raids.
There is clearly a lack of information to hand as well. The FARC have grown militarily of course, but have they grown in popular support? No. The fact is Colombias guerrillas enjoyed more prestige in the population in the 70s! Have they grown numerically? Yes. But a war situation obliges people to take sides or get recruited. But what people generally want to do is get the fuck out of the way between the competing armies.
Its when a conflict becomes just a battle between competing armies for territorial control, dragging on forever, with people joining one or other army out of obligation or because its a way to earn a living, that disillusionment and cynicism set in and displace revolutionary hopes among the working classes in general. Unfortunately the paramilitaries pay better than the guerrillas, and that is why they have grown at a much gretaer rate than the guerrillas in recent years, and are now to be incorporated (unofficially of course) in the network of a million informers the new president has announced (and has actually begun in the dept of Cesar). It is the 'paras' who are on the offensive in the cities, controlling neighborhoods and local gangs, not the guerrillas. A few commando attcks and bombings dont change that.
Where do these hopes of revolutionary changes go then? Abroad: into the heads of people who fantasize about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Che and the Vietnam war - the history of stalinist "socialism".

I think you make some good observations (against fantasizing about Cuba, China, USSR, etc. The key is to study what actually went on in the history of these countries, how state capitalism developed, how the class struggle developed, and to draw conclusions for the revolutionary movement of today. I think this is what the Communist Voice Organisation is primarily committed to, while at the same time seeking to maintain contact with workers' struggles and with the progressive movements). I do disagree with your characterization of FARC as a national liberation movement, though. Columbia is formally independent (it has its own parlament, military, etc.). Of course it's still subjected to imperialist domination, and the Columian government itself is hideously anti-democratic and oppressive, but describing the FARC in this way lumps it in with all the revolts against outright colonial subjection (South Africa, Algeria, Albania, and many others) many of which were real revolutionary (revolutionary-democratic) movements. But FARC is more of a reformist-democratic movement, with the military struggle used as a means to pressurize the government. And as I said, Columbia is independent (of course under capitalism _all_ democratic rights, including national independence, are hemmed in by the bourgeoisie. Hence only a proletarian revolution can guarantee far-reaching democracy for the toilers of the earth).

You also accuse the pro-FARC slanderers as "traditional leftist 'solidarity' movements: don't criticize! Let the people of the country in question decide! (always assuming of course that some or other organization innately represents the 'will of the people')", which I think is perceptive. The truth is that the only way to do our internationalist duty is to, along with helping to build the revolutionary movement here "at home", criticise political-ideological orientations in other countries that we think hinder the workers' and peasants' struggle in that country (Columbia in this case).

Yours,
Jeff

"Elecrata" the case of the church bomb was found to be caused by the paramilitaries (www.anncol.com) The popular support and effectiveness of the FARC has been well documented by Latin Americanist James Petras. And you will find that it is not a "conflict between competing armies for territorial control, dragging on forever, with people joining one or other army out of obligation or because its a way to earn a living, that disillusionment and cynicism set in and displace revolutionary hopes among the working classes in general." That is very ignorant of Colombian history as it is deep rooted class war. And as for Viva FARC that is 'long live the FARC' in spanish for your information.

Unfortunately the paramilitaries pay better than the guerrillas, and that is why they have grown at a much gretaer rate than the guerrillas in recent years," That is also ignorant of the situation as the paramilitaries are losing territory and absolutely everybody hates them because they are the leading official killers.

"A few commando attcks and bombings dont change that." It's a very effective guerilla war waged by the peasantry - worker alliance.

"Where do these hopes of revolutionary changes go then? Abroad: into the heads of people who fantasize about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Che and the Vietnam war - the history of stalinist "socialism" " ???? They are fighting for state socialism in case you forgot, if that's not worth supporting then I don't know what is.

To "Jeff"

FARC doesn't want national liberation??? Colombia is formally independent??????? "Of course it's still subjected to imperialist domination, and the Columian government itself is hideously anti-democratic and oppressive," Your politics speak for themselves and anyone reading these comments would be dying of laughter, I'm sure.

The FARC is not part of the anti-colonial struggle legacy??? Read James Petras on what they are proposing and their agendas, you are gravely misinformed but I think its more deliberate than anything else (MI5, CIA).

"FARC is more of a reformist-democratic movement, with the military struggle used as a means to pressurize the government. And as I said, Columbia is independent (of course under capitalism _all_ democratic rights, including national independence, are hemmed in by the bourgeoisie."
Colombia is independent?????? you call youselves marxists???? without acknowledging US domination and imperialism???? Crackpots!

The truth is that the only way to do our internationalist duty is to, along with helping to build the revolutionary movement here "at home", criticise political-ideological orientations in other countries that we think hinder the workers' and peasants' struggle in that country (Columbia in this case). " The best thing workers and oppressed can do is identify you as political police which you are and haven't denied once.

Frank the nutcase,

The tyrants leading the "Communist" Party of China today say they're communists (the "real deal"), but few on the left would deny that this is fraudulent." der!

"Stalin said he was a communist, which he no doubt was in his earlier days, but he went on to build a state-capitalist tyranny." der!

"Trotsky also said he was a communist, but his fight with Stalin was premised on many anti-Marxist-Leninist ideas which they both shared." This is a stalinist statement.

"So the fact that the leaders of the "Communist" Party of Colombia say they're communists does not impress me." You would be impressed if you read up on the subject which you chooose to ignore.

"And if I agreed that Che was a Marxist revolutionary I wouldn't be impressed by the fact that FARC members wear badges of his likeness. " Che was one of the greatest revolutionary figures in modern history.

"Till the very end the leaders of the "C"PSU(B) wore badges of Marx and Lenin, and swore in their name, while enslaving the working people under a state capitalist system at home and practicing social imperialism abroad. That's what revisionism is about: flying the red flag while opposing it in reality. " What does russia have to do with Colombia???

"I would hope that you don't think my saying the preceding is "wierd". The entire positive history of scientific (Marxist) communism is bound up with its defense against distortion (revision)," The FARC is not revisionist if you bothered to read up on their revolutionary theory and practice. And yes you are wierd.

"You advise that I read up on the Maoist and Guevarist strategy of class struggle. Actually I have (and written on Maoism)." You are so ignorant on the subject it's hard to beleive.

Have I read rightist criticism of Che or Mao's politics? If not I would recommend looking at  http://www.communistvoice.org (articles listed under "the debate on Cuba" and "China", and another article on Colombia). " No thanks!

Frank,

Yes, you are ignorant of Latin American political history.

The "wilderness" is where you do not dare tread except for pulling yourself over theory. "Spare the moment!" - Mao Tse Tung.

Yes you haven't denied being state agents.
Yes Che was a great revolutionary.


"Your paragraph beginning “Why shouldn’t the FARC want peace…” contains several ideas which do not flow from one another, and which taken together neatly evade the issue of the FARC’s working to blunt proletarian class consciousness under the slogan of national reconciliation. "

The FARC want peace on the terms made by the oppressed. assholes.

"The next paragraph asserts the FARC’s mass base of support is now trade union based." It is also trade union based.

"Of course preparing conditions requires a fight for clarity on the nature of various political trends." Yeah, no revolution by "Communistvoice"

You constantly contradict yourself on the existance of imperialism, the independence of Colombia, the ignorant analysis of the FARC and their history and praxis, the ignorance of Latin America's history of resistance movements and Marxism. And your overall sectarian blind devotion to one party line.

L.C. has summed it all up well.

I do not understand how many people outside Colombia support the FARC.
I understand the interest in the EZLN, but the FARC are nothing but an organization that makes money out ot the drug trafficking business besides extorsion, kidnapping. And this is not any kind of disinformation by the goverment like many here believe it to be this is just the facts, facts everybody knows about.
These grous do not have ideals, ideals which started the revolutionary movements in other parts of Latin America, they only care about the money. They are just as bad as the right-wing military groups organized to fight the FARC and the ELN.
You as foreigners should come live here and see what these "guerrillas" really do.. if you are not kidnapped by one of them of course.