We knocked down the ex-statue of Columbus! ... We knocked down a face of COLONIALISM and it broke to pieces... We knocked down a bronze statue and, as it fell, it stuck its finger in the Empire’s eye... we knocked it down in the full light of the day with our young, uncovered faces, thus discovering hypocritical masks... we knocked down a “public evil” and we made a true work of art, a rebellious and collective work of art without imperial signature... we knocked down the oppressor at the rhythm of libertarian drums... we knocked down a symbolic ex-statue and we shook the bureaucratic-statue, the impunity-statue, the communication-monopoly-statue, the repressive-state-statue... the Escuálido-[anti-revolutionary]-with-a-red-beret-statue. In short, we knocked down an ex-statue and shook those who want to turn our Revolution into their hypocritical and untouchable Revolution-Statue.

The debate has been opened and so has the autonomous action of the popular movement, of the people that since February 27, 1989 came down the barrios to be a slave only to their conscience. To the surprise of us, the many people who organized and assume the responsibility for knocking down the ex-statue of Columbus, today that truly insignificant and small action has brought the internal enemy where we wanted to have it... naked and exposed. This autonomous action has become “The Battle of Santa Inés against the Escuálido State and against pseudo-revolutionary conservatism”. (Note: The Battle of Santa Inés was used by Chávez as an example of a historic battle where Zamora, a general of the people in the late XIX century, made the enemy follow him to a terrain where they could be easily defeated. Chávez called the battle for the August 15th referendum: “The Battle of Santa Inés”).

And in these we are all in agreement: that the true enemies of this Revolution are the ones that the same Empire has infiltrated in the State for a long time, and the ones that with their new positions of power, intend to expropriate the popular movements from their true participation and leading-role.

The fact is that the Empire knows that, right now, its power in Venezuela does not lie in its capacity to give coup d'Etats, since they would be starting, with their own hands, one of the most profound rebellions in history. Instead, the Empire is exercising its power through the corrupt, bourgeois State that, in spite of the doubtless good will of our comrade Hugo, continues serving as an instrument for the exploitation of our resources and of ourselves as a people. This does not mean that there are no more risks of coups or invasions, or that the government has been good for nothing, but it does mean that the most threatening risk than we run as a people is that this revolution be institutionalized and that the bureaucracy steals it from us through its demagogic discourse, while, underneath, multinational corporations keep taking away all our oil, our coal, our culture... only to leave us their trash and a land full of damned statues. At any rate, the great triumph of this government, aside from the very important social base that it is building, is precisely that we have the liberty to carry out our revolutionary conscience to action.

Because the struggle for the liberty of our 3 imprisoned comrades and the radical deepening of the Revolution is no longer the struggle of the hundreds of people that knocked down that statue of Columbus, but of all the Bolivarian people that in their daily revolutionary effort have been fighting against the damned bureaucratic statues that continue to sabotage the projects in the barrios; against the statues of impunity that continue liberating coup-leader and murderers while incarcerating comrades of struggle; against the media statues that continue exercising the monopoly of communications; against the statues that in name of progress continue devouring forests and staining rivers with oxide; against the statues that continue condemning us when we exercise popular will and rebel against the constituted power!

We will knock down each and every one of these statues and we will ask for nobody’s permission. We will knock them down in the same way we knocked down Columbus: in the full light of the day and with uncovered faces, to the full rhythm of joyous drums, with smiles from ear to ear and lips painted with poetry. But now we won’t be only hundreds, we will be thousands and millions of rebels that take the streets and assume that our liberty and our happiness as people subdue to nothing, and no-one, but our own conscious of respect towards all the human beings in this world. Our violence, in any case, is not the violence against monsters of flesh and blood as long as they don’t shoot at our dancing bodies on the streets.

And thus we will go on taking it all... Because, either we assume this Revolution as our own, realizing that only we ourselves can build a more free and more just society, or we become the slaves and servants of a Revolution-Statue that seeks nothing more than the survival of its self-appointed sculptors. Let’s assume, then, for once and for all, our own rebel action as a popular sculpture, as one with which we will build our own history. Because that popular motto of “Revolution in the Revolution” is also being turned into a statue, condemned to the pathetic world of the office-revolution. For that reason, we must carry the word to the street and give it gesture, give it a face, make it rebellious art with which, far from physically harming other human beings, we will take back what they have forever denied us: our identity.

It is not about denying history and disappearing the statue of Columbus. In any case, what should be placed on that monument is the figure of the Columbus that our resistance left destroyed, of the Columbus that we painted red as symbol of the blood spilled by the cruel sword of his old and new Empire. We propose then that the statue that is placed back is the one of the Knocked-Down-Columbus, of the Columbus that was defeated by our resistance and that, only after we transformed it, it became a true work of art, a collective work of art that speaks of our times and culture in a much more accurate way than that other figure smiling to genocide. Just like Rafael de la Cova (the sculptor) took from the Pachamama (Mother Earth), the copper and the tin, made bronze and turned it into an imperial symbol, we took the imperial symbol and turned it into a symbol of resistance. In this case, the true cultural patrimony is the one that would be destroyed if they return that figure to its posture of genocidal pride. (To prison, then, by their logic, those who dare restore it!)

And if “revolutionary authorities” are going to condemn us for having our own conscience and not following the official line in what we consider a backward attitude towards the revolutionary process, then let them imprison all of us rebels of these Bolivarian lands... Let us all go to jail!... those of us who take land, those of us who take schools and universities, those of us who take factories, those of us who re-take our culture! Those of us who will take movie theaters and museums! Those of us who will take, for once and for all, the mass media outlets so that they may serve the people! Those of us who will take the Guasare, Imitaca and the Delta to fight the destruction that multinational corporations carry out! Those of us who will take control of our own lives! Those of us who will take the golf courses of the Country Club and sow fields of yucca for all the children of the Pachamama! Those of us who, at last, will re-take the COLONial borders to abolish them forever and begin the continental rebellion, from Alaska to Patagonia and to the very last corner of this world that rises!

LONG LIVE THE FUTURE FRONT OF PACHAMERIKAN LIBERATION, THAT WHEN THE COLUMBUSES OF TODAY LEAST EXPECT, WILL RE-TAKE THIS CONTINENT BY ASSAULT!

FREE THE IMPRISONED COMRADES, OR JAIL TO ALL OF US REBELS OF THESE LANDS! NOW!


NOTE FOR COMRADE CHAVEZ:

Comrade Chávez, we would not be as hypocritical as to thank you for your words, since they are sadly unjust and of a rather inaccurate historical analysis (that of the extreme-left, Allende and us). If it is true that there are leaders that, as you say, manipulate us, please tell us where they are because we have not found them. In terms of your insinuation of CIA-infiltration in our rebel ranks, please have the mercy of passing us the intelligence information so we may turn them into frogs or statues. But regardless of the tone and fury of your verb, we thank you for having collaborated with our main objective: to recognize the impossibility of a unique, individual responsibility for the toppling of the statue, and to facilitate, through your accusations, the collective responsibility of the action. At any rate, your comments serve us to reiterate our main demand: that a collective trial is opened, in liberty, to all of us who assume the co-responsibility of this action in the documents “We Are Responsible”, and in denouncing the fact that the three comrades in jail are being used as scape-goats. This would permit us to quickly re-open the trial started 400 years ago by Bartolomé de las Casas against the Conquest murderers and takes us to our times with the demand for the payment of the historic debt that the Imperial European States have with our people. If we turn out to be guilty of something, in any case, it would be of having opened the historic debate that still lives in the lands of the Abya Yala (“America” in tongue of the native Cunas) and in the skin of all the children of the Pachamama.

The only thing that we would add—and count on this, Mr. President—is that this trial will not only carry us backwards in our sorrows, but will serve to reveal our present struggles, particularly in the accusation of the cave of rascals and merchants of goods and contracts that have COLONized your government and are about to even rob you the richness of your word in exchange for mirrors and mirages of “revolution”. Let this serve as an opportunity to see if you can leave aside your arrogance and realize the political filth that a self-appointed leadership has imposed on us and will soon control, for their own benefit and pleasure, no less than 80% of the local and national budgets.

Finally, even if it bothers you or the court of traitors you have around, we continue supporting and defending you as a leader of OUR Revolution, that of all the Bolivarian people. But you must choose sides, Mr. President: decide whether you are on the side of those who will not think twice before selling you if you become a real threat to the Empire, or with us that will defend you with our lives if it is necessary, as long as you are serving the interests of the people.

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE OF PACHAMERIKA AND LET THE SPRING BRING WITH ITS FLOWERS THE INFINITE SPIRAL OF THE PACHAMAMA.

PD: We invite you, Hugo, to come along with this band of young rebels to knock down all the other statues that we mentioned. We hope that you don’t lose your youth and that you are not manipulated by the old walls of your palace.

The next statues to knock down:
- The bureaucratic, corrupt, and parallel State that has grown again in PDVSA.
- The thieves of public finances cloistered in the Central Bank.
- The lords of the regional corporations and their plans of predatory destruction and piracy.
- Those who have given impunity to the murderers of more than 90 peasant leaders, to “government-topplers” and corrupt officers.
- The corrupt ministers traffickers of chicken, weapons, agrochemical supplies and pharmaceuticals.
- The contracts with Microsoft, Texaco, Repsol and the construction of Puertoamérica.
- Etc, etc... and let’s not forget those who want to finalize the COLONization of our Revolution.

LONG LIVE THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION!
LIBERTY FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL PRISONERS!
UNTIL VICTORY ALWAYS!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

SIGNS: “A So-Called Front of Pachamerikan Liberation”
 pachamerica@calleymedia.org

more information at:
 http://www.aporrea.org