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I
basically drew these data from statements made by William
Brownfield, US ambassador to Colombia, from that country’s
press and television, from the international press, and
other sources. It’s impressive the show of technology and
economic resources at play.
While in Colombia the senior military officers went
to great pains to explain that Ingrid Betancourt’s rescue
had been an entirely Colombian operation, the US authorities
were saying that “it was the result of years of intense
military cooperation of the Colombian and United States’
armies.”
“’The truth is that we have been able to get along
as we seldom have in the United States, except with our
oldest allies, mostly in NATO,’ said Brownfield, referring
to his country’s relationships with the Colombian security
forces, which have received over 4 billion USD in military
assistance since the year 2000.”
“…on various occasions it became necessary for the
US Administration to make decisions at the top levels
concerning this operation.
“The US spy satellites helped in locating the
hostages during a month period starting on May 31st
until the rescue action on Wednesday.”
“The Colombians installed video surveillance
equipment, supplied by the United States. Operated by remote
control, these can take close-ups and pan along the rivers
which are the only transportation routes through thick
forests, said the Colombian and US authorities.”
“US surveillance aircraft intercepted the rebels’
radio and satellite phone talks and used imaging equipment
that can break through the forest foliage.”
“’The defector will receive a considerable sum of
the close to one- hundred-million-dollars reward offered by
the government’, stated the Commander General of the
Colombian Army.”
On Wednesday, July 1st, the London BBC
reported that Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, press secretary at
Casa de Nariño (Colombian Government House) had informed
that delegates from France and Switzerland had met with
Alfonso Cano, chief of the FARC.
According to the BBC, that would be the first
contact with international delegates accepted by the new
chief after the death of Manuel Marulanda. The false
information of the meeting of two European envoys with Cano
had been released in Bogota.
The deceased leader of the FARC had been born on
May 12, 1932, according to his father’s testimony. Marulanda,
a poor peasant with a liberal thinking and a Gaitan
follower, had started his armed resistance 60 years back. He
was a guerrilla before us; he had reacted to the carnage of
peasants carried out by the oligarchy.
The Communist Party he later joined, the same as
every other in Latin America, was under the influence of the
Communist Party of the USSR and not of Cuba. They were in
solidarity with our Revolution but they were not
subordinated to it.
It was the drug-traffickers and not the FARC that
unleashed terror in that sister nation as part of their
feuds over the United States market. They caused powerful
bomb blasts and even blew up trucks loaded with plastic
explosives destroying facilities and injuring or killing
countless people.
The Colombian Communist Party never contemplated
the idea of conquering power through the armed struggle. The
guerrilla was a resistance front and not the basic
instrument to conquer revolutionary power, as it had been
the case in Cuba. In 1993, at the 8th FARC
Conference, they decided to break ranks with the Communist
Party. Its leader, Manuel Marulanda, took over the
leadership of that Party’s guerrillas which had always
excelled in their narrow sectarianism when admitting
combatants as well as in their strong and compartmented
commanding methods.
Marulanda, a man with a remarkable natural talent
and a leader’s gift, did not have the opportunity to study
when he was young. It is said that he had only completed the
5th grade of grammar school. He conceived a long
and extended struggle; I disagreed with this point of view.
But, I never had the chance to talk with him.
The FARC became considerable strong with over 10
thousand combatants. Many had been born during the war and
had known nothing else. Other leftist organizations rivaled
the FARC in the struggle. By then the Colombian territory
had become the largest source of cocaine production in the
world. Then, extreme violence, kidnappings, taxes and
demands from the drug producers became widespread.
The paramilitary forces, armed by the oligarchy,
drew basically from the great amount of men enlisted in the
country’s armed forces who were discharged from duty every
year without a secure job. These created in Colombia a very
complex situation with only one way out: real peace, albeit
remote and difficult as many other goals Humanity have set
itself. This is the option that, for three decades, Cuba has
advocated for that nation.
While our journalists meeting in their 8th
Congress debated on the new technologies of information, the
principles and ethic of social communicators, I meditated on
the abovementioned developments.
I have expressed, very clearly, our position in
favor of peace in Colombia; but, we are neither in favor of
foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force
that the United States intends to impose at all costs on
that long-suffering and industrious people.
I have honestly and strongly criticized the
objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining
prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not
suggesting that anyone laid down their arms, when everyone
who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see
peace. If I dared suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas
that would simply be that they declare, by any means
possible to the International Red Cross, their willingness
to release the hostages and prisoners they are still
holding, without any precondition. I do not intend to be
heard; it is simply my duty to say what I think. Anything
else would only serve to reward disloyalty and treason.
I will never support the pax romana that the
empire tries to impose on Latin America.
Fidel
Castro Ruz
July 5,
2008
8:12
p.m. |
