Cordoba asks FARC, ELN to take part in correspondence

[gbscar]

Cordoba asks FARC, ELN to take part in correspondence
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 19:28

Adriaan Alsema

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Cordoba did so in an open letter to the ELN, the smallest of the two insurgent groups, and against the apparent will of President Juan Manuel Santos, who recently said that nobody is authorized by the Colombian government to negotiate peace with the rebel groups that are determined terrorist by both the U.S. and Europe.

However, according to Cordoba, "we believe that from now on it is very important to include in this exchange of letters the issue of the necessity of one single table of talks and negotiation for one single and national peace process."

The former senator wrote the ELN that "given that in recent communications with you and the secretariat of the FARC-EP we have seen a total match in the approach to the dialogues and the appropriate way towards a political solution of the social and armed conflict."

<...>

The former senator proposed the illegal armed groups continue the correspondence "while the government of President Santos takes the decision to establish broader talks, which one suppose is what both parties want."

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http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18375-cordoba-asks-farc-eln-to-jointly-take-part-in-correspondence.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Even Ireland's 500 year civil war with England was not so difficult to end, as this one is.

And, to our disgrace--to the disgrace of the U.S.--our government and our taxes have played a huge role in stoking Colombia's 70 year civil war and preventing peace. With U.S. government support--including $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid, and with U.S. military boots on the ground allegedly only providing "training" and "technical assistance"--the rightwing government of Alvaro Uribe and the Colombia military were murdering thousands of trade unionists, teachers, community activists, human rights workers, Indigenous leaders, peasant farmer leaders and other advocates of the poor, were driving 5 MILLION peasant farmers from their lands and were conducting a reign of terror against anyone perceived as an "enemy" of the rich and the rightwing. They also, in my opinion, entirely flipped the purpose of the U.S. "war on drugs" around into expansion, consolidation and protection of the big cocaine operations and control of that trillion+ dollar revenue stream. With Bush Junta support, basically the Mob was running Colombia, and using all the powers of government--including vast illegal domestic spying (even spying on judges and prosecutors!) to develop "hit lists" for death threats and murders--to expand and protect its criminal network.

This is not just a rich vs. poor conflict or a blood feud. It is horribly complicated by U.S. war profiteers, by U.S. war planning (against Colombia's oil rich neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador, in particular), by U.S. sabotage of peace efforts (f.i., the 2008 U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador), by U.S. black ops (f.i., the "miracle laptop"--a Rumsfeldian invention of "evidence" that Venezuela's and Ecuador's presidents are "terrorist lovers"); by U.S. corporate interests (f.i., Chiquita and Drummond Coal both using rightwing death squads to solve their "labor problems"), by the vast, lucrative, illicit cocaine economy, and by a coalition of interests in perpetuating the cocaine economy, including the evil intent of our own gangster government, the Bush Junta, to profit from it.

And, in addition to all of this, the rightwing in Colombia has a history of slaughtering leftist guerillas after they disarm.

HOW do you solve this? HOW do you get to peace, from this?

Piedad Cordoba is one of the most courageous and amazing leaders of our era. She is comparable to Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Evo Morales in Bolivia, who also faced impossible odds against peace.

I hope and pray that her efforts, and those of many others within Colombia and in the region, will succeed. One circumstance that has changed dramatically over the last decade is the election of governments all around Colombia that have an interest in peace as the foundation of Latin American unity, prosperity and social justice. Santos' very first action as president--after Uribe--was to make peace with Venezuela (Uribe was/is a warmonger). He seems interested in "south-south" trade and in joining the new Latin American consensus, forged by the many new leftist governments in Latin America, regarding regional cooperation and trade across the "global south." It is very much in Colombia's interest to work cooperatively with the rest of the continent. Santos seems to be a genuine Colombian leader, in this respect--as opposed to Uribe, a fake leader, a Bush Junta tool and front for the Mob. (Neither one was elected in a fair and democratic process, with the dead bodies of the poor and their advocates strewn all over Colombia's bloody landscape--but Santos at least seems to be acting in Colombia's interest and doesn't seem to be a mobster). Peace within Colombia thus has a better chance now than at any time in recent decades. But the obstacles to peace in Colombia are very great--and the far rightwing here, that has taken over Congress, with its Miami mafia contingent, and that could easily--easily!--be Diebolded into the White House next year, is one of them. I shudder to think what Bush Junta II might try to do to Colombia and Latin America. If it is war that they intend--and the Miami mafia reps in Congress have stated that it is--I think they will lose, but they are capable of inflicting untold horror while they do.

[gbscar]

2. As one saying goes: Nothing lasts forever; there's an end to everything.

Hundreds of years ago, nobody would have imagined that Europe itself would eventually unite instead of continuing to tear itself apart, just as its many nationalities and petty kingdoms did for decades and generations.

It definitely seems impossible to tell how soon or how late this tragedy will finally reach a conclusion, but human history is far more dynamic and patient than all of us combined. We might or might not see the end of the Colombian crisis in our lifetime, but humanity most definitely will.

In the meanwhile, one of the things we can do here and now is support the efforts not just of Piedad Córdoba but of all those Colombians who are active in these processes, facing many risks and threats but also deserving the admiration of many voices both inside and outside Colombia who sincerely wish for the possibility of peace and social justice.