HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2001 4:17 PM Subject: THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA - PEOPLE'S ARMYFARC-EP
THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA - PEOPLE'S ARMY
FARC-EP
SECRETARIAT OF THE CENTRAL GENERAL STAFF NEW YEARS MESSAGE We greet the Colombian people in the midst of the paralysis of the
Dialogue and Negotiation Process
caused by the conditions imposed
by the President in his October
7th statement on the occasion of
the extension of the demilitarized
zone, two days after the
signing
of the San Francisco de la Sombra
Accord.
The results produced after three years of joint efforts are not
what the immense majority of
Colombian hoped for, fundamentally
due to the regime's lack of
political will to undertake the
structural changes Colombia
requires for solution of the
social and armed conflict.
On the contrary, through the information
media the enemies of peace are
mounting
a morbid campaign, the aim of which
is to disparage the FARC-EP making
use of the drama of a sick
child
whose father would have returned
home if the government had accepted
our proposal of a humanitarian
exchange for the guerrilla prisoner
Ignacio Gonzalez Perdomo, who
suffers
from a painful illness. On the other
hand they say nothing about the
situation of state abandonment of
300,000 Colombian children
suffering
grave illnesses.
Paramilitarism, the expression of state terrorism against the people
continues dominating cities and
areas of the countryside, leaving
in its wake a toll of cadavers,
hundreds of thousands of displaced
persons and the economic ruin of
the regions, in the midst of total
impunity.
Meanwhile, the intellectual, material and financial authors of this form of dirty war
are in power and in the bases of the armed
forces of the state.
The economic crisis is sharpening due to the impositions of the
International Monetary Fund, which
are keeping the country in its most
severe recession of recent decades.
As a consequence of this, three and
one half million Colombians do not
have work; five and one half million
more subsist on the informal economy
and gleaning; we, the poor of Colombia,
now number twenty five million.
Of these, eight million live in absolute
poverty. The circumstances in Ecuador,
Peru, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil present
a similar panorama, countries that do
not have guerrilla movements to be blamed
for every evil in order to hide the
real
causes of the crisis generated by
the
economic system. Argentina is the most
recent example where the people have
now risen up in rebellion against their
rulers, causing the fall of President
Fernando de la Rua.
Due to the imposition of U.S. interests, the Colombian state is carrying on a
chemical and biological war against
the plantings of coca and opium
poppies,
ignoring the socio-economic problems of
the campesino cultivators. A real
agrarian reform that involves manual
eradication together with social investment,
in agreement with the communities and not
via repression, is the path to the solution
of the problem of theillegal crops, as was
stated in the Accord of Los Pozos signed by
President Pastrana and Commandant Marulanda.
The so-called "Plan Colombia" is the military
instrument of the imperialist economic
annexation scheme known as the FTAA (Free
Trade Area of the Americas).
Our attention is drawn by the silence of the presidential candidates who, in the
face of the large and profound economic,
social and political problems affecting
Colombians, present themselves bereft of
proposals and programmes that go to the
root causes of this grave situation.
Likewise, the electoral campaign is
proceeding without guarantees of
rights for the democratic opposition
and alternative movements.
Before the Colombian people the FARC-EP affirm their will to continue
contributing initiatives to free the
Dialogues of obstacles. The proposed
meeting next January 15 with the
presidents of the three powers of
state and other representatives of
the establishment so they explain
what it is they are ready to negotiate
in favour of peace with social justice
and sovereignty, is such an initiative.
On the occasion of the New Year, we
call upon the Colombian people to
organize and fight in co-ordination
to win decent conditions of life and
work and achieve the objective of a
Government of National Reconciliation
and Reconstruction that would implement
the Ten Point Programme of Government
contained in the Political Platform
of the FARC-EP.
CENTRAL GENERAL STAFF REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA - PEOPLE'S ARMY
FARC-EP Mountains of Colombia, December 27, 2001 ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://TOPICA.COM/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
