Plan
Colombia
II:
Latin
American
Hard
Left
Targets
Plan
Colombia,
El
Salvador
Conference
Draws
Hundreds
from
Throughout
the
Hemisphere
7/27/01
The three-day First International Conference of Solidarity and for Peace in Colombia and Latin America held in San Salvador last weekend saw leftist and nationalist forces from across the region gather to devise strategies to defeat US policy in Colombia and offer political support to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). The FARC, the largest and longest-lived guerrilla movement in the country, is squarely in the bull's eye of US policy in Colombia. FARC, in the form of members of its "international commission," was in the house, as were numerous well-connected sympathizers. El Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), the one-time guerrilla army turned parliamentary political party, hosted the event and provided a strong local presence. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas, who stand poised to win presidential elections in that country later this year, sent a delegation of Sandinista Youth. A caravan from Mexico brought busloads of activists, some connected to the Mexican Workers' Party, some affiliated with pro-Zapatista struggles. Various communist parties from Latin America and Spain also attended, as did a surprising number of "Bolivarians," or persons interested in unifying Latin America to confront the colossus of the north. The term comes from Simon Bolivar, the "Great Liberator," who dreamt of a unified continent, and is currently embodied in the person of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was widely and vocally admired at the conference. Also present were North American and European academics, as well as sympathizers ranging from freelance Canadian communists to Ramsey Clark's International Action Center and pro-left groups such as the Colombia Action Network, the Committee for a New Colombia and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). The "peace movement" was not present, which is not surprising because, at root, the conference was not about "peace," but about defeating Plan Colombia and the larger US pretensions toward regional and global domination, and winning either an outright victory or a negotiated settlement for the FARC. Peace movement-aligned organizations opposing Plan Colombia, such as the Colombia Support Network, were not in attendance. [DRCNet was present as an observer and to advocate that Latin America activists embrace ending drug prohibition as one of their goals, as well as to support calls for an end to Plan Colombia -- wherever they may come from.] Natasha Alsop, a twenty-something with blue dyed hair from San Francisco, attended as part of a delegation from the West Coast's Committee for a New Colombia. "We came to meet Latin American activists and people from Colombia, so that we can better inform people in the US about what is going on," she told DRCNet. "Almost everyone back home is shocked that we support the struggle in Colombia. They don't understand Colombia, they don't understand the role of the paramilitaries, they don't understand the extent of US involvement, and they think it is just one big chaotic mess," she continued. "People don't make the connections between the war on drugs at home and what the US is doing in Colombia. Personally, I believe the war on drugs is a pretext for US military and police actions. We are here to make those connections." Although the conference was endorsed by a number of US and Latin American luminaries, few actually attended the event. Among the prominent endorsers listed by event organizers were North American professors Noam Chomsky, Heinz Dieterich and James Petras, Nobel Peace Prize winners Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala) and Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina), Nobel Literature Prize winner Jose Saramago (Portugal) and former presidents of Ecuador and Costa Rica. The US government was not amused. In the run-up to the conference, the US embassy took pains to announce that El Salvador would get $3 million in anti-drug aid, thus ensuring that the government of President Francisco Flores would fall into line. ("$3 million is a pretty cheap price for a vendepatria [person who sells out his country]," a San Salvador taxi driver and FMLN voter told DRCNet.) The embassy also arranged a telephonic news conference with US Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson to feed the US line to the local press. The pro-government local newspaper Diario de Hoy promptly responded with a propaganda exercise masked as a news story; its headline read: "Plan Colombia Will Help Lower the Drug Traffic, Central America Will Benefit Because It Will No Longer Be Used as a Bridge by Drug Traffickers." But the embassy went further than merely waging a war of words. According to conference organizer Hector Acevedo, head of the FMLN's International Affairs Commission, the embassy contacted the FMLN directly and urged it to back away from the conference. "This is just another example of the US desire to intervene in the internal affairs of our country," he told DRCNet. And although he declined to draw an explicit connection with the US interference, Acevedo mentioned that, after the embassy's offensive, the University of El Salvador, which had agreed to host the conference, suddenly announced it had no space available to do so. The last-minute change of heart by the university left organizers scrambling and delegates wandering across San Salvador in search of the three widely-separated alternative locations for the conference sessions, but failed to stop the conference from happening. "We had 320 delegates from 35 countries," Acevedo told DRCNet. "Nearly half were women, and more than 70% were under age 30," he added. "We lived through the US military intervention in our country, and we cannot support doing that to the people of another country. We must strengthen the forces of peace and justice so that other countries do not suffer through what we did." (El Salvador lost close to 100,000 dead in a 12-year civil war between the FMLN and the Salvadoran elite and its military allies, sponsored by the US government to the tune of $4 billion.) "We have two objectives here," said Acevedo. "First, we want to raise Plan Colombia to a prominent place in the national and international debate, and second, we want to make initiatives to find a negotiated peace settlement in Colombia." The conference's first session was largely ceremonial, as ringing denunciations of US imperialism alternated with revolutionary Salvadoran rock bands and revered "new song" (folk protest music) luminaries, such as Uruguay's Daniel Viglietti. With Sandinista, FMLN, FARC and Che Guevara flags flying, enthusiastic delegates cheered and chanted their approval of the revolutionary struggle in Colombia and around the continent. On days two and three of the conference, things got down to business as delegates broke up into work groups around issues including the effects of Plan Colombia on regional stability, the economy, the environment, popular struggles and military institutions. Unsurprisingly given the makeup of the delegations, all of the work groups arrived at resolutions harshly critical of US policy and global capitalism. For FARC supporters, it was all good. "Pedro," a Canadian resident who would not allow himself to be identified any further, told DRCNet the gathering was very important for the movement. "This is the first international gathering of various groups with common interests around Colombia," he said. "The vigor and popularity of the continental fight against imperialism is what defines us. The question of Colombia is on everyone's mind, and there is much disinformation and misinformation. They say we are narco-guerrillas, that we mistreat the indigenous people, that we are human rights violators. But the Colombian struggle is a national struggle and all races, creeds, and colors participate." When questioned about a recent Human Rights Watch report critical of human rights violations by the FARC, Pedro lashed out. "Human Rights Watch is carrying water for the CIA and interfering in our internal affairs," he said. "They took the line that the FARC should not have the demilitarized zone, and they say that instead of popular tribunals we should let the Colombian state handle matters of popular justice. Hah!" But he also took pains to declare: "I support efforts to prevent human rights violations, although I believe the notion needs to be rethought. Human rights should include the right to food, to shelter, to live in peace." As for claims that the FARC are drug traffickers, "those people must be on drugs," said Pedro. Pedro's position was typical of many delegates when it came to the drug issue. The drug trade was universally viewed as a pretext for US intervention and a problem for the consuming countries of the North. And while DRCNet intended only to cover the conference, not actively participate, we could not stand by silently when speakers began to try to push the blame for the drug trade onto Northern drug consumers. With some hastily scribbled notes in hand, DRCNet's Phillip Smith asked for and received permission to address the delegates. "We come because we stand alongside you in opposition to Plan Colombia," he told the crowd. "But we are here also because our opposition to Plan Colombia is rooted not only in the search for freedom, self-determination, and social justice, but also with the understanding that drug prohibition is a pretext. It is a pretext for intervention not only against the coca farmers of Colombia or the marijuana farmers of Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Canada, the US, and all the other countries of the world, but also against the colonized minority populations of the United States," he said. "There is war in Colombia, there is war in Mexico, but there is also war in the big cities of the United States. Just as your sovereignty and self-determination are under attack in Latin America, so our freedoms in the US are under attack." "We ask that you not see drug consumers as the enemy," he continued. "We share the same enemy. We ask that you consider an end to drug prohibition as a means of ending the war against Colombia and the war waged against the people of the United States by their own government. We understand that this idea may be new and strange, but we ask you to consider it." Audience reaction was mixed. Loud applause broke out at several points, especially during the list of marijuana-producing countries, when several students in the audience began waving lit cigarette lighters above their heads as if at a rock concert, but some older members of the crowd appeared noticeably unimpressed by the prospect of any budding alliances, tactical of otherwise, with the drug culture of the North. For US observers, the conference was a bracing reminder that whatever the reigning ideology of the day in the United States, the traditions of socialism and Latin American nationalism remain strong, even mainstream. "Imperialism" may be a quaint and faintly ridiculous sounding term in the context of US politics, but it remains a defining principle for many around the world living under policies created in Washington, DC.
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