[Marxism] Gloria La Riva on the assassination of Raul Reyes

[Eli Stephens <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8593

Colombian government assassinates Raúl Reyes
Saturday, March 1, 2008
By: Gloria La Riva

Extermination campaign against FARC grows

The Colombian military brutally bombarded an encampment of the Revolutionary 
Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) inside Ecuador on March 1. The 
attack took the lives of the FARC’s number two commander, Raúl Reyes, and 16 
other guerrillas.

Noted FARC leader Julián Conrado, member of the insurgent army’s general 
command, was also killed in the attack. The U.S. Department of State had 
recently posted a $2.5 million bounty on Conrado, 53, whose actual name was 
Guillermo Enrique Torres.

Reyes, 60, was the FARC’s actual ground commander and chief negotiator in the 
talks with the Andrés Pastrana government between 1998 and 2002. Reyes’ real 
name was Luis Edgar Devia Silva.

The encampment was one mile inside Ecuador’s border, just south of the Putumayo 
River near Santa Rosa. To justify its invasion of that country, Colombia’s 
right-wing president Álvaro Uribe claims that its military bombarded from 
within 
Colombia’s airspace.

But in a contrary statement, Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s defense minister, 
stated that the planes bombed the camp from a position two kilometers—over 1.2 
miles—inside Ecuador. He also admitted that Colombian troops entered Ecuador to 
sequester the bodies of Reyes and Conrado and take them to Colombia to prevent 
their recovery by the FARC.

According to Santos, the massive mobilization of Colombian troops in that area 
began on Feb. 28, after an informant betrayed the FARC’s location. Santos 
boasted that U.S. satellite surveillance was instrumental in finding the exact 
location of the FARC encampment through its interception of a telephone call.

Uribe notified Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa only after the attack. Correa 
has ordered an investigation into the bombardment, and reiterated the call for 
peace negotiations.

Despite numerous offers by Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez and other 
international leaders to help negotiate a peace settlement of the 60-year-old 
Colombian conflict, the right-wing, pro-U.S. Uribe has responded by calling for 
the FARC’s extermination.

The assassination of the FARC combatants came only days after the FARC’s second 
unilateral release of prisoners of war facilitated by Chávez’s government . The 
four high-profile prisoners immediately joined international calls for a 
political solution to the conflict, just days before the bombardment.

Washington, Bogotá reject political solution

The blatant aggression has even elicited criticism from Colombia’s allies. 
Referring to the FARC’s prisoner releases, France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy 
said Colombia’s military action took place "at a crucial moment in which 
everything should be done to support the positive dynamic that was activated 
with the unilateral liberation of several hostages."

Uribe has refused any meaningful proposals by the insurgent army to carry out a 
humanitarian exchange of prisoners held by both sides. In particular, he 
rejects 
the call for demilitarizing two territories—Pradera and La Florida—for a period 
of 45 days, in order to facilitate the exchange of prisoners.

"I publicly challenge President Álvaro Uribe to demonstrate the success of his 
policy of democratic security and clear the military from the municipalities of 
Pradera and Florida," said Luis Eladio Pérez, one of the four former Colombian 
legislators just released by the FARC. "The solution is political, Mr. 
President 
Uribe," Pérez added.

There is good reason for the FARC’s demilitarization demand: During the 
previous 
FARC’s unilateral liberation of former members of Congress—among them Clara 
Rojas—the Colombian military bombarded the route of the FARC release, almost 
killing the hostages as well as FARC soldiers.

It is clear that the U.S. government’s intent is to continue hunting down FARC 
combatants using Colombia’s military as a proxy. Colombia’s efforts to 
exterminate the guerrilla army are fully under Washington’s direction, aided by 
Plan Colombia’s multi-billion-dollar counter-insurgency program funded by the 
United States.

A political solution that might require any compromise on their part is not in 
the interest of the Colombian and U.S. governments. The assassination of the 
FARC leaders was unambiguously intended to decisively derail the mediation 
efforts led by Venezuela once and for all.

In an interview to Kaosenlared.net completed just two days before his death, 
Commander Reyes said, "In Latin America we see a positive turn towards the 
revolutionary left with the leadership of governments that are 
anti-imperialist, 
progressive, independent, Bolivarian, moving towards socialism, and whose 
commitment is to fulfill the mandate of the Liberator (Simón Bolivar), that of 
attaining the greatest happiness for their peoples.

"Colombia will not be the exception. As Bolivarians who are in the midst of 
conflict with an ultra-right, fascist and paramilitary government, we are 
proceeding along the same road. Nothing and nobody will impede that."

Raúl Reyes, presente!


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