This is my response to an article by Haydn Coe on "Colombia is Passion" on which after correctly describing the Uribe regime as an opressive brutal state and the multi billion dollars military involment of Washington in Colombia.

He ended up by effectively calling for a Boycott against the Colombian tourism industry as a means to protest from Europe against the regime and unmasked the fake image of a human rights concerned democracy.

Whereas I share his diagnosis I disagree with his conclusion ans on the following letter set myself to explain why. 

Hi Haydn

Many thanks for sharing your very good
article Colombia is passion with me.

I agree with your diagnosis of the Colombian regime and I appreciate that you are a well informed reader and
commentator.

However, I must clearly let you know that although
I honestly believe your sincere motives, I would not only no support your call for a boycott against the Colombian tourist industry but I would oppose it unconditionally.

We share the same dislike of the Colombian
butcher state but I cant agree with your political conclusion. Fortunately you provide us with the basis of your illusions on your own article.

After correctly describing the murderous
machinery of the Colombian state and the role that US
military aid plays on it you cite human rights concerns: “in relation to serious problems affecting not only human rights and the rule of law, but also U.S. interests in fighting drugs and terror.

It's not true that the murderous campaign of the Colombia
government against union, community, student and peasant leaders represents a concern in so-called: “US interest in fighting drugs and terror”. The killings
that you rightly point out to, the 3 million displaced from the land that you
inform us about; all of this is not a setback of imperialism’s “war on drugs
/terror (or both)” but precisely the carrying out of such a war!

 

You call for a boycott against Colombian
tourist industry because you genuinely have illusions on US and UK
imperialism (whose criminal role you forgot to mention), you honestly believe
there is such a thing as a war on drugs and/or a war on terror being fought by US
imperialism.

 

US and UK military aid to Colombia has got
the same purpose as when they give that kind of “aid”  to any semi-colonial nation, they are simply
looking after imperialism’s interest and the peasants and workers of these
super exploited countries are on the way. The “war on terror” (or drugs take
your pick) is a double edge sword, one edge is to bully terrorise and invade
countries all over the world to bend them to their will; the other edge is the infringement
of democratic rights here on the imperialist heartlands, in democratic UK is
now perfectly legal for the police to throw anyone into a jail without any
explanation legally required, all under the cover of the war on terror.

 

The guys who filled the head of our unarmed
Brazilian brother with bullets in Stockwell Station can now arrest anyone of us
for 28 days if they only wish to do it without any charge being ever levied
against you. And of course we still have the northern part of Ireland where
the occupation forces have for so long gotten away with murder under the shield
of the “war on terror”.

Imperialism is not a force of good that fights
evils like drugs and terror. Imperialism is the main source of terror around
the world, by their centuries long of plundering the world, after daily insults
to the national dignity of Arabs and other oppressed people around the world, with
the historically barbaric treatment of the Palestinians for 6 decades now,
after they massacre of the banana plantation in Colombia (3000 civilians
according to some estimates) where trainloads of corpses where thrown into the Caribbean
sea (Garcia Marques gives an excellent account of this) after the American
company organised the cold-blooded butchery in a football stadium, we can never
accept that any military effort of any
imperialist army can ever be of any good whatsoever to humanity. Certainly
no to that humanity in Latin-American who has suffered imperialism’s boot for
so long.

 

You say:

 

“The U.S. has provided over $ 4 billion in aid to Colombia since
2000, over 80% of it channelled into the military and police. This makes Colombia the biggest recipient of U.S. aid outside the Middle
East. But a government plan intended to launder the criminal
records of paramilitary leaders and drug barons – whilst permitting them to
retain their wealth and power – will represent an enormous setback for human
rights and U.S.
counter narcotics and counter error efforts alike.”

 

You are right, the US heavily contributes to the Colombian murder
machine, but actually the recycling of paramilitary forces doesn’t represent a
setback for US
counter narcotics and counter terror efforts. We already now the their so-called
antiwar and antiterror efforts are only a cover for their real economic and
political interests., is a code name for the war on working people the world
over.

 

This absolving of the murderous right-wing
hordes the successful conclusion of the US
plan on Colombia

Allow me to go back to the roots of the
conflicts, to the origins of the state right wing armies as an extension of the
Colombian state.

The Colombian countryside has suffered this
murderous mob for nearly a century now. Since the 1920’s the state sponsor
death squads on the countryside and used them against workers early attempts to
form industrial unions. It has become a question of life or death for the
Colombian peasant to arm himself against the private armies of the landlords,
many of them also drug barons. Repression has been the traditional mode of
government of the Colombian ruling class, these right-wing paramilitary armies
are just an extension of the repressive machinery of the state (very much like
the British sponsored loyalist in the northern part of Ireland).

 

The terror escalated in the 30’s and blew
into civil war in 1948-53 where 300.000 peasants were slaughtered in what is
known as “la violencia”.

Land in Colombia
remains firmly at the hands of a few landowning families (very much like in the
UK);
this landowning class has not been able to pacify the countryside. The
Colombian peasant is still up in arms; suffer decades of brutal terror (called
“war on drugs/terror…etc,) campaigns against him he is still up in arms.

The right wing hordes have been the illegal
extension of the Colombian armed forces ever since the beginning and the
participation of US and other imperialist powers is quite publicly known and
proven. Israeli imperialism sent his brutal mercenary Yair Kleim to train the
deadly drug baron’s private armies as part of their “war on drugs”! He very
well trained them in massacring sleeping peasants, raping underage girls in the
town square at full daylight and razed villages like the 80’s massacres by Yair
mercenaries.

The main leader of the Colombian paramilitaries
Carlos Castaño (now dead) wrote on his book his deep admiration of the early
Israeli paramilitary terror hordes that bathed in blood Palestinians towns in
1947 in preparation to the mass land thieving that lead to the creation of the
Israeli state.

In both cases the fight is about land and
in both cases the reactionary forces help and admire each other inevitably.

 

But the lack of centralisation and lack of
discipline of these forces was getting on the way of settling down accounts with
the Colombian countryside and finally disarm the Colombian peasant. US
imperialism would very much preferred a purged (or “recycled” like you call it)
paramilitary force that can be better controlled and subordinate to the central
interest of Colombian capitalism.

 

In conclusion the land dispossession of
3.000.000 peasants is no a setback but
rather a triumph of US
imperialist war on terror/drugs!

If we start by having illusions on
imperialism then inevitably we will look to the imperialist governments and
agencies for the solution.

My world perspective leads me to trust the
only social agency capable of change and that in the modern world can only be
the working class.

Were the Colombian trade unions and social
movements be in mass calling for a boycott against the tourist industry I would
be the most excited supporter of such campaign. That will mean that we would be
assisting our Colombian brothers and sisters in their campaign against the Uribe
regime.

 But
to artificially call for a boycott to the tourist industry disregarding
Colombian working people will not only help nothing at all the lot of that
south American nation but what is even worse it will be an obstacle for the
much needed international collaboration between those wanting to make the world
a better place.

 

I very much respect your honesty when you
say that:

 

The “Colombia is Passion” campaign is flawed, favouring
an emphasis on specific locations (eg. Cartagena or the Amazonas regions), or
selling niche products like the “coffee trail.” Jenkins further believes
western tourists should “visit Colombia
and enjoy it”, to assuage their “narco-guilt”.

Perhaps
a better way of atoning for sub conscious guilt is to avoid Colombia
altogether, pending the restoration of democratic principles and recognition of
human rights by the Uribe government.

Perhaps
a better way of atoning for sub conscious guilt is to avoid Colombia altogether, pending the
restoration of democratic principles and recognition of human rights by the
Uribe government.

 

You are right. If we are in the business of
healing “narco-guilt” then perhaps not going to a country is good therapy, not
having any clinical training I’m not prepared to argue against such treatment.
But I’m not in the business of healing any sort of petty-bourgeois prejudice.

 

When we talk about 3.000.000 displaced, scores
of trade unionist and civilian’s murders day in and day out, the most dangerous
place to be a trade unionist in the world, when we talk about these issues
bigger things than narco-guilt are at stake.

We must trust and march together with the
trade union movement and the social movements of Colombia and be ready to support
them on any hypothetical call for a boycott. In fact there is a lot we can
learn from their experiences.

To unilaterally and artificially call for
such boycott from Britain
is a reflection of the pervasive and old-ages instilled consciousness of the
“white man burden”.

 

I look forward to march together with you
in other occasions, perhaps when the call out is something like:

“Stop all UK
and US military aid to Colombia”

“Down with Plan Colombia”

“US out of Guantanamo-Cuba now!”

“Stop US blockade of Cuba”

“Independence
for Puerto Rico now!”

“British Troops out of Ireland now!”

“Imperialist Troops Out of Afghanistan”

“Stop imperialist
harassment of Iran and Korea”           & amp; nbsp;  

“Defend the right
of sovereign nations to develop whatever technology they consider necessary
including nuclear”

“Disarm nuclear
arsenals of UK, France, US
and Israel”

 “Imperialist
troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone”

“Cancel the Third
World Debt”

Send massive, free and unconditional
economic aid to developing nations to help close the breach between rich and
poor.

 

Comradely,
Natan
Es, 26 March 2007

Tags: Colombia

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