By Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores – Colombia
There is a Marxist maxim that says: “Existence determines consciousness”. This is what has happened to most of the insurgent organizations, their way of life has changed course.
At the root of the current crisis in Catatumbo, which has already claimed the lives of at least 80 people and displaced more than 30,000, we can identify three main problems.
The first is the more general structural factor, in which territories forgotten by the state, rich in natural resources, resist the plunder and pillage of imperialist capitalism in all its forms, with highly vulnerable communities; here the main culprits are the capitalist system and all previous governments.
The second is the failure of the guerrilla strategy, which, faced with the impossibility of taking power and the increasing isolation from the mass struggle, ends up in these local power struggles and with increasingly questionable forms of financing and methods.
The third reason is the failure of Petro’s proposal for total peace, which simplistically tried to negotiate with everyone at the same time, lumping together rebels, paramilitaries and criminal gangs.
This distinction is crucial because the treatment of each group and the expectations of each group in the negotiations were very different. Just because criminal organizations are often political, or insurgent organizations are often criminal, doesn’t mean they are the same and that’s it. We in the PST have criticized this proposal for “total peace” from the beginning, pointing out its limitations and the concern that what is happening now is exactly what was bound to happen.
The enemies of peace in Colombia are not only the lack of will on the part of the various actors, which may be the case, but also the structural contradictions that are expressed in the distribution of land and the lack of a democratic and radical agrarian reform. These contradictions are also found in the abandonment of many territories by the state, and in the deep-rooted problem of drug trafficking and the way in which this phenomenon is dealt with.
Colombia currently occupies a subordinate place in the global value chain, where we are relegated to the extraction of raw materials and agribusiness. The search for peace, in the sense of pacifying the territories for the benefit of these legal or illegal businesses, will naturally encounter resistance from the communities and also the problem of armed groups fighting for territorial control. After what happened with the FARC, it makes no sense to think that other groups will surrender in a similar way.
The failure of the guerrilla strategy has given way to new forms of conflict, in which territorial control and the exercise of local power are predominant. These are contexts in which there are several armed groups competing for this power, whose strategy is not to challenge and confront the state and capital, or even to confront the political regime installed decades ago, dominated by the power of landowners, ranchers, drug traffickers and businessmen, which marks the origin of the peasant guerrilla resistance. Or in the case of the paramilitaries, these are part of the political regime itself, which were created as an illegal institution under conservative and Uribist governments.
In this context, the peasantry survives by growing coca leaves, legal and illegal mining, and even by enlisting in armed groups. The armed groups control the economy and the strategic corridors for their trade, but they also replace the administrative functions of the state. In other words, there is a systemic relationship between the communities and these groups; people live from the same business while suffering from the dictates of these groups, from extortion and, in some cases, forced recruitment. You can’t just come from Bogotá and pretend not to be aware of these realities.
No to the state of “internal unrest”, Petro has chosen the wrong path
Petro is lurching from one side to the other. He is struggling to obtain the peace with all armed groupd he promised to achieve in three months, peace in three months, thinking that with the goodwill of the government, without structural changes and hand in hand with the bourgeois power, peace could be made. Now, when his strategy is showing its limits and the reality of the situation has become clear, he has chosen to respond like any president of any bourgeois state: resorting to emergency measures and to what basically amounts to an army and military takeover of the territory. This is a big mistake in our opinion. It is not a question of whether armed groups deserve to be fought for their crimes or not, or whether soldiers carry ammunition as well as aid kits for the displaced. The point is that in the long run this measure is as useless as it is counterproductive.
The presence of the state that is demanded in forgotten areas like Catatumbo does not refer to a military presence, but to actions that seek the well-being of the communities.
By militarizing Catatumbo, it is possible that the armed groups will retreat due to numerical superiority, but this will only be temporary because none of the structural contradictions will be resolved.
In addition to not really solving the problem, what Petro is doing is continuing to legitimize the bourgeois state and its army; cleaning up the image of the same armed forces responsible for 6,402 false positives and the crimes of the escombrera: the Cuchas were right, the army cannot be trusted. Today Petro may be the commander in chief, tomorrow we don’t know. To call on the communities to trust the state and the military is and always will be a grave mistake.
For the communities, an army occupation, even if it is a legal group, means adding another armed group on the ground. In addition, this is a group that also has a criminal record, and therefore it is basically adding fuel to the fire.
The narrative that the ELN, dissidents and paramilitaries are the same thing, “narcoterrorists,” is not helpful either, as this narrative aligns with the discourses of right-wing governments. It is necessary to take each organization seriously and to resume the path of a political solution to the conflict as soon as possible.
The first strategy failed. Instead, Petro chose the belligerent path, which is now being applauded by those who have been calling for peace for years. He must learn from his mistakes and insist more than ever on a negotiated settlement.
In the immediate term, it is necessary to protect the social leaders and the population. It is also important to allocate the necessary budget and personnel to deal with the humanitarian emergency that has been unleashed. Also, it is necessary to call on all groups to cease fire and find a way to resume negotiations.
Appeal to the rebel organizations
We want to make a fraternal and direct appeal to the organizations that consider themselves to be insurgents or belligerents. They should immediately abandon methods that have nothing to do with the workers’ and peasants’ struggle, respect the minimum rules of war, which means respecting the lives of unarmed villagers and unarmed people, and stop armed actions inside villages or hamlets. It is not enough to claim that these people have rearmed or belong to an opposing armed group, the political and human cost of such actions is unacceptable.
Since you claim to be revolutionary organizations and in favor of the people, you must recognize the failure of elevating guerrilla tactics to strategy; you must renounce them. The defeat of the guerrilla struggle and its isolation from the mass struggle is obvious even to you. We are not proposing surrender, much less handing over arms to the bourgeoisie. We propose that you continue the political struggle patiently, on the side of the communities, the workers and the people, and that you use arms only in legitimate self-defense.
Your way out is to negotiate a truce, a peace without handing over the weapons you need to defend yourselves and avoid being massacred, as happened to the FARC, and to engage in politics without them. They should also leave behind the businesses that distort the revolutionary morality, such as drug trafficking, which will end up degrading them more and more.
The communities must be given the right to democratically determine their own destiny by discussing and organizing themselves in assemblies; we must trust in grassroots and popular power.
Legalization of crops and democratic and radical agrarian reform
In order to put an end to drug trafficking and all the criminal consequences of this business, it is necessary to legalize it. It is wrong-headed to continue to increase its profitability through prohibition and allowing imperialism to use it as a pretext for political and military intervention.
We call for state presence with health, education, production and public services, land for the peasants and territories for the indigenous peoples.
It will also be necessary to fully commit to a democratic and radical agrarian reform that will expropriate the dispossessors of the peasants and indigenous peoples.
We call for the expulsion of the multinationals from the territory and nationalization of the natural resources under the control of the workers and communities.
We demand the mmediate protection of social leaders and grassroots community assemblies to determine how to continue and advance on the path to true peace.
To achieve these measures, we propose a mass mobilization led by the people of Catatumbo, independent of any group, demanding a ceasefire and rejecting the state of internal turmoil in which Petro has placed the region, and demanding fundamental changes and transformations.
Signed by the Executive Committee – Socialist Workers Party
January 24, 2025
