An Open Letter to the People and Government of the US (And a Reply to the FARC)

By James Petras
Nov 26, 2006, 13:01
http://www.axisoflo gic.com/artman/ publish/article_ 23465.shtml

On a November 9, 2006, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-
Peoples Army, (FARC-EP) sent an "Open Letter to the People of the
United States". It was specifically addressed to several Hollywood
producers and actors (Michael Moore, Denzel Washington and Oliver
Stone) as well as three leftist academics (James Petras, Noam Chomsky
and Angela Davis) and a progressive politician (Jessie Jackson). The
purpose of the open letter was to solicit our support in facilitating
an agreement between the US and Colombian governments and the FARC-EP
on exchanging 600 imprisoned guerrillas (including 2 on trial in the
US) for 60 rebel-held prisoners including 3 US counter-insurgency
experts.

FARC-EP: Terrorist Band or Resistance Movement?

Contrary to the US government position characterizing the FARC-EP as
a `terrorist organization' , it is the longest standing, largest
peasant-based guerrilla movement in the world today. Founded in 1964
by two dozen peasant activists, as a means for defending autonomous
rural communities from the violent depredations of the Colombian
military and paramilitary, the FARC-EP has grown into a highly
organized 20,000 member guerrilla army with several hundred thousand
local militia and supporters, highly influential in over 40% of the
country. Up until September 11, 2001, the FARC-EP was recognized as
a legitimate resistance movement by most of the countries of the
European Union, Latin America and for several years was in peace
negotiations with the Colombian government headed by President Andrés
Pastrana. Prior to 9/11 FARC leaders met with European heads of
state to exchange ideas on the peace process. Numerous prominent
business leaders from Wall Street, City of London and Bogotá and
notables like Queen Noor of Jordan met with FARC leaders in the
demilitarized zone during the aborted peace negotiations (1999-2002).

Under heavy pressure from the White House, particularly its leading
spokespersons, the right-wing extremists like the notorious Otto
Reich, Roger Noriega and, John Bolton, the Pastrana regime abruptly
broke off negotiations and in less than 24 hours sent the Colombian
Army into the demilitarized area, in an attempt to capture the FARC
leaders engaged in negotiations. The `surprise' attack failed but
did set the stage for the escalation of the conflict.

US Role in Conflict

Beginning with President Clinton in 2000 and continuing with Bush,
the US has poured over $4 Billion dollars in military aid to the
Colombian regime in order to destroy the guerrilla army and its
suspected social base among peasants, urban trade unions and
professionals (especially teachers, lawyers, human rights activists
and intellectuals) . Washington vigorously pushes a military solution
by subverting any peace negotiations, through a substantial number of
military advisers, contracted mercenaries, Drug Enforcement
operatives, CIA agents, Special Forces commandos and a host of other
undercover personnel. Between the early 1980's to the late 1990's,
Washington maintained the fiction that its military programs were
part of an anti-narcotic campaign, though it failed to explain why it
concentrated most of its efforts in FARC-influenced regions and not
in the vast coca-growing areas controlled by the Colombian military
and paramilitary forces. With the launching of Plan Colombia in
2000, Washington explicitly underlined the counter-insurgency nature
of its military aid and presence. Profoundly disturbed by President
Pastana's acceptance of peace negotiations and the advances of the
social and guerrilla movements, Washington backed a rightwing
politician with a history of ties to Colombia's death squads for
President, Álvaro Uribe. His electoral victory inaugurated one of
the bloodiest extermination campaigns in the violent history of
Colombia.

US military officials and their Colombian counterparts funded a
31,000 strong death squad force which ravaged the country, killing
thousands of peasants in regions where the FARC was influential.
Hundreds of trade unionists were assassinated by hired killers
(sicarios) in broad daylight in the towns and cities occupied by the
military. Human rights workers, journalists and academics who dared
to report on the impunity of the military involved in village
massacres were kidnapped, tortured and killed; not infrequently they
were decapitated or disemboweled to sow even greater terror. Over 2
million peasants were forced off their land into squalid urban slums,
their lands seized by prominent paramilitary chiefs or large
landowners. The `class cleansing' of the countryside was right out
of the counter-insurgency manuals of the Pentagon, instructing the
Colombian military to destroy the `social infrastructure' of the
guerrilla movements - especially the FARC which had longstanding and
extensive family, community and social ties with the peasants.

President Uribe embodied the classical authoritarian South American
ruler: At the throat of the poor and on his knees before his
Washington patron. His perpetual large-scale offensive campaigns
decimated the countryside but failed to weaken the guerrillas or even
capture any of the FARC general command. After six years of massive
and costly extermination campaigns, top US and most Colombian
military officials conceded that a military victory over the FARC was
highly improbable. The best that could ensue, military strategists
argued, was a severe weakening of the FARC, forcing them to negotiate
a `peace agreement' favorable to the regime.

Peace Negotiations: A Brief History

During the Presidency of Belisario Betancourt (in the mid 1980's),
the FARC agreed to a cease-fire and many joined the electoral
process. Thousands of guerrillas, their sympathizers and many
independent leftists formed a political party, the Patriotic Union
(Unión Patriótica) and ran candidates at all levels of government.
In less than 5 years, 5000 activists, candidates and elected
officials were murdered by the military and their death squads,
including two presidential candidates, several congresspeople, scores
of mayors, hundreds of city councilors and local party leaders. The
survivors rejoined the guerrillas, fled into exile or went
underground. Contrary to claims by the government, Colombia was not
a `democracy' in the usual sense, but a `death squad democracy' in
which the most elementary conditions for electoral campaigning and
political norms were absent. Less than two decades later, when the
FARC had extended its influence within 40 miles from the capital
Bogotá, the government of Andrés Pastrana agreed to another round
of `peace negotiations' in an extensive demilitarized region under
FARC influence.

While the negotiations proceeded, hundreds of `visitors' from all
sectors of Colombian society as well as foreign political and
business notables participated in public forums. Open debates
organized by the FARC covered fundamental social, economic and
political issues. For the first time in recent memory, issues of
land reform, public investment in job creation programs, foreign
investment and public ownership, economic alternatives to coca
farming, education and health were debated without fear of death
squad reprisals. The image of the FARC as a `militarist narco-
guerrilla force' was challenged; many former hostile observers from
Europe, Latin America and North America, while not necessarily
agreeing with some of the FARC's proposed reforms, nevertheless came
away with the impression that they could be negotiated with and
agreements could be reached to end the civil war.

The radicalization of the Bush regime following September 11, 2001
served as a pretext to force a break in the peace negotiations.

Subsequently with the election of Álvaro Uribe, the FARC was included
in the list of `terrorist' organizations. The European Union, which
had publicly met and consulted with the same FARC leaders, followed
the US lead. Soon afterward, FARC negotiators and international
representatives were arrested in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and
Ecuador. The latter two countries handed FARC representatives over
to the notoriously brutal Colombian political police (DAS). Under
cover of Washington's `War on Terrorism', President Uribe proceeded
to severely repress trade union general strikes and massive rural
protests by the major agricultural organizations against his signing
of a `free trade' agreement with the US.

In the midst of government-sponsore d carnage, the FARC pursued a
strategy of tactical withdrawal to its jungle and mountain
strongholds and issued offers for mutual prisoner release as
a `confidence building' step toward future peace negotiations.

The FARC held over 60 Colombian politicians and military officers
prisoner, including a former presidential candidate, Ingrid
Betancourt and three US self-described `military contractors' engaged
in an intelligence collecting mission. The Colombian government
holds over 600 guerrillas. The US currently holds 2 FARC members.
The FARC proposed a meeting to arrange a prisoner exchange in a
demilitarized zone. The families of the FARC prisoners were
naturally unanimously in favor of the proposal as were most civil
society organizations, humanitarian, church and human rights groups.
The US has opposed any prisoner exchange and Uribe echoed his master,
at least during his first term of office. Their slogan was that
through military action they would liberate the prisoners. No
prisoners have been `liberated' in the past five years. On the
contrary in a recent failed military incursion, 10 prisoners were
killed, including an ex-minister of defense, a governor and 8
military officers. Under enormous pressure from Colombian civil
society, the European Union and most Latin American governments,
President Uribe declared, on his re-election, that he would be
willing to enter negotiations for an exchange. Within a month,
however, he reneged using as a pretext a bomb set off in a military
installation, which he attributed to the FARC despite its denials.
Experts suspect this was a covert operation by Colombia's secret
service to undermine any move toward a prisoner exchange.

Prospects for Peace Negotiations

Outside of Washington and President Uribe's immediate entourage,
everyone agrees that the beginning of any peace process should begin
with confidence building measures, specifically the prisoner exchange.
Immediately complicating those negotiations, the US extradited two
FARC prisoners held by the Colombian government on December 31, 2004
and has confined them to solitary confinement, shackled 23 hours a
day. On October 16, 2006, one of the FARC political prisoners,
Ricardo Palmera - whose better known `nom de guerre' is Simon
Trinidad - was put on trial for `drug trafficking' and `terrorism' as
well as `kidnapping' . This is a classic `political show trial' in
which an illegal seizure, fabricated evidence and prejudicial
judicial procedures have been mounted to secure a guilty verdict.

The most suspicious aspect of this political charade is the
characterization of Trinidad's role in the FARC. He was their
principal peace negotiator, as was evident when he was recognized as
the FARC's principal interlocutor with Colombian President Andrés
Pastrana during the peace negotiations of 1999-2002. There are
numerous photographs, news reports and interviews in the Colombian
and European media of the time clearly identifying Trinidad as a key
peace negotiator. Equally important, Trinidad was the principal FARC
peace intermediary dealing with United Nations Human Rights
representative, James Lemoyne, appointed by the US Government and a
former New York Times journalist based in Latin America.

Recognizing that Trinidad's status as a FARC peace negotiator
concerned mainly with diplomatic missions severely compromised
Washington's case, the Federal prosecutor modified the charges from
direct involvement in the `kidnapping' of three US counter-insurgency
officers held as prisoners of war by the FARC, to `association' with
kidnappers and `conspiracy' to commit the crime of `hostage taking'.
The Federal prosecutor has taken advantage of the language of the new
anti-terrorism legislation passed by Presidents Clinton and Bush to
indict Trinidad. This legal framework has been denounced by all
leading US civil liberties organizations and the American Bar
Association as violating the US Constitution.

The charge of `association' is based on the unsubstantiated charges
that Trinidad `met' with the three US counter-insurgency officers,
subsequent to their capture, an accusation which lacks any concrete
proof - the Prosecution has neither witnesses nor documents of such a
meeting, not does it specify time, date or place of the alleged
meeting. In fact, Trinidad was in another province directing a FARC
educational program at the time. The charge of `conspiracy' is based
on Trinidad's membership in the FARC, which was labeled a `terrorist
organization' by President Clinton in 1997, a characterization which
was rejected by the European Union which played host to a touring
group of FARC leaders and peace negotiators shortly thereafter.
Moreover Colombian President Pastrana, who was engaged in peace
negotiations with the FARC between 1999-2002, rejected the `terrorist
label' considering Trinidad a legitimate interlocutor.

The long political history of the FARC, its historic ties with a
large segment of the Colombian countryside, its political program of
social reforms, its targeted use of force in its conflict with the
armed forces of the Colombian state, its continued pursuit of peace
negotiations based on reforming society and the military are in
strong opposition to any and all definitions of a `terrorist'
organization.

The entire notion of `kidnapping' three US intelligence or military
personnel engaged in a military surveillance operation in a combat
area against an insurgency targeted by the US is absurd. As captured
combatants, they are, by the definition of the Geneva Conventions,
prisoners of war and, as such, subject to possible prisoner of war
exchanges if the warring parties should agree. The Federal
Prosecutor charged that Trinidad was engaged in the prisoner exchange
when he was illegally seized in Ecuador and transferred to Colombia
and later extradited to the US. In court Trinidad rebutted that
allegation by demonstrating that he was in Ecuador to set up a
meeting between Lemoyne and a top guerrilla leader. The prosecution
presented no written or taped evidence linking Trinidad to
any `prisoner exchange'.

The Illegal Seizure and Arrest of Simon Trinidad

Any juridical process worthy of its name would throw out the
prosecution' s case on the most elementary basis of wrongful arrest.
In late December 2003 Trinidad traveled to Quito, Ecuador to contact
James Lemoyne about possible peace negotiations with the Colombian
government, beginning with confidence building, humanitarian measures
related to prisoners and captives. During the earlier peace
negotiation Lemoyne had been a decent peace mediator, rejecting
pressure from the US Embassy to scuttle the proceedings. Given the
massive military escalation undertaken by President Uribe, there was
no opportunity for Trinidad to meet with Lemoyne in Colombia. Word
reached the FARC that Lemoyne would be available for conversations in
Quito.

Under CIA direction, a joint Colombian-Ecuadoria n squad illegally
seized Trinidad. The entire operation violated Ecuadorian
sovereignty, judicial procedures and the rights of political appeal.
Extra-territorial seizures of opposition leaders and their transfer
to imperial courts resemble the practices of the Roman Empire and not
contemporary international law.

While in captivity, Trinidad has been denied access to translations,
documents and writing materials. He was manacled in an isolation
cell for 23 hours a day for over 21 months without access to legal
counsel. The Federal Judge, Thomas Hogan, and Federal Prosecutor
have acted to prejudice the trial even before its start. Over 30
armed police in a caravan of police vehicles accompanied by
helicopters bring the chained Trinidad to court. He has been denied
any selection of attorney and assigned a team of court-appointed
lawyers. When his attorneys attempted to provide a relevant
historical context including the FARC's attempts to participate in
electoral politics and the subsequent massacre of 5000 activists and
candidates, including 2 presidential candidates, the Prosecution
objected. The Prosecution also objected to the defense's description
of the massive, sustained State violence in Colombia and the role of
the US counterinsurgency forces in alliance with the paramilitary
groups.

In this Kafkaesque nightmare of a courtroom, the judge was asked by
the Prosecutor to withhold the names of the jurors to protect them
from `retaliation from Trinidad's `terrorist organization' (deep in
the Colombian jungle) - further prejudicing an already frightened
jury and biased judge.

The court-appointed defense attorneys have failed to challenge the
most elementary prejudicial statements by the Prosecution' s key
witness, a Colombian Army Colonel, who referred to Trinidad as
a `terrorist' despite the obvious fact that he has yet to be
convicted. Judge Hogan has refused to allow jurors to take their
notebooks containing trial notes from the court and denied them
access to transcripts, preventing them from rationally evaluating the
evidence.

Trinidad's refutation of the Prosecutor's chief Colombian witness
and the outrageous nature of this political show trial were evident
from the first day the jury reported to the judge. The jury declared
that they were deeply divided on all charges and asked the court to
declare a mistrial. After 18 days of highly charged prosecution,
demagogy and inflammatory political rhetoric, the jurors spent a
little over seven hours deliberating before reporting that they were
deadlocked. A note from the jurors to US District Judge Thomas Hogan
stated: "We believe our differences based on deep thought are
irresolvable. " Judge Hogan rejected Trinidad's request for a
mistrial and told the jurors to keep deliberating, stating he would
declare a mistrial if the jurors repeated their declaration of a
deadlock a second time.

Conclusion

The `political show trial' of Simon Trinidad is a striking example of
the threats to constitutional freedoms, which we and the citizens of
the world face before the unbridled power of the American President
to overrule all the rights of sovereign states and their citizens,
international law and constitutional freedoms.

Equally important is the current reality of `extraterritorial,
lawless seizures, abductions and kangaroo proceedings at the service
of bloody imperial policies and client rulers whose actions have
devastated Colombian society. More than 2.5 million Colombian
peasants and urban slum dwellers have been displaced by the savage
counter-insurgency program called `Plan Colombia; the number of
displaced persons is second only to Afghanistan. The
counterinsurgency programs, variously called `Plan Colombia', `Plan
Patriótica' and `Democratic Security' are financed and directed by
the United States and promoted by its client President Álvaro Uribe.
The US AFL-CIO documents over 4,000 trade unionists assassinated
between 1986-2002; the Colombian government has only investigated 376
of which only 5 cases led to a conviction of the killer. According
to Colombian human rights groups, between 2003-2006 Uribe's military
and paramilitary allies have murdered nearly a thousand more trade
unionists.

Over the past 5 years, 30,000 peasants, rural teachers, and peasant
and indigenous leaders have been killed with impunity. State
repression (`Democratic Security') has been directed at weakening
trade union resistance to the US-Colombian Free Trade Agreement, not
at countering guerrilla armies. With over 68% of the Colombian
people living under the poverty line of $2 dollars a day, and land
seizures by paramilitary leaders, cattle barons and military officers
concentrating land ownership to an unprecedented level, it is no
wonder that the guerrilla resistance is recruiting and successfully
countering Government-sponsore d military campaigns, each bearing a
triumphalist title and all ending in abysmal failure. Without
fundamental political and social reforms and lacking an economic
model that integrates the millions displaced, terrorized and
excluded, there is no military strategist or strategy, no matter how
well funded and directed by Washington which will end the civil
conflict.

The first step toward a resolution of this half-century conflict is
the recognition that Colombia is in the midst of a civil war, not
a `war on terror'. The second is to release the protagonists of the
peace process, Simon Trinidad and his comrade `Sonia' as a concrete
move toward a humanitarian prisoner exchange and confidence building
measure opening the way to full-scale peace negotiations.

Paradoxically, the end of the Colombian blood letting could begin in
Washington, in a Federal Courtroom, or possibly in the US Congress
with the recognition that the US is an armed party in Colombia's
civil war, that their combatants are prisoners of war and that their
ultimate release depends on recognizing the limits of US military
power (and that of its Colombian client) and that a diplomatic,
negotiated agreement is the only realistic option.

I look forward to joining with such artists and intellectuals as
Denzel Washington, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and
Angela Davis, named in the FARC appeal in a common effort to pressure
the US government to agree to exchanging imprisoned guerrillas (both
here and in Colombia) for rebel-held prisoners, including the three
American combatants.