Soldiers show the press the bodies of killed Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, in La Plata,180 miles southwest of Bogota, Colombia, Friday, July 12, 2002. Army officials began collecting the bodies of rebels killed in fighting Wednesday night and Thursday morning near this southern town. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano)

Five months after the rupture of the peace dialogues by the government of president Andrés Pastrana, the balance is a desolate one for millions of Colombians. For some because of family members who have been killed in confrontations, for others because the economic, social and political improvements they were promised did not materialize and for others because they were able to confirm once again that it was not the better way out as there would be more deaths and no results in terms of peace with social justice as the majority of us Colombians want.

It was said that once the demilitarized zone was ended, all the country’s problems would be solved. Joblessness would no longer be the reality, the violence would end, kidnapping would vanish, etc. But for Mr. President, for the economic sector and the whole militarist section of the country, things did not turn out like they hoped.

The guerrillas of the FARC-EP continue not only alive, but united, stronger, with greater prestige in the eyes of their masses and more convinced of the necessity of continuing as the People’s Army, the guarantee for winning power and changing the State of Terror that rules the homeland for a new one worthy of all of her people. The radical change in the national situation which Pastrana proposed was no such thing. On the contrary, the confrontation increased, the economic, social and political crisis worsened and the imperial penetration expanded. Or was that his objective?

During his electoral campaign, President Pastrana pledged to Colombians that he would bring peace. He was courageous at first and we believed him when he said to Comandante Marulanda: “I will utilize all the instruments of the State for this.”

But, it turned out that there was another plan. During the dialogues, they rearmed and organized the official army for war. More battalions, more brigades, more arms, more helicopters, more paramilitaries: Plan Colombia. This is and has been Pastrana’s plan: more war with the intention of bringing an end to a guerrilla movement that is inherent to the people, that demands peace with economic and social changes for the benefit of all instead of the change which Colombians have seen since the rupture of the dialogues last February 20, 2002.

РВСК-АН без всякого упадка духа и чувства уныния продолжает сегодня, как и вчера, проведение своей неизменной политики поиска мира, используя все формы борьбы, которые навязывает нам ныне существующий режим. Мы стремимся к миру с социальной справедливостью, где будет уважаться суверенитет Колумбии, царить гармония в отношениями со всеми странами, основанная на принципе права народов на самоопределение, социальной справедливости и достоинстве для всех.

Colombia President Alvaro Uribe (2ndL) greets Martha Lucia Ramirez after Ramirez took over as Defense Minister at a military school in Bogota, August 15, 2002. It was the first military ceremony attended by Uribe since he took office August 7. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz

Two months after the breaking off of those dialogues which had generated so much hope in Colombia as the actual possibility for a better life, there are 1,612 dead – 1,360 combatants of the state and 252 of the guerrillas. These were lives we could have spared. Colombian men and women who would have given everything to participate in the building of the new, worthy and sovereign Colombia that all of us deserve.

Mr. Pastrana, in his last stretch, is leaving the road of peace full of sharpened rocks, thorns and precipices. We hope that with the new leader, as our comrade Alfonso Cano said, “there will be prudence and that such prudence can open the path for us to return to the dialogues. What matters to us is that a decision is taken, because what we have seen up to now is the intention of the so-called ruling class to end the confrontation without dealing with the causes that generated it, and it is impossible like that. But if the next government accepts that here we are going to have to share power, that here they are going to have to give up a few privileges, that they are going to have to change the rotten and corrupt political practices; if it accepts that we are all going to change things, together with the popular sectors, then we can look forward to there being definitive solutions.”

There can be dialogue yes, as long as everyone is convinced of the necessity for profound democratic changes in economic and social matters as well as in the political composition of power, because otherwise, another frustration might be the outcome.

Pastrana, in his wild desperation to cover up the nefarious results of his war against the people, makes use of diplomacy to gain condemnations of the guerrillas they have to count on in the national politics. It turns out now, that after three years of dialogues, from one day to the next we are terrorists, forgetting an entire past and present of struggle and proposals. And in their delirium, they think that whenever they want to, they can give us back the status they have taken from us, just because it suits them. With whom do they think they are speaking?

The FARC-EP, without pausing or getting discouraged, will continue today, just like yesterday, its unwavering policy of seeking dialogue towards peace, using the only forms of struggle that the current regime has forced on it, until it wins a society in which there is social justice, where our sovereignty is respected and harmony prevails in relations with all countries, based on the free self-determination of the peoples, social justice and dignity for all.

Translation on English by: elbarcino@laneta.apc.org