Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (C) talks during a meeting with high ranking military officials at the Narino Palace in Bogota, August 14, 2002. The United States on Wednesday applauded Uribe's new emergency tax to fund a military buildup against leftist rebels and said the measure should encourage Washington to keep up its aid to the war-torn nation. REUTERS/Fernando Ruiz-Presidencia

The world did not change when the twin towers in New York were brought down, attacked by planes commanded by supposed suicide operatives under orders from Bin Laden (Made in CIA); it changed with the appropriation of the presidency of the USA by G.W. Bush through a scandalous fraud, for which the complicated and undemocratic north American electoral system proved very useful, and his main stronghold was the state of Florida, “coincidentally” governed by his brother.

And since transnationalization is something that doesn’t apply only to industries, the far west “cowboy” style of the US president, his relations with the ENRON mafia, and other rich boy mischief, 25% of the Colombian electorate chose his Creole reflection, Álvaro Uribe, for their president. Twenty-five percent that, thanks to the workings of a democracy that is not a democracy of the majority, converts one quarter into a half plus one.

Once again we Colombians have the shame of having a president linked to drug trafficking. Uribe, who will be incapable of applying political solutions to the grave crisis that afflicts the country, is an obsequious servant of the aggressive plans of the empire and the neoliberal model. The future that looms is one of darkness and fog for the majority. There is no need for a wizard to forecast that the dirty war against the popular movement will intensify and that national sovereignty will be a buried historical concept.

The anti-democratic structures of power in Colombia: the use of terror as the principal mechanism of social control (99 % of the trade unionists assassinated in the world are Colombians), the absence of guarantees for the legal political opposition (more than 5,000 members of the Patriotic Union assassinated) and the permanence of a traditional elite in power (Liberal-Conservative bi-partyism), produce illegitimate, corrupt, sell-out presidents who follow the orders of the empire to the letter.

Here is how the schizophrenic campaign unleashed by Bush is starting to be applied point by point in Colombia. It begins in spades with the legalization of the paramilitaries who “offer” to break their ties with drug trafficking and hand over their weapons, right in the very days when Uribe arrives in the United States to have his interview with his president. In this regard the Newseek headline, “Uribe, the friend of Bush” speaks for itself.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman gestures during a press conference at Narino Palace in Bogota, August 14, 2002. Grossman is visiting Colombia to meet with newly inaugurated Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz

After the visit and in spite of the sparce declarations uttered by Uribe, agreements to reformulate “Plan Colombia” are announced in keeping with his campaign to combat “terrorism” (read the social struggle) with more official terror, violation of human rights and criminalization of the popular movement, legalization of paramilitaries and payments to a million canaries – informers – and criminals with a license to kill. All this in addition to his dream of bringing an end to the armed struggle through military means, as if by magic.

The history of official terrorism in Colombia, which has operated under different names and rules and regulations – death squads or paramilitary groups – is long, repetitive and painful: the groups were “officialized” for the time it was necessary. Later, in view of the national and international pressure and the magnitude of their crimes, governments would make their existence illegal.

During the twentieth century the presidents always said and did the same thing: robbed, killed, indebted and gave away our country’s natural resources to the international consortiums, increasing the suffering, poverty, hunger and despair of the majority of the population - in the year 2002, thirty-three million Colombians are poor – to previously unknown levels. The first president of the twenty-first century will continue the tradition.

And so will the people. We have been able to combine forms of social struggle in defence of dignity, peace and life. The assassination of thousands of natural leaders, the extermination plans carried out against the activists of the Patriotic Union, Communist Party and other left political parties, the daily massacres and atrocities committed against the unarmed population and the thousands of political prisoners converted automatically into terrorists for demanding bread, peace, land or freedom have not made us go backwards but rather are making the guerrilla struggle more legitimate than ever.

The right of the peoples of the world to struggle against corrupt governments imposed on them by a minority, and for the legitimate exercise of constructing their own destiny freely, cannot be eliminated or subjected to the whim of any power no matter how huge it seems. The US government is sowing panic and anxiety in the minds of its own citizens and launching never-ending aggressive conflicts in different parts of the planet using the excuse of the war against terrorism.

In Latin America there is already a response. Today, more than ever, the struggle against war and racism, against economic globalization and the neoliberal model, against state terrorism and for sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples to live a different life is being waged all over the world.

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