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Condemn Colombia’s Aggression against Ecuador! In an illegal incursion into Ecuador on 1 March, Colombian troops murdered 17 combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), including Comandante Raúl Reyes, a long-time military commander and member of the FARC-EP’s Secretariat. Among the other victims was the well-known revolutionary song-writer Julian Conrado.
The cold-blooded attack on the camp came just days after the FARC had unilaterally released several prisoners into the hands of Venezuela and the International Red Cross in a promising move to prompt negotiations for a more generalized humanitarian exchange of prisoners of war held by the two sides.
This latest provocation shows once again that the Colombian regime of President Alvaro Uribe has no intention of seeking a political, negotiated solution to the decades-old conflict but rather intends to further intensify its ‘dirty war’ against the insurgency and all those Colombians who oppose its fascist rule. Its brazen violation of the territorial sovereignty of its Ecuadorian neighbour – a clear and unequivocal violation of international law – demonstrates its willingness to destabilize the peace and security of the region as a whole and provide a pretext for direct U.S. imperialist aggression directed against Venezuela, Ecuador and other progressive governments in Latin America.
There can be no doubt that the Bush Administration is pulling the strings behind this whole affair, using its Colombian puppet to provoke a wider war in the vain hope of reversing the growing anti-imperialist movements throughout the region. To cover its imperialist plans, Washington and its flunkies in Bogotá are now churning out all sorts of clumsy and patently false accusations accusing Venezuela and Ecuador of secretly supporting and financing the insurgency and even assisting FARC in obtaining uranium to produce a radioactive bomb. Such fabrications and lies should fool no one.
At this critical juncture, the Communist Party of Canada calls on the Canadian government and all peace-loving Canadians to denounce this dangerous provocation, and to demand that the UN Security Council condemn Colombia’s grave contravention of international law, demand that the Uribe regime and its U.S. masters respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all neighbouring states, end its internal ‘reign of terror’ against workers, peasants, trade union and human rights activists, to seek a political solution to end the civil war in Colombia.
The CPC also demands that the Canadian government remove the FARC-EP and the ELN from the list of terrorist organizations, and instead offer to facilitate negotiations between the belligerent parties in Colombia with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace in that country.
RAÚL REYES: HERO OF THE COLOMBIAN REVOLUTION
 From his upbringing in the countryside, Raúl Reyes – the nom de guerre of Luis Édgar Devia Silva – joined the Communist Party of Colombia early in life and was quickly acknowledged as a competent organizer and respected member. Later as a trade unionist, he led a number of struggles for the rights of both rural and urban workers. His revolutionary views and commitment to social justice led him to become a member of the FARC-EP in the 1970s, eventually becoming one of its highest ranking leaders. Raúl was a powerful and eloquent spokesperson for FARC’s aims of constructing a new, truly sovereign and democratic Colombia, based on the self-emancipation of both the peasantry and the working class.At the time of his assassination, Comrade Raúl was a member of the FARC-EP Secretariat (its highest executive body), responsible for international work. Between 1998 and 2002, he led negotiations with the Colombian state seeking to achieve a just and comprehensive end to more than 40 years of civil war. During this period, Raúl oversaw the release of roughly 400 militia troops, officers, military, and political detainees in an effort to win peace with social justice. In February 2002 however, the peace negotiations came to an abrupt end when the Colombian state, with the encouragement and financial support of the United States, launched a series of attacks against the FARC-EP and their supporters and renewed its decades-old ‘dirty war’ against the insurgency.
In the field, Comandante Raúl was a ‘tactical genius’, famous among the rank-and-file for his formidable leadership skills. As a leading Marxist-Leninist, Comrade Raúl combined his day-to-day work with a deep understanding of revolutionary theory and its application to the practical struggle of the Colombian people. Raúl Reyes gave his life for a socialist Colombia within a socialist Americas.
The Communist Party of Canada denounces this illegal murder orchestrated by the Uribe fascist state, and reasserts its solidarity with the FARC-EP and with all the progressive and anti-imperialist forces of Colombia. We grieve for our fallen comrades and with all who fight for social justice in our hemisphere. We are certain that, even in dying, Raúl Reyes’ lifelong commitment to the revolutionary transformation of his country and this hemisphere will continue to inspire revolutionary advances, sooner rather than later.
LONG LIVE THE COLOMBIAN REVOLUTION!!
COMANDANTE RAÚL REYES, ¡¡‘PRESENTE’!!
DEFEAT FASCISM!! FOR A NEW COLOMBIA!!
Issued by the Central Executive Committee,
Communist Party of Canada
March 6, 2008 |