On Saturday morning, Dubliners checking messages or news on their phones or laptops, or listening to or watching news on TV or radio – or even reading a newspaper, learned that the USA had bombed Venezuela and abducted its President.
Venezuelan national flags on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity portrait, seen here against sky and south Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
An emergency protest and solidarity demonstration was called for 3pm in the city centre and under a clear blue sky but in bitter cold, many attended to line the iconic Ha’penny Bridge, which only a week ago had hosted a New Year’s Eve demonstration in solidarity with Palestine.
Among the crowd on the Bridge, a few Venezuelan national flags fluttered against the sky or the riverside buildings, along with a number of Irish Tricolours and one green and gold Starry Plough,1 while placards were attached to the railings along the sides of the Bridge.
The well-known slogan of US military – Out of Shannon! was among the call-and-answer chants of course, along with the easily-imagined Hands off Venezuela! But there were some innovative ones too, such as the Irish-language/ English mix of Deirimís go léir le chéile – Hands off Venezuela!
Starry Plough flag on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest, seen here against sky and north Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)Irish Tricolour flags and probably Cuban national flag on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest, seen here against sky and north Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
Entirely in Castilian Spanish there was also Viva, viva – La Resistencia! Another was USA – Nothing but thieves! – a specific reference to Trump’s nakedly-declared wish to grab the country’s oilwells.
People from a number of different political parties participated as did a large number of independent activists, constituting an ad-hoc and informal anti-imperialist broad front.
Among the crowd were veteran activists but also too many of the younger ones, grown in political awareness and action in recent years of Palestine solidarity, a deep educational experience, including some facing charges from actions in Dublin or Shannon to be tried in the coming months.
It is to be hoped that their support and solidarity will also be broad.
The Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest. (Photo cred: Eddie O’Reilly)
The latest news is that the kidnapped President Maduro has been charged in the US on counts including drug trafficking and possession of weapon. As the President of Venezuela and titular head of its armed forces, presumably he does indeed hold weapons.
The very existence of the drug cartel of which Trump and his cabal claim Maduro is head is very doubtful, including even to views leaked from US intelligence departments and of course, not one iota of evidence has been produced to date of the alleged drug trafficking.
Mixture of flags and people on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity portrait, seen here against sky and south Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
In the lead-up of months of bullying to this invasion, US forces sank many boats, killing at least 115, including one survivor of a bombing in the water. No evidence of their alleged drug-running has been produced in a single case and even so would not merit death penalty under US law.
Following the US attack on Venezuela, Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López, reportedly from his control bunker, broadcast in military uniform to the nation condemning the imperialist attack and promising resolute resistance.
Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, was videoed in the street wearing helmet and body protection equipment, calling on citizens to place their trust in the political and military leadership and to give no assistance to invading forces.
Vice-President Celcy, now Acting President made her first ever broadcast demanding the release of the Presidential couple, affirming that “there is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro,” and insisting that Venezuela “will never be a colony of any nation.”
Earlier, mainstream media had reported that Celcy had fled to Russia and that Lopez had been killed, such errors perhaps being caused by the ‘fog of war’ but recalling also the part played by the mainstream media in preparing the ground for the US-instigated Chilean coup of 1973.
The US attack and kidnapping was condemned today by Russia and by President Petro of Colombia. Kallas, on behalf of the EU, while condemning Maduro’s rule, voiced some weak platitudes about the EU Charter but voiced no condemnation of this attack upon a sovereign nation.
President of the USA Trump boasted publicly about how viewing the attack and kidnapping operation had been like watching a TV show and proclaiming that the US are now “going to run” Venezuela for a while “and get the oil flowing.”2
Tomorrow, Sunday, the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation has called a protest demonstration to take place at the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin for 1pm, in defence of sovereignty and in opposition to imperialism.
End.
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1The design of the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, a workers’ defence militia against police during the Lockout/ Strike of 1913 and that also fought in the 1916 Rising.
The death is announced on mass media today at 81 year of age of Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter and author Jimmy Cliff,1 famous for songs such as The Harder They Come and for his role in a film of the same title.
As is usual in such cases, tributes have been posted on social media and quoted in the western mass media, including by Ali Campbell of the UB 40 band who was reported to be ‘so sad’2 (which to be honest, seems a little strange as Jimmy Cliff lived to a good 81 years of age before he died).
I first heard a few of Jimmy Cliff’s nearly 30 recordings among the Caribbean community of SE London.
Jimmy Cliff grew up James Chambers in a family of nine in St. James in Jamaica, often mistakenly thought of as the largest Caribbean island (which it is not – that is in fact Cuba). Jamaica, like Trinidad & Tobago, another larger island and Barbados, were among the British colonies in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean islands and coastline3 were first European-colonised by the Spanish, then by the French, Dutch and British Empires, often in armed conflict against its indigenous people but also among themselves, also against slave uprisings and later against local struggles for independence.4
Since WWII the dominant imperialist power in the Caribbean is undoubtedly the United States of America, though France retains some colonial possessions and a few remain part of the British Commonwealth.
Today the Caribbean is in the news through a large force of US Naval forces posted there, along with nearby posting of bombers, along with the murder of over 80 small boat sailors, allegedly drug smugglers (without evidence and as though drug smuggling gets the death sentence).5
According to threats of President of the USA Trump, he intends to target Venezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro, whom he claims – without a shred of evidence — to be the leader of a drug cartel.
Migrant communities and the spread of Reggae
During the decades I spent in London I had a fair amount of contact with parts of the Caribbean immigrant and diaspora community, partly through working alongside some of its members, partly through socialising in SE London and through activity in resistance to fascism and racism.
I first came across Reggae music while living as a migrant in the SE London areas of Lewisham, New Cross and Peckham. There were large Irish and Caribbean communities there with some but not a great deal of interaction between both communities but little hostility between them either.
Both communities were subject to institutional racism and politicised communal racism as organised by the fascist National Front and British Movement, both of which had connections to British Loyalist paramilitary organisations in Scotland and in the Six Counties in Ireland.
I recall reading in a British 1950s sociological study on ‘deviant behaviour’ that ‘Teddy Boy’ gangs would target the post-War newly-arrived Caribbean immigrants (but also the ‘Micks’, i.e the Irish) and a Jamaican workmate told me about the gangs waiting for them on Childeric Rise.6
How he went out armed with a home-made knuckle-duster and how the police would come to the fighting, arresting mostly the Caribbean victims. “Them turn me away when dem see me,” a Caribbean migrant discussing racism told me, “but dem turn you away when dem hear you.”
In Caribbean shebeens7 or illegal ‘clubs’ in that SE London area, one could buy for a modest sum a plate of goat curry and rice, or a can of pale ale or Guinness, while listening to vinyl records of Bluebeat, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae and, to a lesser extent, Calypso.8 And dance, perhaps.9
Jimmy Cliff composed songs and rode the rising Reggae tide, for a short while rivalling Bob Marley for most popular position. What launched him and the Reggae ship into wider seas was the film The Harder They Come based on the novel of the same name featuring Cliff’s own song.
The Harder They Come novel by Ekwueme Michael Thelwell charting the fictionalised career of a Jamaican who fails to succeed as a reggae singer and becomes a gangster is based on the real life of Jamaican folk hero and reggae star Rhygin.10
But the film’s hero was performed by Jimmy Cliff and his music played as soundtrack.
In Peckham I watched the film years later and enjoyed it but I also read the novel. The latter gives an interesting background of the hero growing up in his grandmother’s care in rural Jamaica, before he goes to Kingston, while the film opens only with the hero’s arrival in the city by bus.
Famous folk singer Bob Dylan is reported to have said that Jimmy Cliff’s 1969 song Vietnam was the best protest song he had ever heard. It is hard to credit that as a true statement; Pete Seeger, Dylan’s contemporary, many others and Dylan himself had composed many better.
Jimmy Cliff’s Vietnam song takes as its theme a US soldier in Vietnam writing about his impending return home at the end of his tour of military service in Vietnam and his desire for his girlfriend, followed by another missive to the soldier’s mother announcing her son’s death in Vietnam.
The tragic juxtaposition of youth, romantic love, violent death and parental bereavement is an inherent theme of war and of course works on our emotions. But the song says nothing about who sent the soldier there nor the reasons for the Vietnam War, though one line calls for its end.
The lyrics tell us nothing about the devastation of the US war upon the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, nor about the heroism of the people’s resistance.11 Not even about the huge protests of many people in the USA — particularly youth — and in much of the western world.
Jimmy Cliff in performance (Photo credit Alastair Wison/ PA)
However, Jimmy Cliff’s performance of the song 20 years ago in Jamaica brings the point of the anti-war movement much more into context as in his introduction to the song on stage he castigates Tony Blair and George Bush and names a number of other imperialist wars.
It was a great performance of Cliff’s at the end of his sixth decade of life and I hope you enjoy it here on video.
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2Facebook · UB40 Featuring Ali CampbellSo sad James chambers has left a void in reggae music, his voice and influence was exemplary. He was a reggae pioneer, RlP Jimmy cliff.
6This rise gave on to the New Cross Road from terraced housing down below where a number of Caribbean families lived, in one house of which I shared a double room with another Irish migrant. Almost at the top of Childeric Rise itself was the entrance to The Harp Club Irish dance hall with an Irish pub on an opposite corner and another across the road.
7From the acknowledged Irish language word ‘síbín’, etymology uncertain but adopted as far away as the Caribbean and South Africa.
8Music mostly of Trinidad and Tobago, often accompanied by steel band instruments, based on folk dance music from a part of West Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_music
NB: Rebel Breeze shares this near the anniversary of the fascist military coup in Chile, the same date as the Twin Towers massacre years later.. The article is a year old but relevant as long as British imperialism exists.
As the Pinochet regime rounded up and murdered its political opponents after the 1973 coup, a UK Foreign Office propaganda unit passed material to Chile’s military intelligence and MI6 connived with a key orchestrator of the coup, newly declassified files show.
Foreign Office helped Pinochet regime to develop a counter-insurgency strategy based on British military campaigns in Southeast Asia
MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to British embassy in Santiago in 1972-4, and had relations with a key member of the military junta
The UK government assisted Chile’s military intelligence in the aftermath of the brutal 1973 coup against elected president Salvador Allende, newly declassified files show.
The assistance was authorised by the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret Foreign Office propaganda unit which worked closely with Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office building, Whitehall, London. Many a dark deed was planned here. (Photo accessed: Internet)
The IRD had long seen Allende as a political threat. As Declassified previously revealed, throughout the 1960s, the unit had sought to prevent Allende from ever becoming president through election interference and covert propaganda operations.
After Allende was elected in 1970, the IRD’s distribution of propaganda material became “strictly limited”, with the British embassy having fewer reliable contacts in the Chilean government.
This all changed after the coup.
In January 1974, the IRD began to “extend the distribution” of its material, which was now passed “to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government information organisations” and, crucially, the dictatorship’s “military intelligence” services.
At this time, Chile’s security forces – including the country’s intelligence apparatus – were responsible for massive human rights violations, including the widespread use of torture as a political weapon.
The UK government was under no illusions about this. As Foreign Office official Christopher Crabbie noted three months after the coup in December 1973, “I do not think that anyone seriously doubts that torture is going on in Chile”.
Reliable figures indicate that, between 1973 and 1988, Chilean state agents were responsible for over 3,000 deaths or disappearances and tens of thousands of cases of torture and political arrests. This was in a country which, in 1973, had a population of only 10 million people.
Chile Army 1973 coup soldiers watch detainees – many were shot, many more tortured then shot, many more still ‘disappeared’, probably tortured and shot. Many, many more were jailed where they were also tortured; young children were also abducted and given to fascist childless couples. (Photo accessed: Internet)
‘Hearts and minds’
The nature of the information passed to Chile’s military intelligence remains unclear, though the files suggest it may have included material for use in propaganda, research reports on left-wing activity, and even manuals on domestic security operations.
For instance, newly declassified files show how the UK government secretly helped the Chilean authorities to develop a counter-insurgency strategy, using techniques refined during Britain’s colonial interventions in Southeast Asia.
The idea for such assistance was first raised during the visit of British navy chief Sir Michael Pollock to Chile in late November 1973, two months after the coup.
The timing of Pollock’s visit was “politically tricky”, noted the British ambassador in Santiago, Reginald Secondé, since there was “much critical attention” being given “to the Chilean Government’s treatment of their political opponents”.
However, there were “two frigates and two submarines for the Chilean Navy under construction in British yards” – an arms deal worth around £50m – and “this was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”.
“This was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”
In Santiago, Pollock and Secondé met with a number of regime officials, including navy chief José Toribio Merino Castro, defence minister Patricio Carvajal Prado, and foreign minister Ismael Huerta.
With Huerta, the British officials spoke about the UK government’s “hearts and minds” campaign in Northern Ireland, a counter-insurgency strategy inspired by Britain’s war in Malaya (1948-60).
Huerta “seemed impressed with the concept”, and Secondé “later twice heard him muttering to himself ‘hearts and minds’”.
Subsequent meetings were held between Secondé, British information officer Tony Walters, and Captain Carlos Ashton, the director of overseas information in Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Like Huerta, Ashton was “very receptive to the idea that this kind of approach to Chilean security problems might be the right answer”, and requested “details of what practical measures a ‘hearts and minds’ exercise would involve”.
Ashton’s request for assistance was forwarded to Rosemary Allott, the head of the IRD’s Latin American desk.
In a letter dated 15 February 1974 and marked ‘secret’, Allott agreed to provide the Chilean regime with counter-insurgency advice, but limited this to material on Britain’s past colonial interventions.
“In view of the delicate political considerations involved”, Allott wrote, “it would be best to confine, at this stage at least, the material we send you of insurgencies of the past, rather than those currently preoccupying HMG” such as Northern Ireland.
The Pinochet regime was soon issued with three books on British counter-insurgency strategy, alongside a “Manual of Counter Insurgency Studies”.
“Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta”
Allott also tracked down “various official reports on Malaya” including “The Fight Against Communist Terrorism in Malaya”, the “Review of the Emergency in Malaya (1948-57)”, and “two booklets on the Philippines insurrection”.
Britain’s military campaign in Malaya involved the “resettlement” of over 500,000 civilians, aerial bombardment, and an intensive propaganda operation.
Embassy officials suggested that they were teaching Chilean officers “tactics of tolerance and magnanimity”. However, brutal repression often lay behind the UK government’s rhetoric about “winning hearts and minds”, and the Chilean authorities were only sharpening their repressive techniques.
None of the material given to the Pinochet regime was “for attribution to HMG”. This meant that the Chilean authorities could use the information but not source it to the UK government.
The extent to which Britain’s advice was acted upon remains unclear; the Pinochet regime was certainly not lacking in support from the CIA.
Nonetheless, it is clear that Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta, with the goal of stabilising Pinochet’s regime against domestic opposition.
MI6 in Chile
Evidence of British assistance to Chile’s intelligence services raises further questions about what Britain’s own secret intelligence service, MI6, was doing in Chile.
In 1972, MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to the British embassy in Santiago – his only foreign posting outside of the Middle East throughout his career.
This was not Spedding’s first visit to Chile. As a postgraduate student at Oxford University during the mid-1960s, Spedding had spent his gap year in Santiago and found work as an assistant in the British embassy’s press office.
Spedding’s first role in the diplomatic service was thus in the same British embassy that had been directing covert propaganda operations against Allende throughout the 1960s. The job gave him “an entrée into SIS [MI6]”, historian Nigel West noted.
Spedding remained in Chile until September 1974. He was subsequently made responsible for MI6 operations across the Middle East, and would go on to become MI6 chief between 1994 and 1999.
‘Our relationship with Admiral Merino’
Spedding’s name rarely appears in declassified Foreign Office files on Chile.
Yet in one file, dated 4 December 1973, Spedding informed the Foreign Office that 2,800 civilians and 700 armed forces personnel had been killed during and after the coup.
“In order to protect our relationship with Admiral Merino”, Spedding noted, “we would not like these figures to be quoted, at least for the time being”.
Admiral Merino was one of the key orchestrators of the 1973 coup. He was head of the Chilean navy in September 1973, and remained in post until the fall of the dictatorship in 1990. Merino claimed responsibility for convincing Pinochet to join the coup.
Some of the culprits saluting (Photo accessed: Internet)
One of Spedding’s roles, then, was to ensure close collaboration with the Chilean junta by covering up its responsibility for massive political repression and human rights violations.
The MI6 station in Santiago was only closed down in 1974 amid the UK Labour Party’s return to government.
It would not be surprising if MI6 played a supporting role to the CIA’s covert operations against Allende during the early 1970s. It was recently revealed that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) had “opened a base in Santiago to assist in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s destabilisation of the Chilean government” in 1971.
Britain’s secret assistance to the Pinochet regime was consistent with the UK government’s position on the coup.
The Conservative government under Edward Heath had welcomed the coup and rushed to give diplomatic recognition and arms to the Chilean junta, with the Foreign Office noting that it had “infinitely more to offer British interests than the one which preceded it”.
The coup against Allende inaugurated a 17-year dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, who only left office in 1990.
end.
John McEvoy is co-directing a forthcoming documentary investigating Britain’s hidden role in the death of Chile’s democracy and rise of the Pinochet dictatorship. You can support the film’s production here.
On the 21st of April as he reached his house paramilitaries murdered Narciso Beleño, the leader in Southern Bolívar, Colombia, just two years after the murder of two other leaders Teo Acuña and Jorge Tafur.
I knew Narciso Beleño. Our paths crossed many times, on occasion on literal paths in the countryside as Narciso travelled the country in his struggle to defend rural communities in Colombia.
But I don’t want to talk too much about Narciso, the person, as there are others who can pay greater tribute to him in that regard, though his name always made me curious: Narciso (Narcissus).
Narcissus was a figure in Greek/Roman mythology who as a punishment from the gods fell in love with his own reflection. It is where we get the word narcissist from. But unlike the Greek/Roman figure, our Narciso was kind, caring, generous and selfless.
There are thousands of people, whole communities that can testify to his qualities as a person, a fighter and a leader.
When he was murdered the President, Gustavo Petro tweeted that “we failed Narciso”. But who failed Narciso? The communities? His comrades in Fedeagromisbol? Or were they the youths from the Front Line who are still in jail? Tell us who! A generic “We doesn’t do it, it is a lie.”
He should explain who failed him, how and why and Petro should also tell us what he intends to do prevent there being more murders of leaders.
Once upon a time we never doubted to putting a name and surname to the matter. We didn’t hesitate in naming the company, the board of directors, the landlord, the local politician. Sometimes we even ran the risk of putting a name and military rank to the affair.
A long time ago a gradual process began whereby some stopped naming them. And now under the Petro government it is not thought well to name them. Once upon a time we all named Fedegan, the cattle ranchers’ association, as backing the paramilitaries.
The Fedegan functionaries even acknowledged this. Now one of the representatives of that association, which is currently involved in refounding paramilitary structures, represents the State in the dialogues with the ELN.
Once upon a time we named the mining companies that have been trying for decades to take control of the gold in Southern Bolivar and other regions. It is worth remembering that Narciso travelled the country. More than one mining company had it in for him.
In Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, evil and magic lose their power over mortals when they are named by their real name and so the best kept secret is their real name. In real life something similar happens. Paramilitaries as something dark, shadowy and hidden defeats us.
When we name those behind this black magic with their real names, it begins to lose its power over us. They are not unknown to us. We withdraw cash from their ATMs every day, we purchase their services, we drink their products, we work in their companies and the odd eejit votes for them.
No company will say, “buy my product we are the murderers of social leaders” or “vote for me, I have murdered thousands.” They hide this for a reason and for that same reason we should expose their dark souls to the light of day.
The best tribute Petro can pay is to explain who failed and name the murderers just like he used to do before he was President. They are the usual suspects. Petro likes to say he governs but does not have power.
Well, tell us who holds that power that he don’t have, with names and surnames, economic group, foreign company. If we all failed, then nobody failed, if he was murdered by those who cannot be named, then nobody murdered him.
We usen’t to hesitate in talking about paramilitaries, the economic and political interests and reasons behind their actions. We named the business associations, the megaprojects in each region, we proved it.
Some sought justice in international tribunals, others in Russell style tribunals of opinion. We have to pay tribute to Narciso and other victims of the paramilitaries and name the murderers. Uribe tried to fool us with the Bacrim (Criminal Gang) euphemism. Neither Gulf Clan or anything else.
The same ones who disappeared Edgar Quiroga and Gildardo Fuentes in 1999 (in Southern Bolívar) murdered Narciso 25 years later. Say it loud and clear, Mr. President.
The coca zones of Colombia are in crisis. The cash crop par excellence, i.e. coca is going through an unprecedented crisis, or so we are told.
The main promotors of the idea that the coca is in crisis because fentanyl has displaced it and sooner or later it will finish off the coca were from the government. Amongst those promoting this stupidity are Colombian state functionaries from the NGOs, social organisations and of course high-ranking members of the Historic Pact. The very president of the country, Gustavo Petro stated in August that
The cocaine market in the USA has collapsed and has been replaced by an even worse one: fentanyl that kills 100,000 per year. Cocaine used to kill 4,000 due to the poisonous mixtures from the market clandestine.(1)
It is simply the case that nothing that Petro said at the time was true. Whereas Clinton exaggerated the deaths due to cocaine consumption in order to justify Plan Colombia, Petro sought to minimise them. First of all, we should be clear that fentanyl did not displace cocaine, but rather another opioid, heroin. And the most notorious aspect of fentanyl is not the increase in consumption, but rather that due to its toxicity, a dramatic increase in overdoses. Petro’s government makes statements on the drugs issue without even understanding basic concepts.
The overdue publication of its drug policy allows us to analyse properly what it aims to do, as up till now we have had to put up with a year of contradictory speeches, tweets that don’t say much and complete incoherence in the matter, without even mentioning his stated aim of handing over the Colombian Amazon region to the US military, something that not even Pastrana openly proposed when he announced Bill Clinton’s Plan Colombia.
In a US study published in May of this year, the researchers found that the deaths from fentanyl tripled between 2016 and 2021, increasing from 5.7 per 100,000 inhabitants to 21.6 in 2021. The deaths from cocaine overdoses increased in the same period from 3.5 to 7.9. At the same time there was a 40% decrease in heroin related overdoses, falling from 4.9 in 2016 to 2.9 in 2021.(2) The study just confirmed the analysis of previous research published in December 2022 that looked at increases in mortality since 2001.(3)
Fentanyl is a new problem for the USA, but neither the increase in its consumption nor deaths tell us anything about the future of coca as Petro and Roy Barreras claimed. Quite the opposite. According to the UN, coca crops reached the figure of 230,000 hectares in 2022.(4) Of course, Petro is not to blame for that, he only took over the presidency in August 2022, but it belies his statements that coca is a thing of the past due to the economic crisis in the coca regions of the country.
So, what can be said of Petro’s new drug policy? Well, the first thing is that there is at last a policy outlined in a public document. They took their time in doing it but better later than never. The document proposes with a certain amount of hyperbole Oxygen for the communities affected, through support from licit economies, environmental measures and treating the matter of consumption as a public health issue. It also proposes Asphyxiation for drug trafficking organisations. Furthermore, it proposes being the voice and leadership of “an international diplomatic strategy to change the paradigm in how the drugs phenomenon is dealt with.”(5)
The document kicks off with a correct analysis that contradicts the public declarations made by Petro and other high ranking government functionaries, a few weeks prior to its publication. It is inexplicable how the president can boast about the collapse of coca at a point when it is almost certain his drugs policy was at the printers. It must be due to mediocre functionaries, as this government has continued with the policy of Duque and the previous governments of hiring mediocre friends. But in any case, the document gets somethings right, at last.
For decades, Colombia has made an enormous investment in human and economic terms in fighting drug trafficking. Although there are no official figures on the outlay in fighting drugs, but the Drugs Observatory of Colombia calculates an annual average expenditure of 3.8 trillion pesos [885.2 million euros] ascending to an approximate investment in the last twenty years of 76 trillion pesos [17.7 billion euros]. Whilst some results have been achieved along the way, it is true that the two main goals have not been reached: reduction in the supply and demand for illicit drugs.
Even though 843,905 hectares of coca were forcibly eradicated between 2012 and 2022, the planted area in this period increased by 327%. In 2022, Colombia had 230,000 hectares of coca with a productive potential of 1,738 tonnes of cocaine. As for demand for psychoactive substances, between 1996 and 2019 an increase of 5.1% to 8.7% in the consumption of all illicit substances (marijuana, cocaine, base, extasy or heroin) was observed.(6)
The document then goes on to acknowledge that the collapse in cocaine consumption is not real but rather on the contrary there has been an increase. It states that one of the first hypotheses was a global fall in demand for cocaine.(7) They are trying to save their own skin. There was no data to sustain the supposed hypotheses: none. It was dreamed up by mediocres and no one else made the claim. The document goes on to say “However, according to the lastest Global Cocaine Report from the UNODC (2023), demand has risen.(8) At least we are having a debate about the reality of poorly written studies from the children of the lovers of their friends who they hired.
So, what do they propose? It would seem that they propose a shift in the punitive model without abandoning it completely. They accept that the fumigations have not worked and that the periods of greatest fumigation do not match those of a lesser supply of the drug.(9) But the punitive element continues to be an integral part of the policy, the supposed shift is a mirage.
The evidence has shown that a security strategy on its own is not enough [the emphasis is mine] but rather it must go hand in hand with actions to prevent crime and deal with the underlying causes.(10)
The document takes a look over the international treaties in the area, softening the real demands of the Single Convention of 1961 stating that it doesn’t prohibit anything but rather submits the plants and the drugs produced to a strict control. There is not enough space here to go into detail on that debate. But once again what the government is saying is not really the case. The Single Convention does actually allow for some coca crops for medical and industrial purposes, mainly in Peru and also opium in India. But it is not the case that Colombia has misinterpreted those treaties. And this is a major issue, as any change in the paradigm is dependent on changes in those treaties or better still their complete derogation and the drawing up of new treaties under a new paradigm.
Whilst it is true that a country can allow coca crops for licit purposes, that is done with the permission of the UN control bodies, i.e. the USA. Even traditional consumption of the coca leaf is frowned upon in the Convention. Article 26.2 states that.
The Parties shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. [emphasis is mine] They shall destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated.
Although Article 49 permits chewing of coca leaf in countries where it was already legal on the 1st of January 1961 (subparagraph 2a), it does so on the condition of banning it and eradicating it once and for all by 1986 (subparagraph 2e), something which was not achieved. Whether they like it or not, this treaty has not been misinterpreted and the whole UN framework i.e. US policy in the area is the problem and not a misinterpretation of previous governments. The supposed freedom to grow and licit use of coca that Petro imagines is not real.
Some states in the US legalised the production and recreational consumption of marijuana and clashed with the federal banking system that was not willing to receive funds from the industry, forcing many producers to resort to mechanisms more suited to money laundering in illicit industries. Something similar happened in Uruguay. The country regularised the recreational production and authorised and regulated the state control of it. However, not even the Bank of the Republic of Uruguay was willing to receive money from a lawful activity in the country due to a fear of reprisals from the USA.
It would seem that the architects of the law did not foresee the problem that would arise in the banking industry, owner and lord of the commercial and financial transactions in Uruguay. Were the Uruguayan legislators aware that it was not just a matter of convincing the international system of prohibition to reclassify cannabis as a substance in the drugs conventions but that they also had to convince the banking system to accept money from cannabis transactions? Everything seems to indicate that the directives the banks implement are those that are simply related to the formality of Cannabis being a prohibited substance and the fact that the money from the cannabis market is legal, illegal, black or white has no bearing on decisions.(11)
Uruguay found itself at the mercy of the repressive whims of the US government and in practice was not autonomous nor sovereign. Any drugs policy should take as its starting point that Colombia is not sovereign in the matter and it faces a massive enemy when it comes to solving the problem: the USA. It is not a matter of a restrictive interpretation by Colombian governments, but rather the reality of imperialist domination. This was the case with Uruguay.
… according to the Uruguayan government implementing a national law [on drugs] depends on the modification of a foreign law. Note that at no stage is a modification of international drug treaties that Uruguay has ratified mentioned, but rather a federal law that internally classifies cannabis in the USA.(12)
The government has no proposals in the matter and its proposals for the peasants are remoulds of the previous policies with a slightly modified language. They no longer talk of crop substitution but rather licit alternatives or economies. And the licit alternatives for the countryside are the usual ones, exportable monocultures.
And the iron hand continues for the peasantry. They have talked a lot about distinguishing between large and small-scale coca producers, increasing the definition of small-scale producer as one that has up to 10 hectares. But the iron hand continues. They have said that they will not use forcible eradication but…
Forcible eradication will be applied to crops that: (i) do not fall into the category of “small-scale grower”, (ii) increase in area, (iii) planted after the publication of this policy (regardless of size), (iv) have infrastructure for the production of base and cocaine hydrochloride, (v) do not fulfil their commitments to substitution and other mechanisms on the path to licit economies.(13)
Many peasants have some infrastructure to produce base, an infrastructure that is not all that complicated. So, I don’t know who these peasants who will not be subjected to forcible eradication are. It is not all that different from the policies of Uribe and Pastrana and borrows policies from Plan Colombia, the Exporting Stake of Uribe and the directives of the former Social Action and of course the Peace Laboratories of the European Union and the nefarious apologist for the economic policies of Uribe and also in passing the World Bank, the priest Francisco de Roux: the so-called Productive Alliances.
Productive agreements between the public sector, private sector and grassroot economies
These consist of a tripartite collaboration between the state and the private sector as drivers of the productive reconversion, through actions such as capitalist investment, transfer of know-how and insertion into local, national and international markets. To that end the “Productive agreements for life and hope” will be implemented, in which the state will offer benefits to the businesses that commercially associate themselves with the communities. The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism will facilitate and strengthen these type of alliances.(14)
Not that long ago in 2017, various current senators and representatives of what is now called the Historic Pact publicly denounced a proposal from Santos on the countryside. They stated:
… limits [the communities] chances of defining the productive and economic model that would allow the building of peace with social justice, by tying it to technical criteria… that give priority to the establishment of alliances and chains of production between small and large producers and the efficient use of rural land, technological innovation, technical aid, credit, irrigation and commercialisation that favour an entrepreneurial large-scale agro-industrial production.(15)
So, what about now? Ah of course, the proposal is yours, and it doesn’t matter whether it is the same proposal or not, but rather who makes it. And if the peasants do not agree with the economic model being imposed, what will happen to them? Well, “a differential treatment will be promoted that will be transitory and conditioned on their signing up to processes on a path to licit economies”.(16) In other words, they are going to jail.
As for money laundering, there is nothing new. The government is obliged by various international treaties to fight against money laundering. But the language used is telling.
This last point [laundering] is based on identifying high value financial targets, understood to be persons or legal entities, goods, assets or bodies that due to their nature, volume or characteristics may be exploited by criminal groups (emphasis is mine) to hide or channel illicit funds and thus launder money from criminal activities.(17)
HBSC Tower, Mexico (Photo source: Wikipedia)
As with other governments, including the USA, the banks are seen as another victim. More so than the peasants, exploited by criminal groups when in reality they themselves are criminal enterprises. The massive laundering of assets that HSBC carried out in Mexico cannot be understood in any other light. There are no measures taken to jail the banks’ directors, cancel their banking licence, freeze their assets, fine them to the point of leaving them naked in the street. No. The asphyxiation the government talks about is like the law, to be applied to some but not to others. They are more concerned about illegal mining in coca zones than the laundering of assets only yards from the Presidential Palace.
The document is very similar to previous policies with some small changes, a slightly distinct language and “new” proposals that are not new. Perhaps we could say that it indicates some goodwill in some aspects, but nothing more. Petro can’t fight for a new paradigm without changing the current one.
Proposing a revision of the international legal framework does not imply a conflict between prohibition or total freedom in the market for psychoactive substances. On the contrary, it means coming up with intermediate solutions such as alternatives to prison, harm reduction strategies and the responsible regulation adult use substances such as cannabis. The progress, failure and lessons learnt from international cooperation on drugs represent an opportunity for the international community to evidence based innovative strategies and policies.(18)
Harm reduction is policy in most of the world, including some parts of the USA. Alternatives to prison also, though in practice it is not always the case in all countries. What is put forward is the current state of play, not a big struggle to change the paradigm. It is a disappointing document, more so than previous policies, as this one tries to play with the language to stupefy, fool and lie to us. In the end, it is another lost opportunity. If you want to see something innovative in drug policy, you would be better off taking a drug, preferably a magic mushroom.
(2) Spencer, M.R. et al. (2023) Estimates of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and oxycodone: United States, 2021. Vital Statistics Rapid Release; no 27. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. May 2023. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/ 10.15620/cdc:125504. P.3
(3) Spencer MR, Miniño AM, Warner M. Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 2001–2021. NCHS Data Brief, no 457. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2022. DOI: https://dx.doi. org/10.15620/cdc:122556.
News & Views No.9: Chile Coup – Twin Towers – the Legacy Bill
Diarmuid Breatnach (Reading time: 5 mins.)
September 11th is the anniversary of the al Qaeda attack on the new World Trade Center in the USA known as “the Twin Towers” and also of the Pinochet Coup in Chile. The former caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the latter of over 40,000.
These are not happy anniversaries and US Imperialism bears a major portion of the blame for both events.
How so, one might ask? The coup in Chile, probably with CIA help, sure. But the Twin Towers? That was a Muslim jihadist attack AGAINST the USA! Surely we’re not expected to believe that stupid conspiracy theory that the USA ruling class actually staged the attack?
US proxy soldiers, Special forces Afghan National Army, 2021 (Photo sourced: Internet)Osama Bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011), Saudi-born founder and first general emir of Al Qaeda from 1988 until his assassination. (Photo sourced: Internet)
That is truly a crazy conspiracy theory but the historical truth does indeed involve a conspiracy. In 1997 the government of Afghanistan was socialist which was worrying for the USA, so in partnership with Saudi elements, they funded and even founded Muslim jihadist groups there.
These groups were to be encouraged to overthrow the socialist regime and when the USSR sent troops to support the government, to defeat the Russians too. Which they did.
But forget about fantasy stories of traditional tribesmen with ancient muskets fighting a world power’s army – these were jihadists, fundamentalists, armed with modern automatic weapons and mobile missile launchers including SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles).
Forget too about Rambo-led simple hill people – since the US achieved the overthrow of the socialist regime and invaded Afghanistan alongside their British allies, those jihadist groups have been squabbling over their share of the spoils, often murderously.
In fact, US imperialism is largely responsible for the world pestilence of not only jihadism of the Al Qaeda type, but the even more virulent Islamic State variety (which indicates Mary Wollstonecraft’s story of Frankenstein’s monster to be more prediction than fiction).
Explosion in one of the Twin Towers on 11th September 2001 in Al Qaeda attack. (Photo: Sean Adair/ Reuters)Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous story; he returns to attack his creator (Image sourced: Internet)
Although US Imperialism had created Al Qaeda and although Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was totally opposed to the jihadist group (and vice versa), US politicians used the attack on the Twin Towers to ‘justify’ the US military invasion of Iraq.
“Sweet are the uses of adversity” indeed when manipulated by US Imperialism for domestic consumption and for world public opinion, also when assisted by British Imperialism’s Labour Government, in particular by lying-through-his-teeth Tony Blair.
The US-led campaign against Iraq resulted in about 1.5 million deaths through economic sanctions alone followed by over 300,000 civilians in the Western military campaign. These figures do not include deaths and injuries of Iraqi military and of the invading allies under the USA and UK.
Nor do those figures include the many deaths, military and civilian, in internal conflicts since the invasion of Iraq which continue to mount.
The deaths resulting from the coup in Chile were overwhelmingly of civilians as the coup was carried out by the Army with little opposition within the military and the civilian population were mostly unarmed.
Most of the deaths occurred in succeeding days and years as the regime rounded up communists, trade union militants and others suspected of having supported Allende’s party, to torture and execute them, including most famously the renowned musician and singer-songwriter Victor Jara.
The anniversaries of both the Pinochet coup and the Twin Towers have been commemorated in various parts of the world with, it appears, the coup being remembered in most of them, not only in Latin America but also in many countries in Europe where Chilean political exiles found refuge.
In the USA, of course, the attack on the Twin Towers was officially commemorated and probably communally too much more so than the coup in Chile.
Another imperialist-generated disaster, the anniversary of which falls only a couple of days after those two, is that of the Oslo Accords, signed on 13th September 1993 and often also known as a stage in “the Palestinian Peace Process”.
At the White House, supervised by Bill Clinton, elected chief of US Imperialism at the time, Yitzak Rabin for the Israeli Zionist state and Yasser Arafat, for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, signed an agreement, as a result of which the PLO would be permitted to run their own statelet.
Oslo Accords, 13 September 1993, Washington: Yasser Arafat of the PLO shakes hands with Yitzak Rabin of the Zionist State under the stewardship of (then) US President Bill Clinton, representing US Imperialism. (Photo: Gary Hershom/ Reuters)
Hailed as a great breakthrough by most media at the time, the PLO, dominated by Arafat’s Al Fatah, got to have limited self-government within the Zionist State, with the borders of any future Palestinian state undefined and no mention of the millions of Palestinian exiles around the world.
Although the increasing encroachment on Palestinian lands by Zionist settlers was temporarily halted, the land already taken and built upon remained in Zionist hands, that issue and others ‘to be discussed later’ but the Palestinians were to give up the armed resistance immediately.
The South African pacification process had begun earlier and, though enfranchisement of non-white South Africans was not to come until 1994, it was clearly on the way. The ANC promoted pacification processes to Al Fatah and both parties promoted them to Provisional Sinn Féin.1
The Palestinian ‘Process’ was controversial among their people from the start and grew more so as it became clear how little the Palestinian cause had gained and how much had been set aside, along with the growing official corruption and nepotism growing among the Al Fatah organisation.
Though the pacification process was widely rejected in Palestine and failed to install a widely-recognised ‘official’ collusive leadership, it did achieve the fragmentation of the Palestinian leadership and helped to ‘justify’ the demonisation of Hamas, winner of the 2006 elections.
ALTERNATIVES
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (sic) is quoted in the media as saying that there is no alternative to the UK’s legacy legislation, which proposes to prevent recourse in law for any crimes committed by its soldiers, colonial police, proxies or Government Ministers.
Secretary of State for the Northern Ireland (sic) colony, Chris Heaton Harris (Photo cred: PA)
The legislation in question is titled The Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.
All political parties in Ireland on both sides of the British Border have vigorously opposed this legislation and THERE CLEARLY IS AN ALTERNATIVE, which is to abandon it. What the UK’s ‘colonial governor’ of the Six Counties means is: no alternative acceptable to the ruling class.
While we’re on alternatives, all liberation movements had and have the alternatives to embracing pacification processes, which is to maintain the path of resistance upon which they embarked until the day they win that for which their people and fighters have sacrificed their liberty and lives.
Allende and the communists in Chile had the alternative of arming the people and purging the Army but instead chose to put their faith in the ‘loyalty’ of Pinochet, ‘democracy’ and the opinion of the Western powers.
“The people armed cannot be harmed”, perhaps, rather than “The people united can never be defeated”.2 Allende’s error cost him his life but also the lives of hundreds of thousands of others.
Women on 11th September hold a candlelit commemoration at La Moneda, Santiago, Chile for the victims – in particular of sexual violence – of the Pinochet coup and dictatorship. (Photo: Adriana Thomasa / EFE)
Imperialists have the alternative of respecting the right to self-determination of the peoples of the world and to cease from exploiting, oppressing and repressing them.
But if they did that, they wouldn’t be imperialists, would they? And since they cannot change their nature, they have to be overthrown.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1Provisional Sinn Féin signed up to the Irish Pacification Process in 1998 and they and the ANC then moved on to promote a pacification process to the leadership of the Basque movement for independence, which also finally signed up to it without even obtaining release of the political prisoners. By that time the Palestinian Process had shown its empty promise and the Second Intifada (2000-2005) demonstrated its rejection by most Palestinian youth and the elections to the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council were won convincingly by Hamas.
2An alternative slogan to “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” was even then being promoted by a smaller communist group: “El pueblo armado jamás será aplastado!”, i.e ‘The armed people will never be crushed’.
The Petro government has reached the end of its first year in which it promised a lot, came through on some things and changed a lot of other things, particularly its position on certain issues.
Before taking a look at it, it should be pointed out that the Historic Pact (PH) is not the first left-wing government in Colombia. The country is still waiting for that. It is a remould of liberalism in the style of Ernesto Samper.
Even so, it is worth looking at its proposals and what it did in this year, as unlike Samper, it did give a lot of hope to the people.
It is generally accepted that Petro would not have been elected President if it were not for the big popular revolt that began on April 28th 2021, an uprising that cost the life of over 80 youths.
We don’t know the exact number of dead and disappeared and less still of the number of young women who were raped and sexually abused by the Police as part of the repression. Even the number of political prisoners is a matter of dispute.
Not due to the absence of the number of people detained but because the amongst Prosecutor’s Office, the press and sections of the PH there are those who seek to divest the detained youths of any political motivations.
They simply paint them as criminals and vandals, the last of these words having been covered in glory during those protests.1
The heroic ‘vandals’:Demonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against a tax reform bill launched by Colombian President Ivan Duque, in Bogota, on April 28, 2021. (Photo cred: Juan Barreto/ AFP). (Photo choice and caption by Rebel Breeze)
So, it comes as no surprise that Petro, like Boric in Chile, did not free the political prisoners from the revolt. He made a few lukewarm attempts to get a handful of them out, but a long way from all of them.
They are still in prison, despite his electoral victory being thanks to their struggle and actions that led them to prison.
It is perhaps the most symbolic transgression as it says sacrifice yourselves but don’t expect anything from me, not even when I owe you everything. Petro has defended himself by saying that it is not his decision to free or imprison anyone.
Recently he stated:
There are still many youths in prison and I get blamed, as if it were up to me to imprison or free them. State bodies and people inside them have decided that these youths should not be freed.
Not because they are terrorists, who would think protesting is terrorism? If not a dictator or Fascist. No, but because they want to punish the youths who rebel.2
Some may feel that he is right in a technical sense, i.e. that it is the Prosecution and the judges who imprison them. But that is to ignore reality.
He himself denigrated them when he referred to them as ‘vandals’ during the protests and since taking office, neither Petro nor the PH have been the visible heads of any initiative to free the prisoners. They washed their hands of the issue.
He didn’t even disband the specialised riot squad, the ESMAD. Unlike other proposals he didn’t even try to.
He changed its name and promised a couple of human rights courses for its members, as if the problem was their lack of attendance at a course or two given by some NGO and not a deep-rooted problem. The ESMAD is a unit that murdered many youths.
It is a body whose name is synonymous with violence, torture, sexual abuse and murder. A name change won’t wash away the blood.
… the promise to put an end to the ESMD was just lip service during the presidential campaign.It wasn’t carried out and the government will fail to carry through on its commitment to the youths who brought the president to power, through the existence of a repressive violent force like this one.
The temptations to infiltrate the marches in order to justify confrontations with the kids will continue to be part of the landscape.3
Petro gives his voters a clenched fist on his inauguration as President in August last year but many remain in jail and the rest get little or nothing. (Photo sourced: Internet) (Photo choice and caption by Rebel Breeze)
In economic terms the government promised a lot during the campaign, but once in power, it quickly softened its proposals and in some other cases they didn’t get a majority of votes in Congress.
The lack of votes in Congress is not a simple one of not coming through, nor is it due to betrayals by the PH nor manoeuvres by other forces that Petro can’t control.
The PH is a coalition of sectors of the right with sectors of what passes for social democracy in Colombia. It was not inevitable, but rather Petro actively advocated that it be like that.
It is worth recalling that at first, he wasn’t going to choose Francia Márquez as his vice-president but rather a right winger like Roy Barreras.
However there are economic aspects that are under his control, but for the moment they remain as just proposals, rather than real policies that have gone through Congress. On the land question, Petro proposes monocultures and agribusiness.
This was clearly to be seen in the proposal to buy three million hectares from the cattle ranchers.
Petro’s vision of the countryside is one of it being at the service of big money and the promotion of cash crops, despite some references to the production of foodstuffs for internal consumption and the so-called bio-economy.
Something similar can be seen with his proposals for clean energy. He spoke a great deal about it during the electoral campaign and some of his proposals, or outlines as they stand, look good.
That Colombia no longer depend on oil and coal is not a bad idea and that it be replaced with alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power looks good, until we actually examine the details.
One of his first stumbles, in that sense, was with the Indigenous people, as La Guajira is a poor area that has suffered the consequences of coal mining.
He did not take them into account and they reminded him that what is proposed for their territory should have their support, though legally it is not quite the case, and that it should also benefit them.
He partially rectified the case, but the big question is, if he wants an energy transition why does he have to seek out French and other foreign capital to finance it. Does he want to hand over the wind and solar power as they are still doing with oil and coal?
It would seem so. According to Petro:
We need investments that help us carry this out: we would have a matrix of foreign investment centred on the construction of clean energies in South America, with a guaranteed market, if we have direct link to the United States and by sea with the rest of the world.4
If you substitute oil and coal for clean energy, you begin to see the problem: the resources of Colombia in the service of big money and the countries of the North.
If we are to have a real change and energy transition, we must end the idea of Northern energy consumption regardless of where it comes from as sustainable and that countries such as Colombia must supply energy for a planet-destroying consumption model.
Neither have there been great advances on the issue of peace. He did reactivate the dialogue with the ELN, but stumbled with something that is still an integral part of his policy, the so-called Total Peace.
In his proposal he compared the insurgent group, the ELN to the drug gangs and paramilitary groups such as the Clan de Golfo. It was not a mistake, Petro really does see the ELN as a criminal gang.
He made it clear in his speech to the military and he reaffirmed it when he named the blood thirsty Mafia boss and former Murderer-in-Chief of the paramilitaries, Salvatore Mancuso as a Peace Promoter.
With that he placed the ELN leadership on the same plane as the paramilitaries. And they have implicitly accepted it for the moment.
In Petro’s discourse Colombia is a violent country and there is no way to understand it and peace has to be made with everyone as they are all the same, the insurgency and the narcos. Not even Santos was that creative in delegitimising the guerrillas.
Mancuso took on his role and once again spoke of the land they had stolen, the disappeared etc. He has been telling us for two decades now that tomorrow he will reveal all, but tomorrow never comes.
When Uribe invited Mancuso to the Congress of the Republic, Petro had a different attitude.
His response was blunt and he described Uribe as a president that was captured by the paramilitaries and that Mancuso manipulated the Congress stating that “if under this flag of peace, dirtied by cocaine what is essentially being proposed is an alliance with genocidal drug traffickers and political leaders… then we are not contributing to any sort of peace.”5
And we end the year with a scandal. I have on many occasions compared Petro and the PH to Samper and the Liberal Party of the 90s. But not in my most fertile delirium could I imagine that Petro and his son would give us another Process 8000.
Samper managed to reinvent himself as a statesman and human rights defender, despite his government’s dreadful record, following the outcry over drug money in his election campaign. He has publicly supported Petro and the PH.
Now he can advise them on how to deny what is as plain as day. Illicit funds went into the PH’s campaign as has happened with all election campaigns.
Petro finds himself in the eye of the storm due to the manoeuvres of his son in asking for and receiving money. His ambassador in Caracas has boasted about obtaining 15,000 million pesos [3.3 million euros] that were not reported to the authorities.
Those on the “left” who gave Petro unconditional support defend him, saying that it all happened behind his back.
The only thing left to say about that is, a little bit of respect for Samper please! He established his copyright, authorship of that expression in relation to dirty money. They will have to come up with another one.
For the moment Petro says, I didn’t raise him, which is true. But his son is the beneficiary of a type of political nepotism. As was the case with Samper, the only doubt is whether Petro knew or not.
That a government which is supposedly progressive has found itself entangled in such a storm is revealing of a government in which politics is a family business.
Something similar happened to the FARC commander Iván Márquez with his nephew who turned out to be a DEA informant.
On the drugs issue it is clear that the discourse and reality do not match at any point. Petro went to the UN to announce a new drugs policy. He put forward various aims for his government and criticised the war on drugs.6
It seems like a bad joke that the said policy has not yet been published. What we have seen is that the fumigations continue, the Yanks smile on and occasionally there is talk of going after the big fish, without saying who they are.
We know that he is not talking about the banks, and less still of the European companies that supply the precursor chemicals. The big fish will turn out to be middle ranking thugs in the cities of Colombia, at best.
So, it has been a year that wasn’t that different to others. Yes, there were changes, some proposal or other that was half interesting, but even the right wing does that occasionally.
The vote of confidence cast in the ballot box is still waiting to see the promised changes. But we increasingly see a government without a clear aim and reinventing old policies as new ones, with the same results as before.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1 See Ó Loingsigh’s article Long Live the Vandals – R.B.
A heart-breaking story with courage and a heart-warming ending.
Report by Luciana Bertoia from Pagina 12 published through arrangement with Publico.es Translation by D.Breatnach
The last time Julio Santucho saw his wife, Cristina Navajas, was on June 14, 1976. Appointed as head of international policy for the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores), he had to leave Argentina for six months.
They had been married for almost five years then and had two children: Camilo, three years old, and Miguel, who had not yet turned one. The three accompanied him to the Retiro terminal, where he took a bus to Sao Paulo and then arrived in Rome.
In the terminal, Cristina had Miguel in her arms and Camilo by the hand. When saying goodbye to him, she insisted on a promise:
– I only ask you one thing. If something happens to me, you have to take the boys with you. They shouldn’t stay with your mom, with my mom, or with other comrades. They have to stay with you.
– But, Cris, we’ve been living in hiding for a long time, and nothing has ever happened to us.
“Now it’s different,” she cut him off.
One day before a month had passed since Julio’s departure, Cristina was kidnapped by the Dictatorship. She was in the apartment at 735 Warnes Avenue, where her sister-in-law Manuela Santucho lived.
Another comrade from the PRT-ERP, Alicia D’Ambra, also lived with them. All three were kidnapped that day. The oppressors left Cristina’s two sons, Camilo and Miguel, and Manuela’s son, Diego, in the apartment.
Cristina managed to ask a neighbour to call her mother, Nélida Navajas. When the phone rang, Nélida had to ask where the boys were. For security reasons, she did not know their address.
When she arrived, she heard the screams of the two youngest, Miguel and Diego, from the street. Camilo was asleep.
Nélida found her daughter’s bag on the ground. Inside was a series of letters that she had written to Julio, waiting to receive an address to to which to send them. She had started writing the last one on Saturday, July 10, but had finished it the next day:
“Miguel is much better, he hardly coughs anymore, but he is more of a bandit and wilder every day. Cami is calmer and doesn’t give me work, the only thing is that he is getting clingy to me. He asked again which house we are going to, which house is this, etc.
Now the one who is not well is me, I do not know if I am pregnant,” she told her husband.
Julio found out about the kidnappings the next day, when he called to greet his brother-in-law on his birthday.
Refugee from Argentinian Dictatorship accompanied by a son as he attends a press conference about his reunion with another son, abducted by the regime, 43 years ago. (Photo: Enrique Garcia Medina/ EFE)
That day he spoke ten times with his mother-in-law. He would not hesitate to return to Buenos Aires to collect his children, but the PRT sent two comrades who, pretending to be a couple , took the children out and abroad to their father.
Forty-six years later, Julio managed to meet his third child, the baby that Cristina had while she was kidnapped in the Pozo de Banfield, after having gone through Coordinación Federal and Orletti Automotive (places of detention of the fascist regime – Trans.).
He is the 133rd grandchild found by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (group of women who began the campaign to trace those made missing by the fascist regime – Trans.)
In an interview with Página 12, Julio Santucho relates how he was reunited with his youngest son, now a 47-year-old adult.
How was the search?
The main heroine in this story is Cristina, who for eight or nine months was pregnant in the most inhumane conditions: mistreatment, torture, bad food. She put up with all of this with willpower and finally gave birth to our son.
My son began to question his (new family – Trans.) relationship based on references from those close to the family. A sister who lived with him for 20 years told him “these are not your parents.”
From the way he was treated by the appropriator who raised him, he came to realise that he was not his father.
In 2019, he began to search, although stopped during the pandemic and then resumed. He had a birth certificate from another province. Finally this year he managed to have his DNA tested.
We searched but we had no approximation or probability of discovering my son. It was an exceptional case: he was born in the Pozo de Banfield, but police doctor Jorge Bergés did not sign the certificate. He surprised us.
What is it like to meet a son who is 46 years old?
It is good. The bad thing is that they took 46 years from us. It is a victory for the human rights organizations that have fought for this and it is a defeat for the dictatorship. They wanted to steal my son but I, later than ever, got him back.
My mother-in-law, Nélida Navajas, joined the Abuelas (Grandmothers’ group – Trans.) to look for her grandson. Abuelas is an irreplaceable institution, it is an enormous benefit to society because it is precisely the place where people who have doubts can recover their identity.
In July 1976, you lost much of your family and now, another July but 47 years later, you have your son back.
You strike a chord. On July 13, Cristina, Manuela and Alicia were kidnapped. She was a comrade that I also knew because she worked in the party schools.
On the 19th, six days later, they killed my brother “Roby” (Mario Roberto Santucho, leader of the PRT-ERP), and later my brother Carlos.
It was a tragic week for the family. We are not better-off than others. All the 30,000 disappeared were brave, generous and devoted themselves to a fight for the well-being of society and humanity.
What could he know about Cristina during her captivity?
There are testimonies like that of Adriana Calvo. The Santuchos were visited by all the mothers that were in the Pozo de Banfield. Adriana asked to spend a day with them.
She had her baby in her arms and so as not to worry her Cristina did not tell her that she had had a child and that it had been taken from her.
Adriana, afterwards, spoke at the trial of Cristina’s tremendous generosity in not telling her anything so she wouldn’t worry about her because they could take the baby away from her. Do you realise how far thinking about the welfare of others went?
They were screwed. But they told her: “We are Santucho, we don’t have any possibility of leaving, but they are going to release you.”
And then there is that scene that Adriana recounts: when the officers arrived, all the women made a human wall – led by Manuela, Cristina and Alicia – and the men had to leave without being able to take their baby from her.
They were in a concentration camp. They knew they could shoot them all at that moment.
And now how is the reunion going?
Some ask me about the appropriator of my son, all I say is that I hope that Justice intervenes. For now, this is all like walking on clouds. We talk to my son every day, we see each other often. Now we have the commitment to make a video call to my granddaughters. Let’s go little by little.
Joy is infinite. Besides, we have time. I am 78 years old. My father died at 89. I have a brother in Santiago del Estero who is 101, another who is 96. If they don’t kill us Santucho, we live a long time. So I look forward to enjoying my son for a few more years.
End.
ADDITIONAL NOTESby D. Breatnach
The Argentinian dictatorship lasted from 1976 to 1983 and apart from banning dissenting newspapers and organisations, detained, tortured and killed thousands.
But not only that, very young children and babies were abducted and given to couples who supported the regime to raise as their own. This was also done by other dictatorships, including the Spanish Franco regime of four decades.
In a time when a week-old military coup in Niger is threatened with invasion by France and by some western-allied African states, it is well to remember how other military dictatorships have been viewed by western states.
The lack of democratic elections and opposition parties did not matter to the western states who in fact fully supported the Argentinian and many other coups and dictatorships.
The military dictatorship of Argentina only became a problem to the UK’s ruling class when Argentina’s military invaded the British colony of the Malvinas/ Falkland Islands in 1982, the same year that the USA stopped supporting the junta for the first time.
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh 12 April 2023 (first published in Socialist Democracy)
(Reading time: 5 mins.)
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced in a National Peace, Reconciliation and Harmony Council (CNPRC) meeting that the state didn’t have sufficient funds to fulfil the Havana Accord signed with the FARC.(1)
The situation seems to be so serious that according to the President it will take 125 years to fulfil it. There are some points in which he is right, but only if we ignore the most obvious things: the nature of the Accord itself.
He alludes to this and asks some rhetorical questions, ones which he should really ask as proper questions, not as some gesture in his oratory, but rather as questions to the FARC, Santos and all those who promoted the Accord nationally and internationally.
Among guarantors of the Colombian conflict pacification deal signed by, at the time, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, left, and leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Timoleón Jiménez, known as “Timochenko,” during a news conference announcing an agreement between the two parts in Havana on Sept. 23, 2015. Among those applauding, Cuban President Raul Castro at far right of picture. (Source photo: Internet)
Petro asks “was that Accord signed with the aim of applying it, or with the aim of disarming the FARC and later, Colombian style reworking everything?(2)
Well of course it was sonny boy. That much was clear. At the time you were told so and those of us who criticised the Accord were accused of wanting more war, ignoring that many of us had never participated in or supported the war. It was a debate they didn’t want to have.
During the not very open process negotiated behind closed doors, it was said, in the midst of the euphoria of the signing and the parties in public squares with huge screens in the streets so one would miss it, that criticisms were not welcome.
They were, as an old friend used to say, as welcome as a fart in a space suit.
Petro continued and stated something he certainly believes is very important.
I want to implement the Peace Accord, but it costs 30.5 billion Euros. If the Santos government signed this in the name of the state and society is represented in this, then, tell me where am I to get this 30.5 billion?(3)
There is an easy answer to that question. The money can be got from the same place that they, and in that I include Petro, thought it was when they signed the Accord in 2016. Don’t ask where they are going to get the money, but rather tell us where you expected to get it in 2016.
Petros giving a clenched fist salute after his inauguration as President of Colombia. (Source photo: Internet)
Senators such as Iván Cepeda who played an important role in the process can point to where. The cost of the Accord was obvious from day one, this problem is not new and it is just not credible thatPetro and his Congress benches have just realized how much money was needed.
But the truth is Petro, Cepeda wanted to bring the FARC to an end and rework things later. All of them without exceptions. Of if this is not the case, maybe they can tell us where they thought they would get the money.
The former FARC commander, Timochenko said that war against the FARC (he excludes all of the other guerrilla groups that have existed) cost 83.7 billion Euros and the 30.5 of Petro is a minimal cost for the chance of a country in peace.
He is partially right, except that the problem is not about money or amounts, but rather the Accord itself and their perspective that what is needed is money and not political changes. The Havana Accord reads like shopping list, like a list of demands and a not very precise list at that.
A Land Bank would be set up with three million hectares, but it doesn’t say where and left it to the whim of whichever government.
So Petro announced that he would fulfil that part by buying land off cattle ranchers. The same ranchers whose spokesperson José Felix Lafaurie accepted that Fedegan’s affiliates, rice growers and various multinationals financed the right-wing paramilitaries.(4)
Nothing happened to him, nor to the 10,000 cattle ranchers who had signed an open letter where they acknowledged their crime.(5) At the time it was argued that the Prosecutor was not in a position to process that many people.
It wasn’t true, the crime had been publicly vindicated and they also said that there was nowhere to put 10,000 criminals. This wasn’t true either.
According to the prison service’s own figures and the calculations of the Corporación Excelencia en Justicia, in 2006 the Colombian prison system had a capacity for 52,414 prisoners with 60,021 actually held in them.
In 2011, that figure had risen to a capacity of 75,260 with 100,451 people in them i.e. they managed to put 40,000 poor prisoners in overcrowded conditions, but they had no room for 10,000 paramilitaries and their lackies.
In 2006 there were 19,353 prisoners on remand.(6) A little bit of creativity with the judicial abuse of remand and they could have put the paramilitary funders in jail without any problems.
The prison population eventually reached the figure of 125,000 prisoners in overcrowded conditions whilst others rambled around their lands despite having acknowledged their crime.
What was missing was the will. But instead of spending money buying land from paramilitaries and their backers, Petro could confiscate the land of those 10,000, amongst others. It wouldn’t cost that much.
There are other measures he could take with a view to peace, justice and truth. Petro could ask for the extradition of the Board of Chiquita who paid a 25 million dollar fine in the US having accepted their responsibility in the crime of financing paramilitary groups.
It wouldn’t cost more than the price of posting the request. There are other measures that have some bureaucratic costs, like forcing public bodies to comply with land restitution findings, something which does not happen. It also only requires the will to do so.
Petro’s focus is the same one as the FARC and the Santos’ government and other peaceniks, who are now Congress reps: it is a question of money. But this is not the case. It is a question of returning stolen land, reviving organisations, guaranteeing the right to exercise one’s rights.
It is also the disbandment of the specialised riot squad, ESMAD. It is more expensive to change its name and give it a makeover, as Petro proposes, than abolishing it.
He wanted to buy fighter jets at a cost of 3,150 million dollars. Due to public reaction, he backtracked but he did buy the Barak MX air defence system from Israel at a cost of 131.2 million dollars.(7) He also bought 18 Howitzers from Israel at a cost of 101.7 million dollars.(8)
Such systems are for conventional wars between countries, they are of no use against insurgents, i.e. they are toys for the military. Maybe they will be used in the Coup that Petro’s followers announce all the time. It is what happened in Chile.
So, is there any money or not? And what will be done with the things that don’t cost much? Why don’t they reduce the extravagant salaries of the magistrates in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace who to date have produced little?
But then, at least he partly accepts what was always the case, that the peace process and the Havana Accord were a mockery of the victims of the Colombian conflict. Their only purpose was to remove the FARC from the field, particularly in areas with oil and other natural resources.
No one sought to solve any deep-seated problems in the country and here we are with the tale that there is a lack of money, when really what was lacking throughout the entire process were clear political positions.
(3) Ibíd., Euro figures were calculated at 4906 pesos to the Euro and the original figure of 150 billion in the article was taken using the Spanish definition of billion, which is a million, million.
(4) El Cambio No 704 diciembre 2006/enero 2007 Diez Preguntas (Entrevista con José Félix Lafaurie p. 48)
(5) El Espectador (17/12/2006) La hora de los ganaderos, p. 2A
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (with kind donation of photos)
(Reading time: 7 mins.)
08 March 2023
Photo Coca Plants Northern Colombia: G.O.L.
The drugs issue in Colombia supposedly occupies the time of and is a concern to the government.
It has been an important issue for all the governments and as was to be expected it is one that has come up again in the dialogues with the ELN, despite this organisation denying any links to the drugs trade.
The author (left) and Pablo Beltran, the ELN negotiator (centre) and representative of social movement in Ecuador (right) in 2017 conference in University of Simon Bolivar, Quito, Ecuador. (Photo: GOL)
In the peace process with the FARC, agreement was reached on the issue. What was agreed to in Point 4 of the Havana Accord was abysmal and showed that the FARC did not understand the problem nor the possible solutions.
Of course, there could be a difference between what the FARC understood and what it agreed to, as at the end of the day the state won the war and imposed the greater part of what the FARC signed up to.
Following the agreement in the declarations of the main FARC commanders there is nothing to be seen that indicates that they really understood the problem. Will it be any different with the ELN?
One of the main concerns of the ELN has been to put a distance between themselves and the drugs trade.
Whilst it is true that the ELN is not the FARC, it is also true that in their areas of influence or those contiguous there are coca and poppy crops and the USA is not going to believe them that they have nothing to with it, whether they like it or not. The ELN accepts that it places taxes on economic activities and for the USA that is drug trafficking.
So, some time ago, the ELN issued a statement where they restated that they have nothing to do with drugs and invited an international commission to visit the country to see the reality for itself.(1) They ask that a UN delegate take part in the delegation. They also make a series of proposals in relation to the issue as such.
On the first point, the ELN feels sure of itself regarding its ability to show in practice that they are not drug traffickers. The ELN correctly states that:
When the Colombian government and the USA accuse the ELN of having an active role in the trade, they are lying, but above all they are covering up for those really responsible and the deep-seated problems, which indicate their unwillingness to take real and effective measures.(2)
ELN guerrilla camp, Colombia (Photo: GOL)
But for the USA, it is not about whether they are guilty or not, it is a political tool and weapon and to give them a voice and vote in the affair is extremely dangerous. When the USA accuses the ELN of being drug traffickers, it is not making a mistake.
A mistake on their part would be to say something they believe and be wrong about it, but they accuse the ELN for political reasons on the basis of their strategic needs and the legal basis to their accusations is the least of it: it is just propaganda. By inviting them into the country, the ELN falls into their trap.
The UN participated in the commissions of investigation for supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The lack of evidence of such weapons wasn’t of much use.
The USA played around with supposed or real non-compliance by Saddam and did what they always wanted to do: invade Iraq. In this they counted on the explicit support of Great Britain and the tacit support of others.
There is a myth in Colombia that the only baddies are the USA and that other imperialist powers such as Canada (a country that is not seen as imperialist by many sections of the “Colombian left”), and other countries of the European Union are good, or at least not really that bad to the point they are friends of the Colombian people.
In the case of Colombia, the EU competes with the US in almost everything. The EU is Colombia’s second commercial partner and its companies are dominant in sectors such as mining, health and oil, amongst others.
The ELN also asks for the legalization of drugs. The demand is justified and quite opportune, but their counterparts i.e. the Colombian state is not sovereign in the matter and furthermore there is a need to clarify what is understood by legalization.
If by legalization they mean legalizing production for medical purposes, the bad news is that medical production is already legal. The thing is, that it is controlled. In fact, in many jurisdictions they don’t talk of illegal drugs but rather controlled substances.
Cocaine is a controlled substance. Its production for medical reasons is authorized by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and production is almost exclusively carried out in Peru. And the market is quite small, not even reaching 400 kilos per year as I pointed out in an earlier article.(3) It solves nothing in relation to Colombia.
If on the other hand, they are talking about legalizing recreational use, something which could positively impact the Colombian countryside, then it is a matter of international jurisdiction. Colombia cannot legalise it on its own.
Colombia is a signatory to the Single Convention of 1961 that holds sway in the matter and in addition there are power relationships at play.
It doesn’t matter whether it legalises production for recreational use, it will never be able to legally export it, not only without the consent of the other country, but also the whole setup of the UN and its bodies such as the INCB i.e. at the end of the day, the USA.
Even if it is legalized for internal consumption, there are other problems that have already arisen in countries such as Uruguay which legalised recreational use of marijuana or some of the states in the USA.
The banking system dare not receive funds from those legalised markets and the producers resort to old methods more akin to money laundering to deposit legal funds in legal accounts in a legal banking system.
Even in the hypothetical case of the USA and the EU agreeing, the legalisation of cocaine would go far beyond Colombian cocaine and would include other drugs such as opium and its derivatives such as heroin. It is worth looking at the drugs market and its production.
According to the UN, cocaine is produced directly or indirectly in eight Latin American countries (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia account for almost all of it), whilst 57 countries produce opium, the Asian countries being the largest producers (Afghanistan, Myanmar and Mexico dominate the market).
A bucket of opium poppy seed (Photo: GOL)
Cannabis, which is the most widely consumed drug in the world is produced in 154 countries.
For 2020, the UN calculated that there were 246,800 hectares of opium and 234,000 of coca.(4) They also calculate a production of 7,930 tonnes in 2021(5) and 1,982 tonnes of cocaine in 2020.(6) We are not talking about small quantities of production or land. Almost half a million hectares between these two drugs and 64 countries.
Any proposal of legalisation has to include these countries and their peasantry.
The number of drug users is also large. The UN calculates that in 2020 there were 209 million cannabis consumers, 61 million people who had consumed opiates, 24 million amphetamine users, 21 million cocaine consumers and 20 million users of ecstasy.(7)
They say that in 2020, they had calculated that 284 million people between the ages of 15-64 years used drugs, i.e. one in every 18 people in this cohort.(8)
There are consequences to this, in economic but also cultural terms regarding the use and abuse of substances. But there also consequences in terms of health. Some 600,000 people received some treatment for drug problems.(9)
So when the ELN says that “Drug addicts are ill and should be cared for by the states and not pursued as delinquents”(10) their idea is correct, however, the size of the problem is greater than the real capacity of the health systems in the countries that have large numbers of users.
Photo Opium Poppy Nariño Colombia: G.O.L.
The total number of people injecting drugs is 5,190,000 in Asia, 2,600,000 in Europe and 2,350,000 in the Americas (almost 75% of which is in north America).(11)
Of those who inject, 5.5 million have Hepatitis C, 1.4 million are HIV positive and 1.2 million are HIV positive and also have Hepatitis C.(12) These are not minor problems and are high-cost illnesses.
Of course, these figures do not include the unlawful abuse of legal pharmaceuticals. In the USA almost 80% of the overdoses are from the consumption of legal opiates such as fentanyl, which caused 78,238 deaths in 2021 in that country.
But the issue does require legalisation and not other means that the FARC aimed for. The peasants of Colombia did not make a mistake in choice of crop when they planted coca. Coca was and continues to be a very profitable crop, despite all the difficulties that it generates.
There is no need to substitute it with another crop such as cocoa or African palm etc. It is not about the crop but rather the production model and the political and economic context.
The increase in coca production in Colombia, is not due to subjective factors such as the decisions of peasants, not even of the drug barons and less still of the insurgencies but rather objective economic factors.
This is a key point. It was the decisions of northern countries that impacted the countryside and pushed thousands of peasants around the world to grow opium poppy and coca. The neoliberal cutback policies in the north also contributed to the dramatic rise in problem drug use due to the increase in misery in those countries.
Bedding, equipment and reading material in an ELN guerrilla camp, Colombia (Photo: GOL)
In any discussion we should distance ourselves from the idea that the drugs problem can be solved in a negotiation with the ELN, although they could negotiate some points that would contribute positively to a solution.
But the problem is political and the free trade agreements and other measures that had a negative impact on the countryside have to be looked at again.
Also, they have to reach an agreement with the Colombian government, not for some perks for peasants nor corrupt projects and budgets such as those the FARC agreed to, but rather a political agreement where the government argues and campaigns for the derogation of the Single Convention of 1961.
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