[Gletkin]

A "guest" editorial from the FARC's (in)famous Dutch volunteer, Tanja Nijmeijer:

FARC-EP are and always have been a political organization
posted by Tanja Nijmeijer
Colombia Reports
Jul 22, 2014

Contrary to claims, the FARC-EP is a political organization. Especially for our opponents, this is important to recognize because not recognizing it would be denying the purpose that has kept us in arms for this long.

According to some extreme right-wing sectors, we have completely lost our ideological horizon; what remains, is a sinking ship of sheer delinquents, who should simply proceed to disarmament and demobilization. These same sectors often feel uncomfortable with the FARC-EP making political proposals in front of the cameras in Havana or participating in public political debates, through interviews or communiques.

This is quite contradictory. We are critized precisely because supposedly we lack political foundation, but when we make our political ideas public, hell breaks loose for some people.

What should we do then?

Isn’t their indignation, in the end, a factual indication that they are not ready for or not willing to accept the insurgency’s political ideas?

Isn’t it, therefore, justifiable to be raised up in arms in a society which is reluctant to accept freedom of speech? In fact, it goes further than just reluctance, people are still imprisoned and killed because of their political convictions or they are eliminated from political life in a more “sophisticated” manner, as happened in the case of ex-senator Piedad Cordoba.

Beyond paranoid Cold-War delusions about Castrochavismo or ridiculous Robin Hood comparisons, if we want to reach a stable and long-lasting peace, it is important to recognize the FARC’s political ideas as such, whether or not people agree with them. After all, they aren’t as impossible-to-achieve as some people would like the world to believe…

It is no secret that the so-called minimum proposals made by the FARC-EP throughout the Havana peace process (100 on Comprehensive Agricultural Development Policy, 100 on Political Participation and another 50 proposals on Illicit Drugs) are not our ultimate goal as a political movement.

The minimum proposals should be perceived as an a priori consensus building from the side of the insurgency, in an attempt to facilitate and fasten the speed of the ongoing peace talks in Havana.

They are a general summary of the thousands of demands, suggestions and proposals made by different social and political organizations in Colombia. So to speak, they are the most pressing needs of a country with a neo-feudal countryside, neo-liberal economic policies and neo-colonial foreign relations.

The General Guidelines for an Open Constituent Process for the Transition to a New Colombia, meaningfully published on May 27, 2014 (the day of the FARC’s 50th anniversary), should be understood as a brief, though complete summary of our minimum proposals. As such, they aim at overcoming misery and inequality, democratizing the country and ensuring good living conditions for everybody.

Of course, our historical aspirations go beyond these urgent measures; the FARC-EP has always sought “the overcoming of the capitalist order”, as stated in the General Guidelines. However, we won’t try to fit a round peg in a square hole; we fully understand the objective and subjective conditions of the moment and the reality we are living in.

When the moment has arrived to endorse the eventual final agreement and discuss the pending points, in a National Constituent Assembly, then the FARC will put its minimum programmatic platform – the ten guidelines – to the consideration of the Colombian society as a whole. It is one of our contributions to the democratic battle of ideas, which sooner or later will inevitably take place in the New Colombia.