By Carlos Aznárez on May 13, 2017
Pablo Beltrán. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano
Last Thursday, in Havana, Cuba, the director of Resumen Latinoamericano interviewed the chief of the peace delegation on the Colombian ELN, Commander Pablo Beltrán. On that same day, the leaderships of the ELN and the FARC guerrillas met with Cuban leader Raúl Castro and presented him with a report of what both delegations had discussed for several days in the Cuban capital.
Commander, we want to hear your opinion on the development of the meetings that the ELN is having in Quito with the government’s delegation. From what we’ve seen so far there are advances and setbacks but a lot of uncertainty remains, precisely what do you expect to achieve in the upcoming months?
At the roundtable in Quito we have two opposing visions of peace; the one of the Colombian regime, which is to pacify, and ours, which is a vision of peace with changes and social justice. That collision of visions frequently causes crises at the negotiation table. This is despite the fact that we’ve been able to establish a common agenda of conversations and we’ve begun to develop it in Quito. We’ve already completed a first round that lasted two months. Next week the second round begins and the table has been subdivided into two sub-tables: one to design the method for participation of society in the peace process as a whole, and the other one is designated to produce a draft of humanitarian agreements that benefits Colombian society as a whole. We are doing this as proof that we want to create a climate of peace, a sort of progressive bilateral armistice to accompany the conversations since day one.
So that’s the work that’s being done at the roundtable. There are obstacles, of course. One of them is that the government continues to make unilateral demands: “do this or that or else we won’t participate any longer at the roundtable”. We’ve told them that the mission of this delegation is to come and negotiate and if they insist on making unilateral demands we won’t go through the trouble of sending a delegation, and they can send their concerns to our e-mail account and we’ll read it when we see fit. In a negotiation, each party states their ideas, there are approaches between them and from there agreements are created on bilateral efforts—not on unilateral demands. But as I said, frequently there are problems at the table that produces a crisis. We are hoping that in the round that begins next week that there will be progress in assigning people as to how the participation methods will be designed and also progress on the first drafts on the immediate humanitarian issues.
Does the ELN think that the government will rationally accept the people you want to assign to the roundtable?
First of all they have opposed the very idea of creating this table. They have already accepted, for example, our plan to ask 24 sectors of Colombian society what they think the method for participation should be and what they can contribute from their experience. To achieve just this took a lot of work and at least now those people are going to be heard, but whatever they say won’t be binding because the government has said so. And that’s our struggle now, because we say yes. What the people want can’t be merely a symbolic salute to the flag. Our work and our position is that what the people say is taken into account. And we, in the social and political movement in Colombia, for a long time have maintained that ‘when the people speak, the people lead’. So that’s our next fight.
Do you take the lack of compliance by the government of the agreements they made with the FARC as a warning? For example, they aren’t complying with the amnesty for the political prisoners, and paramilitary groups continue to act and kill with complete impunity.
And they’re killing more than ever before, instead of less.
Exactly. How do you address this at the roundtable?
We have a problem with the interlocutor; there’s a part of the regime that wishes to achieve peace agreements through this process, and another part that doesn’t want it. That’s the first big problem. That is, our dialogue is divided.
And the second issue is that the government we’re negotiating with is getting weaker and weaker. Which means we are having a dialogue with a group that is governing less and less, and a government coalition that’s crumbling.
Of course we know exactly who our interlocutor is and we know that their political will is minimal and their governing abilities too, but nevertheless as we’ve said we won’t leave the roundtable, we’ll make an effort wherever we can so that by August 2018 this agreement can be as advanced as possible so that the next government, whether it’s right-wing, far-right or whatever, has the pressure to give continuity to work on the process and to reaching agreements. That’s the political goal.
Commander, let’s imagine a scenario where the agreements are finally wrapped up, like the ones with the FARC. Do you also see yourselves in the future forming a party and using the electoral path to politics?
That’s the political goal in item five of our agenda, which says “we’re going to eradicate violence from politics. But there’s two parts, until now the sides have sought power by armed means, and those who defend power with arms. So this agreement is meant for both parts to be signed and honored. What does this really show? That while we’re being insistent about eradicating violence from politics, the fight for power continues—but without violence from the dominant classes instead they have intensified paramilitarism. Last year they killed three leaders each week, now they’re killing two. Comrades of the alternative forces are falling, while the right has no losses. That means there’s a political genocide taking place, like the one of the Patriotic Union 30 years ago. That means that while one thing is being said at the roundtables, real life is completely different. We’re revolutionaries and we believe more in facts than in words. So this makes us question the will of the dominant classes, but still we’re going to persist until we reach that point where in Colombia there’s a struggle for power without violence. Ah, but if we want it and they don’t, then we’re going to have to make it clear that it’s them who don’t want it, not us.
How do you see this moment in the regional context where the right and imperialism are in full counter offensive?
The worst thing that has happened to the world and the continent is the arrival of Mr. Trump to the US presidency. In Colombia we have a saying, “he’s like a madman with a shotgun”. So, that’s not a good message. It means that this period is the last resort of a declining empire. Supposedly they were putting an anti-establishment person in power, but actually they were strengthening the establishment.
But the empire doesn’t fall nor gets weaker. Look at what its done in Syria with false-flag operation, or what they’re doing in Venezuela and other countries. They conspire. Trump’s government said they wouldn’t overthrow any more governments but what they’re doing in Venezuela is trying to overthrow that revolutionary government. There is a lot at stake their with the biggest oil reserves in the world; 300 thousand million barrels of oil. That is a lot, and they had been stealing it for 100 years until Chávez came along and they lost it. So, all the money they invest in the Venezuelan opposition is aimed at recovering that power and getting their earnings back.
Is that the only problem? No, it’s worse. The current scenario is of war, not only to overthrow Venezuela’s legitimate government but to “pacify” Colombia in order to attack better. That’s how we read their attempts to “pacify”.
Besides, we deeply regret—and we’ve said it before—the fact that Colombia is being used as a spearhead for this whole imperialist plan and, even more, we regret seeing Colombia participate in secret agreements with NATO, which ceased being a defensive alliance Many years ago. Trump is seeking to defeat governments who don’t align with the US and pacifying Colombia to improve his imperialist plan of war. In this sense, the confluence is not very good.
In this difficult and complex panorama, are the principles of fighting for socialism in Colombia a project of the regional Patria Grande?
Of course, I believe the example that has been set by the governments that have distanced themselves from transnational corporations and imperialism in America, by handling their own resources in a sovereign manner, by putting economy at the service of the great majority of people—that is democracy.
So who’s in charge of making democracy in Latin America? We are, the revolutionaries are. They won’t make it, they’re comfortable the way things are. So all of the agreements we’re discussing in Colombia have the goal of democratization, but that’s not our ultimate goal.
Capitalism is increasingly harmful to humanity and the planet. We need to change it, we need a different system all together—that’s what we need to seek in the coming post – capitalist period.
And what’s post-capitalism like? It’s gentle with the environment, it prioritizes national majorities, it respects the political processes of each people, it lets each people choose their own destinies. That’s what we fight for. And for sure, we have a start because we already have a Patria Grande, we’re already one and the same people. We have a common history, a common enemy, and common cultural behaviors. So in this sense, Bolivar’s dream of the Big Motherland is real and we aspire to keep the institutions that have been built in the region on their feet. The plan of imperialism is to end them. The plan of the people and of progressive and democratic governments is to keep them.
To fight separately against imperialism is to succumb, therefore fighting in group, as a Patria Grande, for our sovereignty, and for the second independence of our lands and people—that’s the immediate future.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano