Vol. 72/No. 30      July 28, 2008

“We are watching with concern how the imperialists try to capitalize on what happened in Colombia,” Castro wrote July 3. At the same time, he said, “Out of basic humanitarianism, we rejoiced at the news that Ingrid Betancourt, three American citizens, and other captives had been released.”

Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC while she was campaigning for president six years ago. Freed along with her were 11 Colombian soldiers and three U.S. citizens working for Northrop Grumman Corp., who were captured in 2003 when their surveillance plane went down on an “antinarcotics” mission for the Pentagon. “The civilians should have never been kidnapped, nor should the soldiers have been kept as prisoners in jungle conditions,” wrote Castro. “These were objectively cruel actions. No revolutionary aim could justify them.”

Imperialist governments around the world have made much of welcoming the hostages home. Castro pointed out that these governments “want to deflect international attention away from their interventionist plans in Venezuela and Bolivia, and away from the presence of the [U.S.] 4th Fleet in support of the political line that aims to totally eliminate the independence of the countries located south of the United States.”  
 
Washington heavily involved
Washington was heavily involved in the planning of the hostage-freeing operation. U.S. surveillance aircraft intercepted rebel radio and satellite phone conversations and used imaging equipment that penetrated forest foliage, Castro noted in his second article on July 5.

He quoted William Brownfield, U.S. ambassador to Colombia, who told the press the day after the operation, “The truth of the matter is, we have actually come together in a way that we rarely have in the United States of America, except with longtime allies, principally NATO allies.” Several times, Brownfield said, the U.S. government had to make decisions “at the highest levels” about proceeding with the rescue operation.

Colombia has been wracked by intense class conflict for decades. In his July 5 article, Castro noted that the armed resistance in Colombia was initiated by Manuel Marulanda, a peasant, 60 years ago.

Marulanda became a guerrilla “in response to the massacres of peasants carried out by the oligarchy,” Castro said, and later joined the Communist Party of Colombia, which “was under the influence of the Communist Party of the USSR, not of Cuba.”

“The Colombian Communist Party never planned to conquer power through the armed struggle,” the Cuban leader explained. “The guerilla was a resistance front and not the essential instrument for conquering revolutionary power.”  
 
Example of Cuban Revolution
This contrasted with Cuba, where a revolutionary movement that carried out a successful armed struggle was built by Castro and other leaders with the aim of conquering state power as rapidly as possible. From the time of the Cuban revolutionaries’ first encounter with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista’s troops on Dec. 5, 1956, it took two years for the revolutionary struggle to triumph over the dictatorship.

The Cuban leadership insisted on proletarian morality in the way they conducted the armed struggle. “We won our revolutionary war in Cuba by immediately releasing every prisoner absolutely unconditionally,” wrote Castro. “The soldiers and officers captured in every battle were released to the International Red Cross; we kept only their weapons. No soldier will ever put down his arms if he thinks he will be killed or subjected to cruel treatment.”

“Marulanda, a man with remarkable natural talent and a leader’s gift, did not have the opportunity to study when he was young,” Castro noted. “He conceived a lengthy and prolonged struggle. I disagreed with this point of view. But I never had a chance to talk this over with him.” Marulanda died earlier this year.

In 1993 the FARC split from the Communist Party and Marulanda took over the leadership of the guerrilla group, which had “always excelled in a hermetic sectarianism when admitting combatants as well as in their harsh and compartmentalized command methods,” Castro wrote.

The FARC grew to more than 10,000 combatants, often in rivalry with other guerrilla groups. “By then the Colombian territory had become the largest source of cocaine production in the world,” Castro said. “Extreme violence, kidnappings, taxes, and demands on drug producers became widespread.”

At the same time, the situation became more complicated due to “paramilitary forces, armed by the oligarchy, fortified by the great abundance of men serving in the country’s armed forces who were discharged from duty every year without any guarantee of a job.”

Because of this, for three decades the Cuban leadership has advocated peace in Colombia, Castro said. “But we are neither in favor of foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force the United States is attempting to impose at all costs.

“I have honestly and strongly criticized the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not suggesting that anyone lay down their arms, since everyone who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see the peace,” he said. “If I dare to suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas it would be simply that they should state any way they can to the International Red Cross their willingness to free unconditionally all of the hostages and prisoners they hold,” he wrote.

“I will never support the pax romana that the empire tries to impose on Latin America,” Castro closed.  
 
 
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