Within the space of one week, three high level US officials - Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy John Walters, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - visited Colombia, where they made a series of attacks on Venezuela.
The officials alleged that Venezuela had become a key transit route for Colombia's cocaine production, which accounts for 60% of world supplies. They also alleged that Venezuela is supplying material support and weapons to the FARC; that the FARC operate in Venezuelan territory and hold prisoners there, and that Venezuela constitutes a military threat to Colombia and has expansionist aims in the region.
However, no evidence has been provided to back up any of these claims, none of which stand up to scrutiny of the facts. The allegations are in reality aimed at generating a matrix of negative international opinion in order to isolate the Chavez government whose Bolivarian revolution is posing a serious challenge to U.S. imperialism in the region.
This media and diplomatic campaign has been combined with the launching of a general military offensive against the FARC guerillas which control around 30% of Colombian territory.
Orders were given on January 26 to encircle FARC camps where prisoners are held in order to carry out a military rescue (in direct contradiction to the wishes of the relatives of the prisoners) and to attempt to engage FARC guerrillas in combat. On the day of the so-called peace rally, Uribe called for the complete eradication of the FARC from Colombian soil.
Roots of the conflict
Colombia's guerrilla war dates back six decades, to La Violencia (The Violence) the 10-year civil war that began in the late 1940s between the Conservative and Liberal parties of the Colombian oligarchy that resulted in at least 200,000 deaths.
Many workers and peasants fled the violence, creating independent "peace communities" in the south of the country. When the government persecuted these communities, guerrilla organizations were formed as instruments of self-defense. Out of these groups, the FARC formed in 1964, and today, together with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second largest guerrilla group, control almost 40% of the country.
The FARC has previously attempted to reach a peace accord with the Colombian government in the 1980s. However, after they disarmed and established a civilian organization, 3,000 of their members were massacred by the military, forcing them back into armed struggle. The FARC were placed on the US's list of banned terrorist organizations after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
The campaign against the FARC and the Venezuelan government also seeks to distract attention from the growing "para-politics" scandal that has engulfed the Uribe government, with 40 pro-Uribe legislators under investigation for their connections to the paramilitary groups, including Uribe's brother and cousin.
Uribe is also seeking to use the conflict as an excuse to crackdown on internal dissent. The Colombia Solidarity Campaign statement reported that in the previous two weeks, dozens of activists have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. Senator Peidad Cordoba, who is now under investigation for "crimes against the homeland," has been the victim of numerous death threats and verbal assaults attacks publicly justified by Colombian Interior Minister, Carlos Holguin in Colombian daily El Tiempo on January 24 when he said, "when a person speaks against their country, as Senator Piedad Cordoba did, it is natural that people will react."
Leader of the center-left opposition party, Polo Democratico Alternativo, Carlos Gaviria, also received death threats for organizing a separate march on the same day as the pro-war demonstrations in order to call for a humanitarian accord. Gaviria described the political environment as "pre-fascist."
Full article Global Research
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