With US backing, Colombia's Uribe government continues to escalate its regime of terror. But indigenous communities, trade unionists and social movements are inflicting serious set-backs to Uribe's policy of 'democratic security'.
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has staked everything on handing over the resources of the country and the public sector to private and US multinational interests. But he is discovering that even military force combined with ferocious repression against the civilian population is no guarantee of lasting success.
Neither his 'Plan Patriota' a major ally offensive *to change the balance of power with the guerillas of the FARC, nor the increase last October of US troops in Colombia to 800, have brought him the military breakthrough he was after.
And his army and paramilitaries' operations to secure oil and mineral resources by terrorising indigenous communities from their lands has provoked unprecedented resistance from indigenous peoples in several areas.
The Nasa people's movement in Northern Cauca, for example, struck a symbolic blow against the abuses of militarism and paramiliColombian military, police and death squads, including two popular presidential candidates. The FARC returned to armed struggle...
In 1999-2001, the FARC once again agreed to suspend the armed guerrilla struggle and pursue negotiations with the Pastrana regime. They insisted on a demilitarized zone - free of paramilitary and military troops.
They put forth a political programme of agrarian reform, national public control of strategic resources, and massive public works programs to generate jobs. This programme was put on the table and became the basis for negotiating a peace and justice agreement...
The FARC established a series of public forums and workshops and invited academColombian Coke Float the organisers by arresting another prominent indigenous leader, Alcibiades Escue, on a trumped up charge of paramilitarism.
In response, a rescue mission of *indigenous guards' was mobilised, eventually rescuing the kidnapped group. Then in Cali, at the end of the march, a large delegation of indigenous guards travelled to the prison where Alcibiades Escue was being held and successfully demanded his release.
The indigenous communities were not alone in mobilising in opposition to the regime in 2004. On October 12, 700,000 stopped work and
million demonstrated in the streets in a general strike against the free trade agreement with the US.
In the free trade negotiations the US has demanded the removal of all remaining tariffs and quotas Colombia's agricultural commodities. (The fragile agricultural economy is already in deep crisis and the collapse of prices of commodities has forced many campesinos to turn to coca cultivation.)
The US demands expose a deep contradiction in the Uribe-Bush relationship. As Colombian economist Hector Mondragon argues:
"Uribe's political base is the large landowners who want US help to liquidate peasant always were guerrillas. They are armed because they have to be, because Colombia needs basic changes and the political system does not allow other means, including elections to be held without terror and intimidation.
You have a right to your opinion, but the circumstances, the context and substance of your remarks can only be seen as strengthening the terrorist leaders and military forces in Colombia..." • James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, has written widely on Latin America and is an adviser to the landless and jobless movements in Brazil and Argentina. He is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed). Berenice Celeyta (right) director of SINTRAEMCALI Human Rights Department, addresses TUC. populations who stand in the way of lucrative speculation and megaprojects. Bush's economic base (is) the oil companies, but less, the agricultural multinationals, who see in South America gigantic captive markets if only local agricultures can be wiped out."
Brave resistance is also being mounted to the government's assault on the public. sector and public sector
One union that had been particularly successful in resisting privatisation of a public sector company was SINTRAEMCALI, the union of workers of EMCALI, the public utility company for the city of Cali (Colombia's second city).
In 2003 and 2004 they had used high-profile tactics like
They paid a terrible price, however. A union member was murdered in a drive-by motorcycle shooting, a SINTRAEMCALI bodyguard was assassinated and two workers were badly injured by a letter bomb sent to their work site.
In the city of Barrancabermeja the USO, the oil-workers union which has seen 89 of its members murdered since 1988, staged a desperate fight against the privatisation of the state oil company ECOPETROL itself created by a long struggle of workers in 1948.
3600 workers went out on strike last April after 18 months of negotiations to try to stop privatisation.
They showed how the government had already given away massive concessions to multinationals like Occi-