🚀 go-pugleaf

Lawrence Day wrote:

> Next door in Colombia the ELN declared the oil companies
> to have become legitimate military targets--that is 
> the companies themselves, not just the pipelines.

  Oh, that defines the truth, certainly.  Is the ELN as
definitive as, say, the PLO or the IRA if they define or
classify -- by "declaration" -- shoppers and bus riders
as "legitimate military targets"?

  The only truth to it is that they are engaging in war
against civilized society, and engaging in war crimes,
and should be treated as both hostile and criminal as a 
result.

  It's as the one woman said on teevee in New York after
the aircraft attacks, pausing from fleeing the area to 
state on camera, "These people are vermin, and they need
to be eradicated."


http://www.web.net/eln/ELN/fighting_for.html

...

What is the ELN fighting for?

There is much desinformation about the aims of the colombian guerilla.
No absurd reproach - from drug trafficking to stalinism - that
couldn't be found. Here only a couple of fundamental positions of the
Ej�rcito de Liberaci�n Nacional that might surprise you.

The power will not be conquered, it will be built up! Power of the
people

Since their national assembly in 1983. the ELN has been defending the
conviction that power from below cannot simply be militarily conquered
but has to be built up for a long period of time. In this sense the
revolution is a lengthy process creating new forms of power. We fight
for self-government replacing the authoritarean, repressive and
pseudo-democratic system existing in Latin America nowadays.

The democracy we are striving for has to be funded on the Juntas de
Acci�n Comunal formed by peasants and neighborhoods, on the assemblies
in the neighborhoods and factories, on union groups of the basis and
on attempts of a solidary economy shown in cooperatives and soup
kitchens. And on the militias that protect the new forms of power.

For us, the power of the people is that and much more. It is a new,
participatory and rebellios culture coming from the bottom, rejecting
commercialism and breaking up schemes. It is the emergence of new
social relationships between humans. Relationships which are built on
solidarity and equality between everyone: between men and women,
commanders and normal fighters, guerilleros and the people. To
establish the power of the people you have to go a long way that
consists of battles, creativity and countless little changes.

For justice, solidarity and socialism 

For us, justice is something entirely different from what existed in
the Eastern bloc. There, bureaucracy stood for a politic of
suppression, paternalism and control of the people. Our notion of
socialism is different: it has to imply selfdetermination of the
people, respect for minorities, humanism and grassroots democracy.
Other than capitalism, the socialist society stands for the
subordination of the economy to the needs of the people and not to
profits. Socialism means housing, health and education for all, social
justice, solidarity, exploitation of a countrie's wealth in favor of
the people (not the elites) and an end to the exploitation of those
working.

Armed struggle is legitimate 

With or without guerilla, violence reigns in this world everyday:
hunger, misery, suppression, rape, crime and so on. The armed struggle
in Colombia is the consequence of and not the cause for this reality.
It is the attempt of the poor to free ourselves from the repression we
suffer everyday. Therefore the ELN will not abandon their arms unless
the reasons for our fight have disappeared.

Nevertheless we are for negotiations and specific agreements with the
government if these will improve the living conditions for the lower
classes. We are fighting because we long for a society without
violence. Armed struggle for us is no goal in itself unlike a common
allegation claims. Every day it demands incredible sacrifices from us.
It is rather a sad necessity that will disappear the day capitalist
injustice ends.

The ELN is not militaristic 

Another allegation says the ELN is militaristic organisation dreaming
of an armed coup d'�tat. This is wrong: we know very well that only
broad movements can change society. It is not enough to militarily
defeat the state and take over the presidential palace. Nevertheless,
we are preparing for an intensification of the war. What sounds absurd
has an explanation. The dirty war in Colombia has been intensifying
immensely in the past months. The army and the paramilitary are still
killing leaders of mass movements, slaughtering peasants, kidnapping
relatives of the guerilleros and expanding the areas under direct
control of the paramilitary. There are always less regions where the
paramilitary does not spread terror.

Furthermore the governmental repression is aggravating: unionists are
arrested and activities of the mass movements like for instance the
latest strikes are simply declared illegal.

There is always less political room left for the colombian opposition.
In this sense the clandestine struggle is the only way left to change
society.

A revolution for all by all! 

We know that the guerilla cannot be the only force of change. Social
processes need many protagonists and many avant-gardes. In this sense
we are talking about a collective avant-garde. Among it we count the
guerilla organisations of the CGSB, the political left and radical
social movements that will hopefully emerge. We furthermore are
fighting for a revolution which will defend the rights of the
marginalised or double exploited: women, ind�genas and black people.
  
The basis of our thinking 

In many respects the ELN is built on marxist and leninist principles
but beyond that we have other roots. We have learned alot from
revolutionary christians such as Camilo Torres Restrepo, from Che and
from other Latin Americans like for instance the Peruvian Marri�tegui.
  

The ELN is fighting for national liberation but is still an
internationalist organisation

The ELN got its name (national liberation army) from the guevarist
guerillas of the sixties. We are fighting against the northamerican
imperialism on our continent and we belive we still have not reached
true independance. We are nevertheless no colombian nationalists. We
are Latin Americans and are striving for the liberation of our whole
continent. We have good relations with other revolutionary
organisations in our "great American home" and consider ourselves as
fighters for a worldwide change.

...

  It's the same old B.S. song and dance and set of threats.


  Dave Simpson