The Manifest of the FARC

In the face of an illegitimate, illegal and farcical government which has seized the Palace of Nariño, our sense of dignity moves us to unite and resist and to call for the convergence of forces towards a National Pact with the view to resolving the profound institutional crisis of governance faced by the country and to move towards concretizing and securing paths that lead to a lasting peace.





1. In the face of an illegitimate, illegal and farcical government which has seized the Palace of Nariño, our sense of dignity moves us to unite and resist and to call for the convergence of forces towards a National Pact with the view to resolving the profound institutional crisis of governance faced by the country and to move towards concretizing and securing paths that lead to a lasting peace.

Colombia deserves respect. We can no longer tolerate that a mafia of narco-para-militaries, latifundists and cattle ranchers, narco-traffickers and merchants, all of whom count on the military backing of the government of the United States and rely on the the bombast of the media, have converted Colombia into a miserable hell-hole of war, massacres, mass detentions of citizens as well as their disappearance, looting in addition to all the arbitrariness and abuses of State terrorism.

2. The government of Uribe marches to the rhythm of the directives received form Washington and the demands of powerful narco-paramilitaries such as, Salvatore Mancuso, Jorge 40, Castaño, Cucuo Vanoy, Isaza, Báez, Macaco, Don Berna, El Alemán, Giraldo, El Tuso, Gordo Lindo and other sinister chain saw toting and cocaine personages, partners of the President. This mafia with their bagfuls of dollars financed the two presidential campaigns of Uribe.

Yes: they elected him and it is they who are directing him.

At gun point, through terror and fraud they installed dozens of Congress representatives, Governors and Mayors who have been nothing more than puppets of para-militarism both in their political actions and within the seats of government. Since they believed themselves to be the owners of the country they had no hesitation in proclaiming with the trumpets of victory at full blast that they had elected 35% of the present congress, which is the equivalent of 80 representatives and senators. Those very same contaminated votes took Uribe to the Presidency of the republic and on account of this, and many other considerations his government is illegitimate.

The foundations of this government stand erected on: thousands of common graves and massacres; on lands which have been ravaged causing the displacement of millions; on tears and mourning… Nothing was been done without the approval and participation of the official armed forces.

The dome of State power, starting with Uribe, the head of the “paracos” , is run by the monster web of narco-para-politics which has covered Colombia. The Vice President was the brain behind the para-military block which took the capital city. The heads of both the police and the military cannot deny that they have acted jointly in perpetrating their

delinquent acts. The Minister of Defence conspired with Carlos Castaño. The ex-Chancellor Araújo worked for Jorge 40. Jorge Norega, the previous head of the DAS (the Colombian national information agency) not only conspired to perpetrate the electoral fraud that favored Uribe but also provided the lists of trade unionists and popular leaders who were to be assassinated.

While the country was being ransacked by the paramilitary chieftains Uribe remained silent and did not utter a word. They stole the resources of the health system. They seized on any public contract bid available. The ransacked both departmental and municipal budgets. And, they were allowed to collect taxes….

The Ralita accord, the pact of darkness between the government and its para-military forces, was the accord of impunity through which the government undertook to give immunity to the para-militaries, one in which the government granted derisory and merely symbolic sentences thus guaranteeing their participation in civil society, the prevention of their extradition, the conservation of their wealth ( which was amassed through acts of ransacking, narco-traffic and money lÜ[ndering.)

This reason fuelled President Uribe’s insolence and compelled his disrespect and posturing before the Supreme Court of Justice and his defiance that para-militarism and the conspiracy to commit delinquent acts are not deemed to be acts of sedition. He understood that without the legal conduit of political criminality, with which he intended to cover para-militarism thereby achieving its sanctification, he lost the most important option of impunity on which he relied: not only by way of favoring the para-militaries but also by way of exonerating the State. The State which is the originator of this inhuman counter-insurgent strategy in which the CIA and DEA are also complicit.

At the point of gun, terror and electoral fraud they installed dozens of Congressmen, Uribe deserves the repudiation from the people of other countries, they who on his international travels have received him with chants of “murderer, murderer, resign you are a para-militatry your regime is illegitimate and illegal.”

Any other government in the world, under these circumstances would have already irrevocably fallen. And we Colombians are no less worthy and should no be putting up with this type of leader, whether or not they count with the backing of the United States.

3. Colombia is being violated through the violence that emanates from the Democratic Security Policy designed by Washington as a way to develop its National Security Doctrine and its strategy to preserve the reign of the Empire over the peoples of Our America. In essence this policy –as explained by General Craddock from the South Command forces - is part of a neo-liberal re-colonizing project which attempts at securing the investments of and allowing plundering by transnational corporations and through the application of severe laws and force, to repress and annihilate resistance of the peoples and signs of any social non conformance.

We cannot remain impassive in the face of such politics which already are beginning to be made effective by other Governments in the hemisphere.

With respect to matters touching on Colombia’s Democratic Security this comprises the military component of the Patriot Plan, the main objective of which is the defeat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s FARC or at least, the breaking of its will to struggle and thus lead them, once having wrecked oken their spirit to force them to the negotiating table. Obviously the Government does not feel secure before this powerful alternative built by the people through decades of resistance to state violence and oppression.

With the purpose of defeating the guerrilla, they have mobilized dozens of battalions and mobile brigades towards the southern part of the country and have launched huge persistent and sustained operations in other areas of the country. Command controls with US officials have been installed in Larandia and Tres Esquinas, Caqueta, on the fringe of the very coveted Amazon rainforest. They activated spy satellites and military night search technology. Strategic surrounding sieges have been deployed, peasant areas have been blockaded, through the use of force they have caused mass population displacements, civilians have been assassinated and disappeared, land plots have been set on fire, cattle have been stolen, there have been bombings at day and night, the rainforest and mountains have been slashed, yet after five years the Patriot Plan has been unable to show any positive results. Official troops have worn out and their will to fight has cracked as they die in the jungle or become crippled on account out of this war, because this the choice mabe by an insane iaerals for the lack of results or partial victories.

A new kind of guerrilla force is rising from the gunpowder and heat of combat, fire proofed by the enemy’s maneuvers and the outcome of clashes of new technologies used in counterinsurgent operations, a guerrilla that is the true power of political and military fire at the service of the popular cause.

Yet parallel to the development of the Patriot Plan on the different sites of operation, the government enthroned the “crime of opinion”, repression of conscience in order to incarcerate over 150, 000 citizens by accusing them of sympathizing with the guerrilla. With the purpose of dissuading the political and social support for the insurgent project there is a move to repeal the universal right to political choice in Colombia. It was not enough having er physically eliminated a whole generation of revolutionaries who had t joined Union Patriotica as a legal alternative for change: now they wanted to impose a right wing way of thinking, the promulgation of a new inquisition and of fascism. A way of thinking that criminalizes social protest using the pretext that the guerrilla is behind every popular mobilization that is made against government policies. Through an authoritarianism that would sweep away the autonomy and independence of the other branches of public power to establish a reign of tyranny without any constitutional impediment and one which is only tolerant of an opposition that does not propose a change to the status quo and the oppressive structures.

4. That fascist right wing activated the national budget for the functioning of a war and the result is social disaster. Children starve to death, poverty and marginalization have grown, there is a total abandonment of the projects to build popular housing; the majority of the population has no running water, electricity or sewage. The government remains indifferent to the lack of schools and teachers because it opted for privatizing education, much like it did with the health service. There have also been cuts in the transfer of payments causing the paralysis of development of the different regions.

They have effected the sale of profitable State enterprises in order to direct more resources to war, theyhave gradually privatized strategic enterprises such as ECOPETROL, they have increased unemployment and sub-employment indexes by promoting flexible labour contracts which trample on the rights of workers but skyrocket the profits of enterprises all of these are examples of policies of the State against the popular masses that have resulted in hunger and a high cost of living. The approval of the Free Trade Agreement that attacks the homeland security and the quality of life of Colombian people indicates that the social crisis will likely become more acute.

The State’s perfidy must be responded to by mobilizing of people through street actions and blockades of roads so that the country is paralyzed, as a way to demand respect for the rights that are violated, through mass struggle to show the strength of the people at grass-root levels and to aim for the convergence of all democratic sectors under a single political and social flag toward the configuration of a new government that works for peace, social justice and recovering the dignity and sovereignty of the Colombian people.

5. For the construction of this alternative we put forth the FARCan Platform for the New Colombia for consideration of the whole country, of its political and social organizations, of all the people. With the view to opening up discussions and exchange in terms of the ideals and the program of a new Government that we suggest should be patriotic, democratic, FARCan, and conducive to a new social order which is committed to the political solution of the grave conflict which affects the country.

A government whose currency in international policy is the Great Homeland (Patria Grande) and socialism, and which prioritizes the integration of the peoples of Our America. This is why the border policy of FARC is based on fraternity over confrontation with the armies of neighboring countries. Our struggle is towards resistance and liberation from the oppressive Colombian regime.

A new government should materialize Bolivar’s political and social project, and configure a new FARCan Army for defence of the country and social guarantees. A new order built on the principles of popular democracy and popular sovereignty, which brings moral and electoral power to the branches of Government, which institutes a single-chambered congress subject to recall referendums for removal of elected public officers. A new system of government that severely punishes corruption and impunity, that puts an end to neo-liberal policies, that stimulates the different modalities of production, that takes control over strategic sectors, that demands respect over our sovereignty and over natural resources and that implements effective environmental policies. A Government that works for free education at all levels, that achieves the activation of social redemption, agrarian justice, that renegotiates those contracts with transnational corporations that are harmful to the nation, that voids military pacts, treaties and agreements that violate the country’s sovereignty, that does not extradite Colombian citizens, that opposes the payment of the foreign debt and any of its fraudulent crooked loans.

It is time to analyze and select the route that will lead us to peace, independence, social justice, democracy and unity as the way to survival and to successfully confront the policies of the empires.

6. Peace is a process, a common good that requires of us all the preparation of the soil so it can flourish. It cannot be achieved overnight. It needs new economic, political and social structures to support it, changes such as those proposed in the FARCan Platform for the New Colombia.

We will not the have peace of the fields of graves. All the military plans of the oligarchies and the empire to exterminate the insurgency, from LASO (Latin American Security Operation) executed in Marquetalia, to the Patriot Plan, have failed because any armed uprising in the name of social, economic and political causes will not be defeated either by bombs, or bullet or the newest military technology.

By craziness or sheer electoral demagogy Uribe had announced his will to secure an official meeting zone to sign a peace agreement in three months: 43 years of confrontation cannot be overcome in such a short time. The political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and sovereignty problems of the country cannot be resolved in 3 months, unless one of the sides has defeated its opposite, and such is not the case. Uribe is not the man for peace in Colombia. He is not programmed by the “gringos” for this. A man who cannot even recognize the existence of an armed conflict could achieve peace under any condition. Only a new patriotic, democratic and sovereign government will conclude a negotiated peace, not a puppet Government set in place by the White House. To achieve a secure and resolute path towards the dialogues for peace would require having a Government dedicated to the need for peace, which is supported by the people, and would need that the national interest, took the decision to return the troops to their barracks, to drastically reduce the budget for war and instead in favour of social program and which demands that all US troops and advisers immingled and warmongering in the internal conflict and a chief factor of this war.

7. The interests of peace require all the efforts and sacrifices that the country can muster and this starts by creating consensus in its fundamental forces, its political and social organizations in order that they jointly create a new political alternative for power that would be the source of establishing a sovereign and dignified government, proud before Washington, and dedicated to the greater happiness possible for the people in accordance with the mandate of the Liberator.*

With this perspective in mind it is necessary to start as soon as possible with the exchange and re-encounter of all the actors involved in social transformation and peace, including the guerrillas. Those who are mere puppets of the establishment proclaim that the insurgency ought to be excluded on the basis of incongruous and specious arguments made with , with the purpose of forging a weak alternative which would be always be prey to the machinations of the usual exploiters.

We propose to start as soon as possible with the first clandestine contacts, and setting aside the government, in order to establish the necessary conduits and at the same time to collectively draft some of the pragmatic positions necessary for the liberation of Colombia.

For the purposes of these dialogues we invite all: revolutionary leaders, the democratic sectors of political parties, prominent clerics, patriotic and FARCan military leaders, trade and student union leaders, indigenous peoples, the Black communities, educators, women… and all popular leaders in order to join our aspirations and to embark on a the path towards the New Colombia.

8. The prime objective is the creation of an alternative for change that results in a Grand National Accord for Peace, Justice, and national pride, that proposes a new government to save Colombia and in order to recuperate our damaged dignity in the light of a government comprised of para-military narco traffickers who count on the blessing of Washington; a new government for channeling the new destiny of our country which would proscribe the repressive and exploitative Democratic Security system both of Washington and neo-liberal policies, the new government which would return sovereignty to the people and restructure the State in a manner that would warranty its future good; a government which would form a FARCan Army guided by its love for the people, social justice and the will to defend of our country. In other words, a government that would call a National Constitutive Assembly to draw up a new Constitution with changes that would favor the people and would be geared towards peace and harmony, a true democracy, sovereignty and the integration of the people in solidarity, as the constitutive mandates of a Great Social Pact.

We do not have another alternative, other than uniting and seeking a path out of this dark night but guided by the light of justice of the dawn of the new “Gran Colombia”



Towards a New Colombia, and the National Accord for Peace



Secretariat of the Central Committee of the FARC



Mountains of Colombia, September 2007.