The Duque government is no longer saved by violent repression disguised as “military assistance.” His decision to launch the army against the people who, burning with indignation, are in the streets, is a futile attempt to put out the fire by throwing gasoline on it. The puppet does not understand that the more he resorts to violence, the more force, more power and more audacity he will receive as a popular response.
The growing revolutionary mood of the people is no longer stopped by anything, nor by anyone. We have to go all the way, to victory. From the strike and the mobilization, to the blockades and barricades, and from these, to launch ourselves in an impetuous march of insurrection, to the storming of heaven, which is the seizure of the Nariño Palace, which is the seizure of power, to have from now on only governments of the people and for the people — just, inclusive governments and guarantors of peace. The seizure of Bogotá should become the seizure of the Nariño Palace, the Congress of the Republic, the Palace of Justice, the Attorney General’s Office, the media — to remove from power all the corrupt and the perpetrators of violence and poverty.
Duque is a conceited tyrant, who does not understand that the people are the vast majority and that it is the force that can; that we are more, much more, than the repressive force that surrounds us. We are millions and millions of rebels fighting for a New Colombia, stimulated by the certainty that the people in uniform also dream our same dreams of human dignity. Let the soldiers no longer allow themselves to be used by vandals like Duque and Uribe, who have destroyed social justice and the most important of all our rights, which is peace. Duty in this case calls soldiers and policemen to insubordination and disobedience, and to turn their backs on deranged generals like Zapateiro and Vargas, and on the defense minister, who has ordered them to fire on the defenseless population.
The army and the police, with their best commanders, must go over to the side of the people, which is where their families, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their grandparents and their friends are. That is your place.
The founder of the army, the liberator Simón Bolívar, trained it to defend social rights and guarantees with their swords, not to turn their weapons against the citizens, nor to ensure the permanence in power of the oligarchs, much less to guarantee the profits of transnational and private companies. The soldiers, the military, cannot degrade themselves to the sad condition of guards of the interests of a violent oligarchy that vandalized the future of the majority.
Soldiers: bring out your decorum and join the people on the barricades and advance with them to the Nariño Palace to unlock and open, together, the gates of the future.
The people no longer believe in misleading words; now they only believe in the strength of their unity, in their organization. If Duque takes his henchmen out onto the streets accompanied by armed civilians, be they paramilitaries, SIJIN (Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol) agents, or elements of the extreme right, to shoot at the people, the people also have the right to defend themselves with arms.
With the transformative power born of unity, we have to demolish the state machine that oppresses us, and in its place build a new institutionality, a new state that establishes a just social order, protected by the militia of all the people.
Young people have the mission of managing politics and putting an end to this false democracy that hides the enslavement of the people with flowery words.
It is time to go on the offensive with the seizure and control of important objectives of power, and for this it is necessary to unify the social and political leadership in a central command that will lead the people to victory.
The offensive of the civic-military unity must be simultaneous and rapid throughout the country. The people in the midst of the struggle have learned and know more than all the theorists put together. The army, navy, air force and the police cannot be separated for a minute from their people. They must contribute to the popular victory. We need audacity, audacity and more audacity to get out of 200 years of class oppression. Once the power of the oligarchies has been abolished, we must convene a Constituent Assembly that will give us the fundamental laws on which we will build the new country.
From defense to offense. It is not enough to gather around political slogans; we must also do it — as the state is doing — with weapons. Popular resistance against “military assistance.” However, we must go on the offensive supported by patriotic and Bolivarian soldiers, NCOs and officers. Wake up our brothers in the barracks! It is time to join the specter that haunts the country, which has emerged from the catacombs of exclusion and misery, of the inequality and inequity of capitalism, seeking the collective and recurring dream of a new, just, more humane and inclusive social order.
If Colombia is today an example of an anti-neoliberal struggle in Latin America, it is because the only path left by the tyranny of capital is to fight until it is defeated. AND WE WILL WIN! Our America will triumph.
FARC-EP Second Marquetalia
June 10, 2021
Source: http://farc-ep.net/?p=3509
Translated by Greg Butterfield
Red Star News + Translations 