Response to Karmus’ comment on my “FARC… A big farce!” post

The comment made to my post FARC… A big farce!, can be seen in full here: http://www.troelsjust.dk/?p=231#comments.

” … Indeed they have killed a lot of civilians by accident in their actions against the paramilitary and governmental repression they have been met with, …”

Do you really see people dying in captivity as an “accident” ?

“Let me say this straight: the whole regime of Colombia is corrupt and based upon cocaine production from both sides – even FARC! The national economy and one’s social rights in the country are a disaster, and due to what I have heard, the constantly liberal and conservative governments since the beginning of elections have been preventing socialistic parties from taking active part of the national parliament (= unfree elections for socialist parties!). Furthermore the paramilitary groups in direct coorporation with the government are responsible for murders of central persons of the trade-union and directly terrorizing the movement and its struggle for better social policies and worker’s rights (read more about such kind of murders on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia).”

I completely agree, and during the documentary I saw, that was mentioned over and over again. This is definitely not democracy. In fact, I generally don’t like bipartisan systems of government, where you only have two major parties that can govern, such as in the United States, the United Kingdom etc. etc. I won’t say they undemocratic, but they’re worlds from what I would call “a true democracy”.

“What a lie! Legal attempts have been tried – a party called Unión Patriótica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni%C3%B3n_Patri%C3%B3tica_(Colombia)) once contested a few decades ago, but 5000 of their members were killed during that time, and so FARC gave up peaceful behavior and reentered the armed conflict. Sounds like a very wimpish way of leading a democracy by killing members of the opposition, if you ask me!”

If you consider murder and kidnapping of innocent people and holding them for ransom, drug trafficking and other crap to be legitimate “armed conflict”, then so be it, but it’s simply terrorism if you ask me. And yes, I wholeheartedly agree, killing members of the opposition is not only a tremendous human rights violation, it’s dictatorish behavior. It’s something Russia and China does all the time, and definitely represents corruption and pisses on the concept of democracy.

“The analysis you posted above is too simple and primitive within its conclusion, sorry to say it, and it offends me a lot, since you clearly don’t have knowledge of the historical background from the current situation in Colombia.”

While I agree with you that the government in Colombia is corrupt and borders being undemocratic, I don’t think FARC is any better at all. They remind me of the Tamil Tigers, who claim to have a just cause for fighting (and killing thousands of innocent people along the way) for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka, yet they have done nothing but kill innocent people and keep the country at civil war for decades. And no, I am not ignoring atrocities comitted by the Sri Lankan government, search around on my blog, and you’ll see me lambast them as terrorists, and somebody replying essentially saying I was being a Sinhalese shill, being “ignorant” and being a “smart parot” etc. etc.

First of all, if you get offended by my statements, you shouldn’t be reading my blog, because I honestly couldn’t care less about whom I might offend, be it Iranian fascists, Chinese dictators, Japanese nationalists, American imperialists (George W. Bush), Jewish/Christian/Muslim/Hindu fundamentalists, or just your average Joe reading a random blog on the Internet. You know what, your attitude towards the United States that I responded to earlier offends me as well. In my original blog post I simply say “Happy Independence Day!” to the American people, among whom I have a few friends that I talk to regularly, and yet you accuse me of praising the US government (Which so far is the Bush administration). I cannot stand George W. Bush, this guy, along with his administration, should be put on trial for war crimes. If you want to demonize an entire nation for something their government does, go ahead, I just don’t see it as being any different from demonizing all Germans for the things Hitler and his regime did, or demonizing all Japanese for what Imperial Japan did during World War 2, or their current government’s refusal to apologize for it, and compensate victims (Look up “comfort women” on Wikipedia if you want to know more).

“If you want to read some more objective, left-wing oriented articles (Danish) about the case (you say that you identify yourself as a socialist),”

1. Any of various political philosophies that support social and economic equality, collective decision-making and public control of productive capital and natural resources, as advocated by socialists.

2. The socialist political philosophies as a group, including Marxism, libertarian socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracy.

3. (Leninism) The intermediate phase of social development between capitalism and full communism. This is a strategy whereby the State has control of all key resource-producing industries and manages most aspects of the market, in contrast to laissez faire capitalism.

4. (Classical Marxism) The international communist society where classes and the state no longer exist.

Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/socialism

As I state on the “My Political Position” page of my blog, I’m a social democrat, which qualifies as socialism if we’re talking about true social democracy (The ideology), according to Wiktionary, and not this neo-liberal bullshit many people who call themselves social democrats, are doing these days. The Labour Party of the United Kingdom is probably one of the best examples of this crap.

“(when the USA invaded the Ecuadorian territory recently to assassinate the leader of FARC, Paul Reyes, which forced Ecuador and Venezuela to rearm and put their military forces at the borders to Colombia protesting against the insulting behavior – if you ignored this TERRORIST ATTACK on the Ecuadorian side of the borders by the COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT itself and the UNITED STATES, you showed yourself as truly ignorant by writing this blog post! Sorry for the hard words, but FARC is more than just ‘pointless terrorism’. It’s the only serious socialist alternative to the current form of government. Of course I lament their use of i.e. child soldiers, but sometimes it can be the only way of succeeding in a greater struggle.)”

If FARC is more than “pointless terrorism”, then why are they deliberately killing and kidnapping innocent people? They’re no flipping different from the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Both claim to have righteous intentions, yet they murder innocent people.
I didn’t follow that whole debacle with Ecuador and Venezuela that you mention, and I refuse to be called “truly ignorant” for not following everything you do as much as you do. You’re the ignorant one if you ignore killing of the innocent on ANY SIDE of ANY CONFLICT. Because you seem to be glorifying FARC for their fight against the Colombian government, and only lightly skip over their killing of civilians and use of child soldiers, yet you beat a dead horse about corruption and misdeeds by the Colombian government (Which, just so we’re clear, I agree with you completely on) and how evil the United States is. Sure, I admit that I didn’t mention the Colombian government’s killing of opposition members or corruption, but my post was not about that, it was about why I see FARC as hypocrites when they refer to them as “People’s Army” or socialists. If I blogged about Japan’s outrageous atrocities during World War II, and their current government’s continual refusal to apologize for it, I’m sure somebody would reply and say how “truly ignorant” I was and how China and Korea exaggerate the things Japan did and blah blah blah. And oh by the way, I view China the same way as I view FARC. Let’s take the name of China’s military as an example. It’s official name is “People’s Liberation Army”, well, don’t you think it ought to be called People’s Oppression Army after the outrageous oppression of pro-democracy movements and human rights advocates, especially in Tibet?

One last thing about FARC, because we clearly have different opinions of them, WHY THE FUCK do they kidnap a politician (Íngrid Betancourt) who was actively trying to fight corruption!!! That’s just retarded! I could understand (But DEFINITELY NOT agree) if they kidnapped the leader of the liberal party, but kidnapping a person who essentially agrees with them on something, is simply stupid, let alone be unjust! That’s like an African-American kidnapping Martin Luther King!!!

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5 Comments

  1. Holy shit. Giant response. 😀
    Well, while I agree on most of what you’re saying, I must admit that I haven’t seen the documentary you are referring to, therefore I have no chance on responding on it all. I just keep my faith in that FARC is just doing what it feels is necessary to tear down the current government of Colombia, combined with all the bugs and failures done by human in their struggle for a better country. I think that (in an armed conflict) kidnapping is a fair way of responding to government murders of the opposition (please notice that FARC has never killed a hostage AFAIK, even not when Colombia in coalition with the U.S. assassinated their former leader Raúl Reyes on the territory of Ecuador). Because if the government is committing ‘counter-terrorism’ (actually I think FARC would rather get that definition), how would you respond to that? Would you act like Mahatma Gandhi all the way to the bitter end? I don’t think that it will be so easy. With United States and CIA in its back, Colombia will have the most excellent opportunity to smack down a peaceful army of protestors, and CIA known to be one of the most cold-blooded intelligence agencies in the world, you won’t see them surrender as long as they got weapons in their hands.

    As an anarchist, I think it is legitimate to fight a suppressing government with weapons as long as the opposite parts uses weapons themselves. On the other hand, every human should have the right to live, but I think in cases like this, an armed conflict in a country like Colombia is the only way of proceeding, just like an armed conflict in Palestine (ever heard of PFLP?). With Israel occupying (illegally!) areas of Gaza and the West Bank and killing Palestinians trying to cross the border, I think it’s completely fair that armed Palestinian organizations fight back with all means as long as they try to avoid killing civilians (PFLP stopped using terrorism as a way of attracting world news-focus on the Middle Eastern case in the 1970s by the plane hijackings in the deserts of Jordan) and only pursue military and governmental goals. Because if Israel can’t obey the regional law (stated by the UN), no fair law applies. Only morality, which varies from individual to individual. And therefore PFLP has their right to ‘break the law’ too, as long as they are not a part of any state or country.

    I wrote before that I was ‘offended’ by the blog post. Well, not in that way, but if I (happens rarely) get offended, I write a reply where I claim my opinions, which was what I did earlier. I don’t ask you to feel guilt or to be compassionate with my standing. That’s what conversations are for. We can probably argue this whole thing ’till the end of time without achieving agreement with each other, but I’m at least glad you would let the other comment stay on your blog despite the resentful words (after all you’re not a supporter of censorship), so people can read opposite opinions on this case.

    Regarding child soldiers, I still think FARC is the best alternative in COLOMBIA, though I don’t approve of all their methods in the combat. As I said before, FARC is neither angels nor demons. They fight for the better, but they also commit mistakes in the battle for a righteous government. And if their true intentions aren’t to kill civilians, they can’t be classified as terrorists in my opinion. It’s different with groups like Al-Qaeda, because they are simply careless! They don’t give a shit about who they are attacking. I hope whenever FARC kills a civilian by accident, that they strongly condemn and apologize for their actions in the press by releasing an announcement. If not, I can agree with you that they are a partial terrorist organization.

    Similarly by accusing FARC of terrorism, you forget that ANC (‘Spear Of The Nation’, Nelson Mandela, South Africa – read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe) was similarly a terrorist organization until apartheid was abolished. USA even upheld ANC on its terror-list ’till recently, but until then, Mandela had to have a special visa for traveling into the United States, because normally they won’t let terrorist-classified people into their country! Mandela has been one of the exceptions. So there you have it. One of the biggest heroes of world history was formerly a terrorist.

  2. “Holy shit. Giant response. :D”

    That’s what you get with me, simple as that. 😛

    “I think that (in an armed conflict) kidnapping is a fair way of responding to government murders of the opposition (please notice that FARC has never killed a hostage AFAIK, even not when Colombia in coalition with the U.S. assassinated their former leader Raúl Reyes on the territory of Ecuador).”

    I simply could not disagree more. HOW CAN KIDNAPPING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE EVER BE “FAIR” !!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s a George W. Bush mentality if you ask me. If you think that in an armed conflict, kidnapping is “fair”, then I guess you think it’s “fair” for the United States to imprison people, without a trial, thousands of kilometers away from their homes, at Guantanomo, potentially without the families of the people imprisoned knowing what became of their loved ones. I don’t buy that shit the Bush administration spews about them only imprisoning actual terrorists etc. etc. I am all for putting Osama bin Laden in solitary confinement for life, after a fair trial, but never ever innocent people, nor anybody without a trial.

    “Because if the government is committing ‘counter-terrorism’ (actually I think FARC would rather get that definition), how would you respond to that? Would you act like Mahatma Gandhi all the way to the bitter end? I don’t think that it will be so easy.”

    I would bomb or sabotage counter-terrorist training camps or facilities, intelligence offices, or such like that. Organize strikes etc. etc. and generally keep civilians out of harms way, because if you call yourself “People’s Army” and then kill civilians, you’re going down the Soviet road of not representing the people’s interests at all. Would you honestly feel that an organization was fighting for you, if the threat of them kidnapping you and holding you for ransom was very real?
    If the Solidarity trade-union in Poland, and the movement that surrounded it in the 80′ during the last decade of the Soviet Union, could overcome a Soviet puppet government, while Poland was surrounded by 200.000 Red Army troops armed to the teeth, through non-violent means, then I don’t see why that can’t work in other cases.

    “With United States and CIA in its back, Colombia will have the most excellent opportunity to smack down a peaceful army of protestors, and CIA known to be one of the most cold-blooded intelligence agencies in the world, you won’t see them surrender as long as they got weapons in their hands.”

    I doubt that CIA would, at least today, do something similar to what the Burmese military junta did during the large protests last year, which was to simply open fire on unarmed, peaceful protestors.

    “I wrote before that I was ‘offended’ by the blog post. Well, not in that way, but if I (happens rarely) get offended, I write a reply where I claim my opinions, which was what I did earlier. I don’t ask you to feel guilt or to be compassionate with my standing. That’s what conversations are for. We can probably argue this whole thing ’till the end of time without achieving agreement with each other, but I’m at least glad you would let the other comment stay on your blog despite the resentful words (after all you’re not a supporter of censorship), so people can read opposite opinions on this case.”

    Fair enough.

    “Regarding child soldiers, I still think FARC is the best alternative in COLOMBIA, though I don’t approve of all their methods in the combat. As I said before, FARC is neither angels nor demons. They fight for the better, but they also commit mistakes in the battle for a righteous government. And if their true intentions aren’t to kill civilians, they can’t be classified as terrorists in my opinion.”

    If their intentions aren’t to kill civilians (They claim to be “the People’s Army”, in other words they claim to represent the people), then why the hell do they kidnap hundreds every year! I don’t see how this is any sort of “alternative” or any better. This is simply terrorist acts if you ask me!

    Noun
    Terrorism

    terrorism (uncountable)
    1. The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response from the victim in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
    2. Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.
    3. A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.

    Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/terrorism

    “creating a climate of fear among the population of a state”, I don’t see how kidnapping of civilians isn’t exactly that.

    “It’s different with groups like Al-Qaeda, because they are simply careless! They don’t give a shit about who they are attacking.”

    We can diss al-Qaeda all we want, but the fact remains that you have some people who honestly do believe in al-Qaeda and believe they do good things and so on. So saying FARC is less of a terrorist group than al-Qaeda I think is silly, because both deliberately put the lives and welfare of civilians at severe risk.

    “I hope whenever FARC kills a civilian by accident, that they strongly condemn and apologize for their actions in the press by releasing an announcement. If not, I can agree with you that they are a partial terrorist organization.”

    I’d like to see them prostrate themselves in a sincere apology in front of civilians whom they have kidnapped. How do you think a child of a kidnapped parent feels? Most likely very very bad. I think causing this is simply inexcuseable, and reeks of George W. Bush tactics.

    “Similarly by accusing FARC of terrorism, you forget that ANC (‘Spear Of The Nation’, Nelson Mandela, South Africa – read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkhonto_we_Sizwe) was similarly a terrorist organization until apartheid was abolished. USA even upheld ANC on its terror-list ’till recently, but until then, Mandela had to have a special visa for traveling into the United States, because normally they won’t let terrorist-classified people into their country! Mandela has been one of the exceptions. So there you have it. One of the biggest heroes of world history was formerly a terrorist.”

    Well, if they launch attacks that kill a significant amount of civilians, which ANC did, according to the “Bombings” section of that Wikipedia page you mentioned, then I think giving them the stamp of a terrorist organization is fully legitimate, because that’s what they do (See the dictionary definition earlier). During World War II, the United States fought a righteous battle against Imperial Japan (Japan was the “Nazi Germany” of Asia at that time), but holy shit did they kill a lot of civilians in process, it was horrible, and that was definitely acts of terrorism. The (in)famous B-29 raids on March 9th that destroyed 16 square miles of Tokyo in a single raid is a good example, because it didn’t target military targets, it just bombed Tokyo in general. Go watch an animated movie called Grave of the Fireflies, or Hotaru no Haka in Japanese, if you want to know a bit about what the Japanese people experienced at that time.

  3. First of all, I’ll have to state again that I haven’t watched that documentary, so I have no knowledge of what kind of people they kidnap. From what I have heard, it is only central persons of the government = politicians who are responsible for the suppressing regime. If they ever kidnap ‘innocent people’ (civilians), I would fully agree with you that it’s a terrorist act.

    I disagree with the final definition of terrorism, “creating a climate of fear among the population of a state”. You should know that the word ‘terrorism’ is disputed, and there is no correct universally applied definition of the word. I simply stick to these three cases: killing/fighting against civilians only (Al-Qaeda mostly) – clearly terrorism, bombing military and governmental goals only – legitimate freedom fight, going primarily after military goals hence killing some civilians by accident (FARC and most other organizations – it is very hard to avoid civilian death if th bombings are in populated areas) – partial terrorism. The last case is disputed – if they condemn the accidents I can ‘forgive’ them morally, but if not (the Al-Qaeda-way), I will agree with you that it is a partial terrorist organization.

    Furthermore, wouldn’t you call it ‘frightening’ if USA invaded your country (Iraq) to overthrow Saddam, your president, whether beloved or disliked? There’s so much a government can do and rulings that can seem frightening to the civilian population. By applying that last definition to the word terrorism, you could characterize the 18 May 1993-unrest in Denmark as terrorism from both acts (also the police, as they shot the demonstrators 113 times!). Read more about it here, in case you don’t know about it:
    http://www.leksikon.org/art.php?n=5
    http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/18._maj-urolighederne

    I totally agree with you that the U.S. has performed MANY terrorist attacks, which haven’t been brought to justice in court ’till this day. We can both agree that violence and killing is bad, but if you’re met with resistance from a government who you are trying to fight, it is almost inevitable to use weapons to hold back the attacking force.

    You must also have in mind, that living in a ‘peaceful’ country like Denmark, every attack or attempt to overthrow the Danish government will be met with violence and armed resistance. Therefore every state (mostly capitalistic ones, but the Sovjet Union would probably also defend itself against a contra-revolution) is built upon an army or gendarmerie as the last group of defenders against a revolution. The police is a legitimated and accepted form of violence by almost every citizen of Denmark. You can argue that “oh, but we need someones to take care and upholding the law”, but by saying that, you are passively accepting the use violence (by the State) and armed combat – possibly killings, if things come out of control. Even though it happens ‘in the name of the Queen/law’. And that’s a fact.
    You cannot avoid ‘power’ in the form of repression. All TRUE pacifists would therefore live in a kind of anarchy or anarchist state (such ones doesn’t officially exist yet, though there are deserted areas of the world who are less ruled by governments, where you have bigger or total freedom to do what you want).

  4. “First of all, I’ll have to state again that I haven’t watched that documentary, so I have no knowledge of what kind of people they kidnap.”

    The documentary is primarily about the kidnapping and captivity of Íngrid Betancourt, it refers to others loose, but that’s about it.

    “From what I have heard, it is only central persons of the government = politicians who are responsible for the suppressing regime. If they ever kidnap ‘innocent people’ (civilians), I would fully agree with you that it’s a terrorist act.”

    Well, first of all, international humanitarian law (“comprised of the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, as well as subsequent treaties, case law, and customary international law.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Humanitarian_Law), or IHL, outlaws hostage taking. So FARC’s kidnappings, no matter who we’re talking about, is a violation of international law. Secondly, Wikipedia says this:

    Current estimates claim that the FARC have over 700 hostages at the moment, most of whom are not considered “political” by their standards, and of whom most are held for ransom.

    The following list of hostages are what the FARC call “canjeables” (exchangeable), as they only offer their freedom in return for the liberty of over 500 FARC members held in Colombian and foreign prisons through a prisoner exchange. Information about the possibility of this exchange can be found at the humanitarian exchange page.
    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_hostages_held_by_FARC

    Being a bit sceptical, since Wikipedia doesn’t seem to reference a page in English for the 700 number, I looked around a bit, on news sites and such. According to these pages:

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/farc.hostages/index.html
    http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/07/20087715234580476.html
    http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/13/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Colombia-Hostages.php

    The “over 700” count comes from the Colombian government, which I am sure you don’t believe at all. So let’s be a little conservative and say they have 500, which is still a lot of people. You can’t tell me that all of those 500 are all “central persons of the government”. First of all, I have not heard of a federal government with 500 central “politicians who are responsible for the suppressing regime”, you can only have so many “central” folks. If you included secretaries, police officers etc. sure you could get to 500, but that’s like saying the family of a murderer is automatically responsible for a killing, which is absurd. On top of that you have Hugo Chávez, and even flipping Fidel Castro calling for the release of civilian hostages with Chavez saying “Free the civilians who don’t have anything to do with the war. I don’t agree with that.”, and Fidel saying “If I may dare to suggest something to the FARC guerrillas, it is that they simply, by whatever means at their disposal, declare that they have unconditionally freed all the hostages and prisoners still under their control.”. So from that, I conclude that FARC does kidnap civilians, you may draw other conclusions, but this is the one I draw.

    “I disagree with the final definition of terrorism, “creating a climate of fear among the population of a state”.”

    That’s taking things quite a bit out of context, the full definition goes “3. A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.”, so it has to do with warfare. I am aware that I quoted that part separately as well, but I did that to emphasize, not with the intention to take things out of context.

    “You should know that the word ‘terrorism’ is disputed, and there is no correct universally applied definition of the word. I simply stick to these three cases: killing/fighting against civilians only (Al-Qaeda mostly) – clearly terrorism, bombing military and governmental goals only – legitimate freedom fight, going primarily after military goals hence killing some civilians by accident (FARC and most other organizations – it is very hard to avoid civilian death if th bombings are in populated areas) – partial terrorism. The last case is disputed – if they condemn the accidents I can ‘forgive’ them morally, but if not (the Al-Qaeda-way), I will agree with you that it is a partial terrorist organization.”

    Well, if “bombing military and governmental goals only” is legitimate by your standards, then I assume you feel al-Qaeda’s attacks on the Pentagon on September 11th was legitimate, or am I mistaken? Also I have not seen FARC “condemn” or apologize for “accidental” killing of civilians, I find it unlikely that an organization like FARC would do that, but I could be wrong, feel free to prove me wrong, but I just have very tough time believing, that an organization that knowly puts the lives of civilians at risk, through kidnappings, would apologize for innocent by-standers, so to speak.

    Also, the problem with your general characterization of al-Qaeda, is that if you asked al-Qaeda or their buddies the Taliban, or their symphatizers, they’d say that their actions are part of a righteous struggle, in a fight against everything non-Islamic, or to expel the Americans from the middle east, or against Jews and Zionism and so forth. I am in no way trying to legitimize, or justify their actions, but from their perspective it isn’t “meaningless”, because they obviously have a motivation for bombing civilians.

    “Furthermore, wouldn’t you call it ‘frightening’ if USA invaded your country (Iraq) to overthrow Saddam, your president, whether beloved or disliked? There’s so much a government can do and rulings that can seem frightening to the civilian population.”

    Sure, anything that can endanger you is “scary” so to speak.

    “By applying that last definition to the word terrorism, you could characterize the 18 May 1993-unrest in Denmark as terrorism from both acts (also the police, as they shot the demonstrators 113 times!). Read more about it here, in case you don’t know about it:
    http://www.leksikon.org/art.php?n=5
    http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/18._maj-urolighederne

    No, you can’t, because it’s in the context of warfare strategy, not police work. Again, the full definition reads “3. A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.”.

    “I totally agree with you that the U.S. has performed MANY terrorist attacks, which haven’t been brought to justice in court ’till this day. We can both agree that violence and killing is bad, but if you’re met with resistance from a government who you are trying to fight, it is almost inevitable to use weapons to hold back the attacking force.”

    Well, to be honest with you, I don’t think FARC’s military efforts are aiding their cause at all. The more they kidnap and bomb, the more the outside world sees them as a terrorist organization. Also, I was looking around and I can’t seem to find any statement from FARC that details their cause or what they want to achieve. IF it’s turning Colombia into a one-party state socialist republic, in the same fashion as Cuba, China and Vietnam is today, and the Soviet Union was, then I must say that I don’t agree with them at all, quite the opposite. Because I believe in democracy. Even the flipping Maoists of Nepal, who used to be a guerilla, say they don’t believe in a one-party state:

    But Prachanda stressed that the Maoists did not believe in a one-party state.

    He said they had concluded that “multi-partyism is a must, even in socialism” and that without competition, a vibrant society could not be created.

    The Maoists have said time and again that such pluralism is necessary.

    Another senior Maoist leader, CP Gajurel, recently told the BBC that communism had failed in other countries precisely because it did not allow competition, adding that it would be normal for the party to lose some elections, then come back to win others.

    Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7382830.stm

    “You must also have in mind, that living in a ‘peaceful’ country like Denmark, every attack or attempt to overthrow the Danish government will be met with violence and armed resistance. Therefore every state (mostly capitalistic ones, but the Sovjet Union would probably also defend itself against a contra-revolution) is built upon an army or gendarmerie as the last group of defenders against a revolution.”

    I have to laugh about the “mostly capitalistic ones” remark you make. Every single communist state (I can’t name a single democratic one), has violently cracked down on pro-democratic movements or protests. In 1989, China declared martial law and sent in the military (Which ran people over with tanks) to suppress the pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square, and for years has arrested, jailed even killed human rights advocates and pro-democracy movements. Cuba has also suppressed pro-democracy movements, so has Vietnam, and the Soviet Union had it’s Gulags for a reason!
    Sure, non-communist states have done very similar things, but I think that saying “mostly capitalistic” countries are “built upon an army or gendarmerie as the last group of defenders against a revolution” is utterly ridiculous, dude all established governments are, you can’t tell me that FARC, in a hypothetical scenario where they assumed political power in Colombia, wouldn’t do this as well.

    “The police is a legitimated and accepted form of violence by almost every citizen of Denmark.”

    Gee, I wonder why! It couldn’t possibly be because we have one of the best democracies in the world, where people can relatively easily organize, and campaign for a certain cause that may be important to them.

    “You can argue that “oh, but we need someones to take care and upholding the law”, but by saying that, you are passively accepting the use violence (by the State) and armed combat – possibly killings, if things come out of control. Even though it happens ‘in the name of the Queen/law’. And that’s a fact.
    You cannot avoid ‘power’ in the form of repression. All TRUE pacifists would therefore live in a kind of anarchy or anarchist state (such ones doesn’t officially exist yet, though there are deserted areas of the world who are less ruled by governments, where you have bigger or total freedom to do what you want).”

    I am by no means a pacifist. However, I am only in favor of using force, or violence if you will, when it’s absolutely necessary, and primarily for defence (Exceptions can be made, but the circumstances have to be really extraordinary). For example, Japan’s current constitution was drawn up by US occupation forces, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, Article 9 is known as “the pacifist clause”, it says:

    Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
    In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

    Source: http://www.sangiin.go.jp/eng/law/index.htm

    Before you start screaming about the United States being all evil and oppressive on the Japanese, I inform you that the new constitution was put into place, as an amendment (Probably the biggest constitutional amendment in history) to the previous constitution, under it’s provisions for amendment, and was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Japanese public in the following referendum, and still has very wide public support in Japan, it has not been amended since May 3rd of 1947.

    Japan does have, what they call the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, although never referred to as such, and while technically a part of the regular police force, in practice is a defense army (It lacks long-range missiles and other stuff used for offensive operations), which I think is reasonable when you consider that North Korea is in the backyard. North Korea once test-fired a missile sending it over Japanese territory, which really pissed off the Japanese.

    Also, I don’t believe in total anarchy or total pacifism either. Both concepts I think are ridiculous, and totally flawed.

  5. (Danish)
    En tilføjelse til vores samtale om FARC kunne være følgende citater fra følgende artikel – godt nok et venstreorienteret medie, men for at underbygge nogle af de argumenter jeg har fremført tidligere i vores diskussion: http://www.arbejderen.dk/index.aspx?F_ID=50745&TS_ID=2&S_ID=1&C_ID=80

    “- Et af vores grundvilkår i Colombia er, at der ikke findes parlamentariske partier, der forsvarer arbejderklassen. Det har ført til, at revolutionære søger ind i guerillaen, altså går ind i den væbnede kamp, fordi det politiske alternativ ikke eksisterer, siger Cardona med beklagelse i stemmen.

    Arbejderklassen og venstrefløjen har i flere omgange forsøgt at kæmpe den politiske og sociale kamp i åbenhed og med fredelige midler, men er hver gang blevet mødet med vold. Mest kendt og forfærdelig er perioden i 1980`erne, hvor en politisk dialog i landet fik mange politisk aktive, der levede og kæmpede under jorden, til at træde offentligt frem.

    De folkelige kræfter dannede partiet UP (Union Patriotica – Fædrelands-Unionen). Partiet stillede op ved parlamentsvalg og præsidentvalg, men næppe var kandidaterne trådt frem før de blev likvideret af paramilitære grupper.

    I slutningen af 1988 var omkring 2000 ledere fra UP blevet dræbt. Dette tab af politiske ledere og dette overlagte mord på en fredelig politisk proces i Colombia er landet ikke kommet sig over endnu.”

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