By James Petras*
Jul 8, 2008, 13:15
Introduction
July 2008 Introduction I have been a supporter of the Cuban Revolution
for exactly fifty years and recognize Fidel Castro as one of the great
revolutionary leaders of our time. But I have never been an uncritical
apologist: On several crucial occasions I have expressed my
disagreements in print, in public and in discussions with Cuban leaders,
writers and militants. Fidel Castro's articles and commentaries on the
recent events in Colombia, namely his discussion of the Colombian
regime's freeing of several FARC prisoners (including three CIA
operatives and Ingrid Betancourt) and his critical comments on the
politics, structure, practices, tactics and strategy of the FARC and its
world-renowned leader, Manuel Marulanda, merit serious consideration.
Castro's remarks demand analysis and refutation, not only because his
opinions are widely read and influence millions of militants and
admirers in the world, especially in Cuba and Latin America, but because
he purports to provide a 'moral' basis for opposition to imperialism
today. Equally important Castro's unfortunate diatribe and critique
against the FARC, Marulanda and the entire peasant-based guerrilla
movement, has been welcomed, published and broadcast by the entire
pro-imperialist mass media on five continents. Fidel Castro, with few
caveats, has uncritically joined the chorus condemning the FARC and, as
I will demonstrate, without reason or logic.
Eight Erroneous Theses of Fidel Castro
1. Castro claims that the 'liberation' of the FARC political
prisoners "opens a chapter for peace in Colombia, a process which Cuba
has been supporting for 20 years as the most appropriate for the unity
and liberation of the peoples of our America, utilizing new approaches
in the complex and special present day circumstances after the collapse
of the USSR…" (Reflections of Fidel Castro, July 4, 2008)
What is astonishing about this thesis (and the entire essay) is
Castro's total omission of any discussion of the mass terror unleashed
by Colombia's President Uribe against trade unionists, political
critics, peasant communities and documented by every human rights group
in and out of Colombia in both of his recent essays. In fact, Castro
exculpates the current Uribe regime, the most murderous regime, and puts
the entire blame on 'US Imperialism'. Since the "collapse of the Soviet
Union", and under the US-led military offensive, a multitude of armed
revolutionary movements have emerged in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Nepal, and other pre-existing armed groups in Colombia and
the Philippines, have continued to engage in struggle. In Latin
America, the "new approaches" to revolution were anything but peaceful –
massive popular uprisings overthrowing corrupt electoral politicians in
Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela…costing many hundreds of lives.
2. Fidel Castro denigrates the recently deceased leader of the FARC,
Manuel Marulanda, as a "peasant, communist militant, principle leader of
the guerrilla" (Reflections). In his text of July 5, 2008 (Reflections
II), Castro condescendingly refers to:
"Marulanda of notable natural intelligence and leadership
qualities, on the other hand never had opportunities to study when he
was an adolescent. It is said he only finished the fifth grade. He
conceived (of the revolution) as a long and prolonged struggle, a point
of view which I never shared."
Castro was the son of a plantation owner and educated in private
Jesuit colleges and trained as a lawyer. He implies that education
credentials and higher status prepares the revolutionary leadership to
lead the peasants lacking formal education, but with 'natural leadership
qualities' apparently sufficient to allow them to follow the
intellectuals and professionals better suited to lead the revolution.
The test of history however refutes Castro's claims. Marulanda
built, over a period of 40 years, a bigger guerrilla army with a wider
mass base than any Castro-inspired guerrilla force from the 1960's to 2000.
Castro promoted a theory of 'guerrilla focos' between 1963-1980,
in which small groups of intellectuals would organize an armed nucleus
in the countryside, engage in combat and attract mass peasant support.
Every Castro-ite guerrilla foco was quickly defeated – wiped out – in
Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, (urban focos), Bolivia, Argentina, In contrast,
Marulanda's prolonged guerrilla war strategy relied on mass grass roots
organizing based on close peasant ties with guerrillas, based on
community, family and class solidarity, building slowly and methodically
a national political-military people's army. In fact, a serious
re-examination of the Cuban revolution reveals that Castro's guerrillas
were recruited from the mass of urban mass organizations, methodically
organized prior to and during the formation of the guerrilla foco in
1956-1958.
Although reliable figures on the FARC are available, Castro
underestimated by half the number of FARC guerrillas, relying on the
propaganda of Uribe's publicists.
3. Castro condemns the 'cruelty' of the FACR tactics "of capturing
and holding prisoners in the jungle." With this logic, Castro should
condemn every revolutionary movement in the 20th century beginning with
the Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions. Revolutions are cruel
but Fidel forgets that counter-revolutions are even crueler. Uribe
established local spy networks involving local officials, as was done in
Vietnam during that war. And the Vietnamese revolutionaries eliminated
the collaborators because they were responsible for the execution of
tens of thousands of village militants. Castro fails to comment on the
fact that Ms. Betancourt, upon her celebrated 'liberation' embraced and
thanked General Mario Montoya. According to a declassified US embassy
document, Montoya organized a clandestine terrorist unit ('American
Anti-Communist Alliance'), which murdered thousands of Colombian
dissidents, almost all of them ferociously tortured beforehand. The
'cruelty' of FACR captivity did not show up in Betancourt's medical
exam: She was in good health!
4. Fiidel claims "Cuba is for peace in Colombia but not US military
intervention". It is the Colombian oligarchy and Uribe regime, which
has invited and collaborated with the US military intervention in
Colombia. Castro implies that US military intervention is imposed from
the outside, rather than seeing it as part of the class struggle within
Colombia, in which Colombia's rulers, landowners and narco-traffickers
play a major role in financing and training the death squads. In the
first 6 months of 2008, 24 trade union leaders have been murdered by the
Uribe regime, over 2,562 killed over the past twenty years since what
Castro describes as the "new roads of complex and special
circumstances." Fidel totally ignores the continuities of death squad
murders of unarmed social movement activists, the lack of solidarity
from Cuba toward all the Colombian movements since Havana developed
diplomatic and commercial ties with the Uribe regime.
5. Castro calls for the immediate release of all FARC-held
prisoners, without the minimum consideration of the 500 guerrillas
tortured and dehumanized in Uribe's and Bush's horrendous high security
'special prisons'. Castro boasts that Cuba released its prisoners
captured during the anti-Batista struggle and calls for the FARC to
follow Cuba's example, rather than the Vietnamese and Chinese
revolutionary approach. Castro's attempt to impose and universalize his
tactics, based on Cuban experience, on Colombia lacks the minimum effort
to understand, let alone analyze, the specificities of Colombia, its
military, the political context of the class struggle and the social and
political context of humanitarian negotiations in Colombia.
6. Castro claims the FARC should end the guerrilla struggle but not
give up their arms because in the past guerrillas who disarmed were
slaughtered by the regime. Instead, he suggests they should accept
France's offer to abandon their country or accept Chavez' (Uribe's
'brother' and 'friend') proposal to negotiate and secure a commission
made up Latin American notables to oversee their integration into
Colombian politics.
What are 'armed' guerillas going to do when thousands of Uribe's
soldiers and death squads ravage the countryside? Flee to the mountains
and shoot wild pigs? France means abandoning millions of starving
vulnerable peasant supporters and the class struggle.
7. Fidel Castro totally omits from his discussion the manner in
which every political leader involved in the 'humanitarian mission' used
the celebration of Betancourt's 'liberation' to cover up and distract
from their serious political difficulties. First and foremost, Uribe's
re-election was ruled illegal by the Colombian Supreme Court because he
was accused and convicted of bribing members of Congress to vote for the
constitutional amendment allowing his running for a second term.
Uribe's presidency is de facto illegal. Betancourt's release and
delirious embrace of Uribe undermines the judicial verdict and
eliminates the court injunction for a new Congressional vote or national
election. Sarkozy's popularity in France was in a vertical free fall,
his highly publicized intervention in the negotiations with the FARC
were a total failure, his militarist policies in the Middle East and
virulent anti-immigrant policies alienated substantial sectors of the
French public (as did rising prices and economic stagnation).
The release of Betancourt and her effusive praise and embrace of
Sarkozy revived his tarnished image and gave him a temporary respite
from the burgeoning political and economic discontent with his domestic
and foreign policies.
Chavez used the release of Betancourt to embrace his 'enemy',
Uribe, and to put further distance from the FARC, in particular, and the
popular movements in Colombia, as well as to build bridges with a
post-Bush US President. Chavez also returned to the good graces of the
entire pro-imperialist mass media and favorable comments from the
right-wing US Presidential candidate, John McCain, who "hoped the FARC
would follow Chavez demands to disarm."
Cuba, or at least Fidel Castro, used the 'liberation' of
Betancourt to display his long-term hostility to the FARC (dating at
least from 1990) for embarrassing his policy of reconciliation with the
Colombian regime.
8. Striking a humanitarian and quasi-electoral posture in
celebrating Betancourt's release, Castro lambasted the FARC for its
'cruelty' and armed resistance to the terrorist Uribe regime. Castro
attacked the FARC's"authoritarian structure and dogmatic leadership",
ignoring FARC's endorsement of electoral politics between 1984-90 (when
over 5,000 disarmed activists and political candidates were
slaughtered), and the free and open debate over policy alternative in
the demilitarized zone (1999-2002) with all sectors of Colombian
society. In contrast, Castro never permitted free and open debate and
elections, even among communist candidates in any legislative process –
at least until he was replaced by Raul Castro.
The abovementioned political leaders were serving their own personal
political interests by bashing the FARC and celebrating Betancourt at
the expense of the people of Colombia.
Conclusion
Has Castro clearly thought through the disastrous consequences for
millions of impoverished Colombians or is he thinking only of Cuba's
possible improvement of relations with Colombia once the FARC is
liquidated? The effect of Castro's anti-FARC articles has been to
provide ammunition for the imperial mass media to discredit the FARC and
armed resistance to tyranny and to bolster the image of death squad
President Uribe. When the world's premier revolutionary leader denies
the revolutionary history and practice of an ongoing popular movement
and its brilliant leader who built that movement, he is denying the
movements of the future a rich heritage of successful resistance and
construction. History will not absolve him.
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