In response to the video published by Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich and other insurgents, in which they announce the return of the second Marquetalia to the defensive armed struggle, citing, among other reasons, the betrayal of the peace agreement signed with the Colombian state in Havana in 2016, the Peoples Congress presents the following observations:
It was foreseeable, as a consequence of the repeated breaches of the peace agreements, the assassination of ex-combatants and social leaders, and the position of the State to demolish the agreements in all spheres, that there would be a reaction from a group of rebels in the direction of resuming the armed struggle.
The State and the political parties of the right, are responsible for the structural problems that cause and maintain misery, discrimination, repression, violence and State terrorism, which in the last 40 years has disappeared more than 80 thousand Colombians, the majority humble, political leaders of the left and popular activists. They are responsible for the genocide of more than 3500 union leaders in the last 35 years and thousands of Indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, peasants, women and students. This genocide, against the social and popular movement, in the last three years has cost the lives of almost a thousand leaders of the regions, as well as the judicialization of hundreds of them.
For the Peoples Congress, there can be no peace if social injustice, inequality and violence against the humble persists. Peace cannot be reduced to the silencing of guns, peace must be transformative, that is to say, a peace that guarantees the permanence and self-determination of communities and peoples in the territories, the right to water, land, healthcare, education, and the guarantee of food sovereignty; also the overcoming of patriarchy, racism and any form of discrimination and this cannot be left until later. Our path is not war, that is the path of the elites. War destroys human life and nature. Ours is life.
The mandates of the Congress for peace, summon us to continue fighting for the political solution to the social and armed conflict, the guarantee of life, the right to protest and freedom for leaders, peoples and political opposition; the fulfilment of the agreements signed with the social movements and the insurgencies; the establishment of a great movement for peace that will create broad, democratic and inclusive spaces and that will call for national and international mobilization for a peace with transformational changes.
The popular mobilization must invite the country to build that desired peace, it must be a massive, joyful and creative act that demands that those in power depart and make way for a social and economic model that advocates for the life, happiness and well-being of the peoples.
CONGRESS OF THE PEOPLES OF COLOMBIA
Country Proposal for Dignified Life!
