For years, Venezuela has been addressing the threat that Colombian paramilitarism poses to peace, stability and democracy in Venezuela. Today, in the midst of increasing U.S. aggression against Venezuela, the issue is taking on new relevance. At least three recent events indicate this: 1) the destruction of the peace accords by Uribism, led by President Duque, which triggered the FARC’s return to arms; 2) the photos of Juan Guaidó with Los Rastrojos leaders revealed to world public opinion the connection between the Venezuelan right, the Colombian government and the US government with paramilitarism, and how this connection is key in the development of the plan to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution; 3) the circulation of a communiqué issued by the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) in which President Maduro and all the members of his government are declared military objectives, and in which information is given about the existence and deepening of their operations in Venezuelan territory. Hence, it is essential for the country, for social and political movements and organizations, for the democratic, pacifist and patriotic people, to know and be informed about the phenomenon of paramilitarism in Colombia.
In order to understand the Colombian paramilitary phenomenon, we must first study the character of the Colombian bourgeoisie and, in turn, the Colombian State. This is because paramilitarism has been and continues to be an instrument of the political and economic elite of Colombia to defend its interests and maintain itself in power, subduing, oppressing and excluding the immense majority of the Colombian people. It is fundamental to understand that between the dominant elite of Colombia, the Colombian State and drug trafficking there has been a macabre fusion that has given life to what we know today as paramilitarism.
The paramilitaries are, therefore, a creation, a spawn of the Colombian ruling political class, used to repress, to generate terror, to persecute any expression of dissidence and rebellion against the unjust economic and social order of the neogranadian society.
This is compounded by U.S. intervention. Plan Colombia, which the United States has been executing for more than a decade, and which has involved an investment of more than 10 billion dollars for war, promoted and strengthened this instrument and this form of irregular war, not only to combat the armed insurgency, but also to control the drug trafficking business, a task that is carried out by the DEA and the CIA under the façade of the so-called war against this scourge.
Today, paramilitarism is also a concrete expression of the hybrid war that the US economic and political power elites, with the complicity of the Guaidosist sectors of the Venezuelan right, are advancing against the country.
The so-called demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia was nothing more than a redesign of paramilitarism in order to adapt it to new situations and demands of the counterrevolutionary strategy planned by the United States. There was never any real will or intention to terminate them. From large armed structures or quasi armies, there was room for smaller, more flexible and more controllable structures managed by the Colombian state and the CIA. Thus the BACRIM were born as Los Rastrojos, Las Águilas Negras, the Autodefensas Gaitanistas, among other groups. Although they no longer existed under the AUC’ s mantle, the organization and structure continued to exist, in this blurred and apparently dispersed manner, in essence, as a hidden arm of the elites and their most radical sector, Uribism, to terrorize the Colombian people, to assassinate social leaders, to disappear the voices that are raised against the political, economic and social exclusion that prevails today in Colombia, as well as to penetrate the fabric of society, fracture it, break it down, impose crime and violence as culture, as an economic regime and instrument of political domination.
It is crucial to understand the genesis of Colombian paramilitarism and the functions it fulfills in the framework of political and economic power in Colombia, as an instrument of domination, oppression and social disintegration, in order to give real magnitude and gravity to the close link that the Venezuelan right wing allied with the United States has with this phenomenon. This linkage in itself explains the plans of the right wing and the US for Venezuela: to impose itself on the structures of the Venezuelan State to cultivate and strengthen the economy of crime, to gain territorial control to control wealth and the extraction of resources, to generalize terror and violence as a regular dynamic of daily life, to exterminate Chavism, its grassroots and popular leadership, as well as the organizational forms that emerge from the bosom of the people and that act to build sovereignty, a productive economy, collective and solidarity building, and a culture of peace.
For all that is at stake and at risk, it is urgent that in Venezuelan society, in government at all levels, in society in general and in its organizational, social, political and cultural spaces, in all sectors and social classes, we unleash a historic crusade against cultivation and proliferation, against the penetration of this perverse phenomenon in the life of our country. In this sense, it is paramount to continue to deepen the unity between the people and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, to sustain the strength of the Bolivarian government in the defense of sovereignty. Likewise, the willingness of the people to participate in the tasks for the defense of peace and democracy is vital, joining the Bolivarian Militia and creating their own organizational forms such as the Hugo Chávez Popular Defense Brigades. All the patriots must join the national alert announced by the government.
To a great extent, a future of peace, stability, true democracy, prosperity and social happiness depends on our being victorious in that crusade against paramilitarism.
Coordinación Nacional Corriente Revolucionaria Bolívar y Zamora
Translation by Internationalist 360°
