Colombia - May 7, 2024

On the last big mass mobilizations in Colombia

A struggle between the right wing and reformism
for controlling of the masses

In Colombia, in the last few days, two big mobilizations have taken place in the streets of its main cities. The first one took place on April 21, with mass participation and sponsored by sectors of opposition to the present government of Gustavo Petro, in which stand out the traditional right-wing parties and groups, businessmen, cattle ranchers, big landowners and the new paramilitary groups, marching with a large participation of the bourgeois parties, summoning a large part of the national middle class and also accompanied by popular sectors, under their political influence. The second, the traditional internationalist march of May Day, appealed by workers sectors, as usual, but which, on this occasion called in advance that it should become “a popular response to the march of April 21”, for which Petro asked to be the only speaker in the capital of the country, to send his message, replicated at the national level. These May Day marches showed a greater participation of workers, poor peasants, indigenous people and the black in their composition and number compared to the previous march against Petro, but it became a march of “supporting Petro”.

At the moment, proposals for pension, labor, health, Education, Budget Law, Agrarian Jurisdiction, Development Plan, Total Peace, Political Reform, Tax Reform, and the adult use of Cannabis, among the most outstanding, are being discussed in Congress. With the exception of the Political Reform, all the others have been processed in Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) and are being approved. Basically in Labor, Pension and Health systems, the reforms approved by bourgeois initiative and headed by Alvaro Uribe Vélez in the 90's were a blow against the workers' conquests and those of the Colombian workers in years of struggles, but there is still no clarity on the effects of these reforms, on these old Laws, because the current conditions of exploitation of the workers (working hours, no Sundays off, vacations, stability), the management of health care (the EPS are maintained) and pensions for them (the Private Administrators for Pensions and Severance Pay are maintained), which main characteristic is that workers' money is managed by the bankers and Creole capitalists, have not been modified.

In order to modify the pension system, for example, with the 14th month for pensioners, the Minister of Labor of this Government, Gloria Inés Ramírez (member of CCP), has stated that the Constitution must be modified, once the Labor and Pension Reform is finally approved by Congress. This CCP, through its Minister, maintains great influence over labor and workers sectors, such as Sintraemsdes Nacional, in the CUT, the CGT, the UTC, the CTC and the National Agricultural Trade Union Federation. The agrarian sector has witnessed transformations, where lands usurped from displaced peasants, indigenous and black communities have been returned, within the Total Peace Plan, the banner of the current Petrista government, of course, without touching and let alone expropriating lands from companies and landowners, who have obtained them by murdering peasants in the criminal civil war, since the 50's.

The May Day march was massive, more than the one sponsored by the bourgeoisie, but with the aggravating factor, of the manipulation of the Petrista sectors, that left in the background, the INTERNATIONALISM of this commemoration, because in this sense, only the Hymn of the International was heard, but, “OUT WITH THE GRINGOS” of the 9 military bases was not shouted, ‘no payment of the foreign debt to the IMF’ either; no Palestinian flags were waved, nor the denunciation of the Zionist massacre in Gaza, nothing against Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, and let alone the solidarity with the Syrian people in their struggle of resistance against Al Assad and the criminal Putin, and that, in spite of the fact that all the groups and political parties of the reformist and pseudo-Trotskyist left and workers, like the CGT, the second most important workers' union in the country, divided in participating in the two days, the pro-Uribe and the pro-Petrista.  The Palestinian flags were waived by the Palestinian ambassador and his comrades in the march, while the PST, which had called that day to meet in front of the Palestinian Embassy, ended up also participating in the Petrista march. Nor was a slogan shouted denouncing the crimes in the cities and countryside that have left dozens dead in cities, countryside and rivers, nor the thousands of disappeared, nor for the freedom of the political prisoners, nor for the detainees, more than 100 fighters of the FIRST LINE, who are still in prison. Instead, they highlighted the actions of the ESMAD of the police and the Military Forces, to “maintain Peace and Quiet in the country”.

In spite of the outrage of the Colombian right wing, against Petro's popular front government, the bourgeoisie as a whole and US Imperialism, see in him an important manipulator of the popular struggles in the Colombian cities and countryside. Petro is their tactical and strategic ally to maintain Colombia as a semi-colonial country under capitalist influence, and to maintain his role as Biden's gendarme in Latin America. The meetings with General Laura J. Richardson, head of the US Southern Command, prove it.  Petro, together with the Stalinism of the petty bourgeois leaderships of the FARC, ELN, EPL, PCC, have been in charge of preventing a great peasant and indigenous uprising, which would have also shaken the urban working class to an armed uprising, which would have defeated the bourgeois regime of exploitation and oppression.

This class-collaboration government has only been worked to deceive the masses in cities and countryside, in addition to corrupting and repressing the fighting and militant sectors of the working class. This government is used by the bourgeoisie to stabilize the country, and neutralize the popular struggles, otherwise it will use the fascist narco-paramilitary gangs in the streets. Let us remember the 5,000 dead of the UP and the thousands of demobilized in cities and countryside, assassinated in the process of PEACE OF THE CEMETERIES. Meanwhile, let us not forget that Stalinism and reformism have the role of being direct agents of counterrevolution in the world and in Colombia their role has been preventing the peasant war from reaching the cities and to ally themselves with the working class for more than 50 years.

Today internationally, its role is to prevent the progress of the slogan of the International General Strike in support of the Palestinian struggle and its war of resistance in Gaza, sustaining the Palestinian bourgeois slogan of the TWO STATES, arising from the year 78 in the CAMP DAVID agreements, between Egypt and Israel when Egypt recognized the State of Israel, with the US imperialism and Carter as guarantors and ratified by the PLO with Yasser Arafat. In the early 2001 in the Oslo agreements, where the very same US imperialism, but with Clinton, act as guarantor, both processes ratify the acceptance of the imperialist policy of the TWO STATES in Palestine. Hamas on the contrary since its appearance in 1987, does not recognize the State of Israel, even though in a document signed in 2017, it accepts the borders that existed before the 1967 war. Today Zionism is exterminating the Palestinian people, and seeks to expel them definitively from their lands, more than 36,000 dead, thousands more wounded, among children, youth, women and adults, destroying entire cities and villages, forcing a mass exodus, under the silence of the Arab bourgeoisies and the Palestinian bourgeoisie itself (PLO and Fatah), sponsored by US and European imperialism. Meanwhile, the resistance of the people in Syria has not surrendered, in spite of the treason of the criminal Putin together with Turkey and Iran. The masses of the whole Middle East saw that in the revolutionary uprising of workers and peasants in Syria, it was open the road to reach Jerusalem in Palestine and defeat Zionism. What is happening today in the Middle East in Syria and Palestine reflects the crisis of the current leaderships of the proletariat, which are at the feet of Stalinism, who maintain in force the pro-bourgeois trade union policies. It is necessary to fight tirelessly against imperialism and its agents, in Syria, in Palestine and the entire Middle East, fighting to expel Putin, Al Assad and the US from Syria, also the murderous Zionists in Gaza and in all Palestine and for the destruction of the Zionist-fascist state of Israel.

Let’s fight then for the political independence of the workers and exploited in general. Do not fall into the imperialist traps of governments like Petro, Boric, Lula, Maduro, faithful servants of world imperialist capital. The general situation of the working class at the international level, ratifies that the same conditions of oppression and capitalist exploitation are maintained. Let’s act independently in our struggles, to build together with the workers our own revolutionary party, to raise the slogans of the poor peasants, indigenous and other exploited and oppressed of the world, under the banners and slogans of the IV International and its Program.

COLECTIVO UTOPIA LA PALABRA - Adherent to the FLTI-CI - COLOMBIA