Colombian guerrillas offer campesino protesters support.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Colombia's strategic northeastern region of Catatumbo, on the border with Venezuela, has become a volcano, which, after years of lying dormant, now seems close to erupting. Since June 10, campesinos have been peacefully protesting against a government policy that threatens their only source of sustenance--coca fields--and they are specifically demanding that their lands be declared a Zona de Reserva Campesina (ZRC). ZRCs are a legal concept established in 1994 to promote agricultural development through work cooperatives, which receive state subsidies until they are able to successfully operate on their own.
But the protesters encountered the intransigence of President Juan Manuel Santos and a surprising government crackdown that has thus far resulted in the deaths of six campesinos, with dozens more wounded, and several towns in Catatumbo basically occupied by military and police forces.
In this context, artisanal miners in the region and throughout the country--some 2 million families work extracting gold, coal, and sand--and small family coffee producers--560,000 families--began an indefinite strike on July 16 with their own demands while also expressing support for those of the campesinos.
Talks with protesters "at an impasse"
After the third breakdown in the dialogue initiated with the rural workers, Interior Minister Fernando Carrillo remarked laconically, "We're at an impasse."
On July 23, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)--who, since November 2012, have been participating with the government in an auspicious peace dialogue (NotiSur, March 15, 2013)--surprisingly offered the campesinos armed support, an offer they had never made to any sector since their founding in 1962.
The campesino mobilization began with a simple demand: asking the government to set aside its commitments with the US in the war on drugs and discontinue its policy of destroying coca fields, the only source of sustenance for tens of thousands of families who have small plots that they call "subsistence crops." The campesinos are not opposed to an eventual definitive elimination of the coca fields but ask that first a substitute economy be developed, and they see the ZRC as an ideal starting point.
As part of the protests, the campesinos blocked various roads. The government agreed to begin a dialogue but set as a prior condition that the Catatumbo workers lift the roadblocks. After that, the crackdown was unleashed although no one could explain...
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