Fascist terrorism in Colombia

One week after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the government, the massacres continue as right-wing paramilitaries murder innocent civilians suspected of having collaborated with FARC.

During this week, 55 people were murdered by the United Self-defence of Colombia (AUC, in Spanish). These paramilitary groups are supported by the government and this in turn is supported by the USA with money and military “advisors”. American mercenaries fight alongside the AUC members, whose ranks number 8,000,000.

Many times, FARC was blamed for massacres perpetrated by these fascist forces while all FARC was trying to do was to present a programme of civil justice and to try to construct a framework in which the people of Colombia could live in peace. FARC took up arms because it was the only way to survive.

The attacks during the last week, the worst in Colombia’s 37-year civil war, were an attempt by the AUC to provoke a start-up of the fighting again. Too many people, it appears, were making money from the conflict.

The Colombian police have confirmed that all these massacres were carried out by extreme right-wing organizations. On Wednesday, 24 peasants were murdered in near the town of Buga. The Mayor of Buga, John Jairo Bohorquez, called the perpetrators “inhuman”. “They separate the women, children and old people. Those who were left received the order to run and were shot down. Those who fell were executed with a shot in the neck”.

Also on Wednesday, a column of heavily-armed AUC members killed 12 civilians in the city of Remolinos. This civil war has already cost Colombia 40,000 civilian lives in the past decade alone.

This time, FARC cannot be blamed for the actions of others.

Juan BLANCO