ZNet Commentary
Cauca: Chomsky Interview
by Noam Chomsky and Justin Podur
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-07/13chomsky-podur.cfm
At the time of this writing, the municipalities of Toribio and Jambalo in
Northern Cauca are being bombarded by both FARC and the Colombian
government. Northern Cauca is home to one of the most remarkable
experiments in resistance to neoliberalism and in the actual construction
of alternatives in the hemisphere, not to mention a courageous and unarmed
struggle for peace.
The current battle begain when the FARC entered the area with the intention
of executing the indigenous mayors of these municipalities for
'corruption'. The mayors were elected in a direct-democratic, consultative
process developed by the people of Cauca (see "Snapshot of Colombia" for
more detail on this process) and the accusation of corruption leveled at
them is not warranted.
The indigenous organizations of Cauca have asked for international action
to protect them from this threat and for all armed actors to leave their
territory so they can continue their construction of autonomy.
Noam Chomsky visited Cauca several months ago. He gave his assessment of
the situation there in an email interview today.
1) You visited the indigenous of Cauca recently, and now they are being hit
quite hard from all quarters-- the FARC, the paramilitaries, and aerial
fumigation from the US. Why is that? Do their achievements qualify as the
kind of 'threat of a good example' that has to be destroyed?
That's a fair conclusion, I think.
I spent a few days in Cauca, but met mostly people from the southern part,
campesinos and indigenous mostly, with personal testimonies that are really
painful to listen to. Also met activists from many different groups, very
impressive people, and was able to spend a few hours talking to the
governor, Floro Tunubala, a thoughtful, articulate, proud indigenous man,
maybe the first indigenous elected official at that rank in the hemisphere.
His election was a shock to the elites that have run the place forever.
It's reminiscent of Haiti 10 years ago. His election was a reflection of
the success of local organizing among the popular sectors, the "Bloque
Social" -- the Social Bloc. In answer to your question, I'll just quote
what he said in a published interview. He warned a year ago of the growing
presence of paramilitaries in the north, another step in extending their
control over large parts of Colombia.
He attributed their invasion of northern Cauca to the successes of the
Social Bloc, which has "won economic and territorial rights, and social
rights in the areas of education and health." That "attracted the attention
of the paramilitaries," who do not tolerate such deviation from the
traditional structures of power they protect. I think that's the basic
answer to the question you raise.
But it's more complex. In recent years, he said, the guerrillas have
"sought to manipulate the social movements," and it is clear from personal
testimonies that they -- particularly FARC -- are feared by campesinos,
Afro-Colombians, and indigenous people, and that FARC has lost its former
social program as the conflict has become increasingly militarized.
The Social Bloc is seeking to separate the region from the conflict, to
free themselves from the military-paramilitary and from the guerrillas, and
to pursue a path towards independent social and economic development under
their own control. None of the militarized forces accept that. There are
similar efforts in many parts of Colombia, including quite sizeable
networks of communities, in one case an area about the size of El Salvador.
Perhaps the oldest is San Jose de Apartado, which declared itself a zone of
peace over 30 years ago, and has suffered bitterly from the refusal of the
armed groups to accept that. They had been under siege by paramilitaries
for weeks when I was there, food and other supplies were running short, and
the situation may be desperate unless they receive some outside support
beyond the human rights and solidarity groups that are attempting to do
something and arouse international attention.
Those I met described the US chemical warfare campaign ("fumigation") as a
particularly vicious atrocity. Peasant testimonies were graphic and
heart-rending, and even a casual visit suffices to see some of the effects
directly. Most of the those met were coffee farmers. They had managed to
overcome the sharp decline in coffee prices (which devastates the farmers;
the multinational distributors are doing fine) by developing a niche market
for export, mostly to Europe: very high quality organically-grown coffee.
That's destroyed by the fumigation, forever. Not only are all the coffee
bushes killed, but the land is poisoned, and will not be certified again,
even if they can somehow survive the years it takes to re-establish what
has been destroyed, along with all other crops: yucca, asparagus, much
else. Their farms and lives are ruined, their animals killed, their
children often sick and dying.
They are left destitute, with little hope. At least in the areas from which
I heard personal testimonies, the crop destruction had little if anything
to do with guerrilla presence or drug production -- grotesque as even those
projects are. There hadn't even been an attempt to investigate on the
ground the areas subjected to ruinous crop destruction.
These programs appear to be another stage in the historical process of
driving poor peasants from the land, opening up rich resources to
exploitation by foreign capital, and probably laying the basis for
agroexport controlled by multinationals using laboratory-produced seed,
once the biodiversity is destroyed, along with the rich but fragile
tradition of peasant agriculture.
Along with the governors of the neighboring provinces, Tunubala has called
for an end to fumigation, with manual eradication along with programs of
social and economic development. But that doesn't fit the aims of the
Colombian elite and Washington's "Plan Colombia," so it receives virtually
no support.
There's background that should be kept in mind. In 2001, Cauca had the
worst record for human rights violations in Colombia, which is quite an
achievement. Next was Choco, mostly Afro-Colombian, the scene of a terrible
massacre when a FARC bomb hit a church where people were taking refuge from
fighting that broke out after paramilitaries invaded the area. These are
the latest stages in an ugly history.
From far back, the violence in Cauca, as elsewhere, is part of the
expulsion of peasants from the best lands, escalating under the neoliberal
programs but with deep historical roots, leading to a social order with
extreme concentration of wealth, linked to foreign capital, and awful
misery in a country with rich and varied resources. That's been true of
Cauca for a long time. The Social Bloc has been reversing the process, and
that is not welcome to concentrated power, domestic or international.
2) How credible is the Colombian government's claim that they are trapped
between a guerrilla insurgency and a paramilitary army, neither of which
they can control, both of which they need military help from the US to
bring to heel?
Both international and Colombian human rights organizations now attribute
the large majority of atrocities to paramilitaries, who are so closely, and
so visibly, allied to the military that Human Rights Watch calls them the
"Sixth Division," alongside the five official divisions.
There's overwhelming evidence of intimate connections and cooperation, both
from ample personal testimony and published reports of the major human
rights organizations, which are detailed and informative. The proportion of
atrocities attributed to the military/paras has been steady over the years:
about 75%-80%, with the military component declining as atrocities are
"farmed out" to the paras in ways that are familiar elsewhere.
That's useful for "plausible deniability" -- plausible enough for State
Department pretenses when they go through the annual charade of certifying
"improvements" in the military's human rights record, most recently a
disgraceful performance by Colin Powell a few months ago after he had been
presented with extensive documentation from the main human rights
organizations showing in careful detail that accreditation would be a farce.
The transfer of atrocities to paramilitaries is a form of privatization
that fits well into the "neoliberal model," of which Colombia is a stellar
example generally. US participation in state terror is proceeding along a
similar track. Increasingly, it is privatized. The tasks are handed over to
companies like MPRI and Dyncorps that hire US military personnel and
operate on government contracts, but aren't subject to the congressional
surveillance that somewhat constrains direct participation in state terror.
3) Can concerned North Americans actually help protect the work of people
in Cauca? How?
It's no exaggeration to say that their fate lies in our hands. The Social
Bloc in Cauca is one of quite a few popular formations throughout the
country. They cannot alone withstand the overwhelming resources of violence
in the hands of the Colombian elite linked to US power.
As for the guerrillas, power centers may not defeat them in conventional
military terms, but have already succeeded to a large extent in one primary
goal: driving the guerrillas to become a military force without meaningful
social programs, hence just another source of terror for the population
that seeks to find a way to escape the criminal socioeconomic system and
pervasive violence that is closely connected to it. That's again a classic
device of state-directed international terrorism.
The courage and dedication of the Social Bloc, and the activists who work
with them, are extraordinary and inspiring. But the heavy hand of
oppression has to be removed right here. It is also right here that they
should be receiving direct support for the very impressive and promising
work that they are doing. To some extent that is happening, with sister
city projects and other forms of solidarity. How these processes develop
will determine the fate of millions of Colombians. We're not observing from
Mars, and even a tiny fraction of what they do every day, under
incomparably harsher conditions, can make an enormous difference.
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