Exclusive interview with Commander Timoleon Jimenez (FARC-EP)
“The President does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, and we hope so too. You know that the biggest mistake of all the above processes has been to come to the table to demand surrender,” commander Timoleon Jimenez told Voz director Carlos Lozano. [Voz is the newspaper of the above ground Communist Party of Colombia.)
Timoleon Jimenez, Commander in Chief of the General Staff of the FARC-EP, is the head of the legendary guerrilla movement, now engaged in the pursuit of democratic peace through a new dialogue with the Government. It is the continuation of an orientation of the FARC-EP. Manuel Marulanda had said to Voz, during the dialogues of Caguan: “Peace is the flag of the revolutionaries.”
This interview comes at an historic moment, on the verge of a new effort to achieve peace in Colombia. Here are the answers of Timoleon Jimenez. You could say, without false optimism, peace is closer than before, but there is still a long journey ahead. The whole country is expectant that there is not a new frustration.
Now begins a new process of dialogue with a Government heir to the “democratic security” of Uribe. How does FARC deal with this?
We have always been willing to find solutions other than war. With Uribe that was not possible, for his open disregard of our political conditions. Santos is not only the heir of “democratic security,” but also one of its star players. In fact, he has continued with it by other names. But as he himself says, he decided to take the risks of talking and took positive steps in this direction. Any Colombian would say that the real risk is the war and not dialogue, so do not hesitate to accept talks to seek peace. As to how to deal with the new process, we do so with high expectations of reaching the end of the conflict. The President repeated that he does not want to make the mistakes of the past and we hope so. You know that the biggest mistake of all the earlier processes has been to come to the table to demand surrender without real will to solve the causes that gave rise to and continue to fuel the confrontation.
The agenda includes the issue of “CODA”, which would be the culmination of an agreement or covenant of peace. What are your expectations of the FARC?
There is no sense to start a process to get the final termination of the conflict without contemplating the abandonment of weapons as a point of arrival. CODA is the abolition of the use of force, of appeal to any kind of violence to achieve political or economic purposes. It’s a real farewell to arms. If we could have that reality in Colombia, our country would take a huge leap forward. We must be confident that the Santos administration, and all sectors committed to violence as a means of economic and political action, match this criterion with us.
The ‘past mistakes’
President Santos has said his government requires that this process of dialogue “does not repeat past mistakes”, that there is a guarantee that it will lead to the end of the conflict, and that the Government will maintain the military operations and military pressure on the FARC. What are the assumptions of the insurgency for the process to be a success?
The ruling oligarchy in Colombia, solidly supported by the Governments of the United States, has spent almost 50 years betting on the extermination of the guerrillas. Twelve governments, one with repeated mandate, invariably promised our end and gave free hands to the military apparatus. Precisely that is the vicious cycle that needs breaking. If you look at the overall pass plebiscite to peace talks, you realize that the vast majority of Colombians did not share the military solution, not least because those with more sanity than their rulers know that is not possible. We start from the idea that this process will be successful to the extent that such large majorities favor a political solution, a chance to speak, to move, to influence, to decide. And we welcome it.
Several sectors supporting dialogue are considering the proposal of truce, cease-fire and cessation of hostilities. What does the FARC-EP think?
We fully agree. It has always been one of our first. Unfortunately, the Colombian oligarchy has tilted because the dialogues take place amid confrontation.
In Colombia, the ruling class, the political class and its media suffer from mania to look only at one side. A report of killing 30 guerrillas in an air raid awakens their applause, while they repudiate death of officers in combat as murder. With such manipulation they sought to pressure us rudely in the past roundtables.
The role of Voz
Voz, as an alternative means of informing the nation, has for decades of heroic endurancee exposed the infamous criminal persecution practiced in Colombia against such organizations. From the Voz files could be developed the most accurate history of state crimes against the people of this country. The number of victims in Colombia is equated with Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe. This acquires special importance in the role of different social movements, labor, agrarian, popular, that Colombia intends to ignore when dealing out crumbs. That part of Colombia which is ignored and victimized must now stand up to claim their dead and missing, to demand the definitive end of the war, to prevent any impunity, to demand satisfaction for those old cries so widespread and so atrocious.
What about the 6-8 month deadline that President Santos demands?
It is an expectation that he is generating on his own, contrary to what was agreed in the letter and spirit of the Exploratory Meeting. There is no drop-dead date entered into, even the word months, so the statement of the President tells us how difficult will be this road we undertake. By the way, a clear evidence that the strategy will be implemented: when he does not achieve anything at the table, he tries to impose it in the media. To get to Havana and perform the Exploratory Meeting took two years, when initially we thought to be a matter of weeks. And it was precisely because of the insurgency that the process continued, a topic which I do not want to give details about out of respect for the commitment to keep them private for the moment, but the chronicles that have come out in the media seems to have forgotten it.
A matter of Colombians
What policy proposal will make the FARC-EP to Colombians to start dialogue?
Mobilize around final termination of the conflict. War and peace are issues that concern all Colombians and we are obliged to speak out. The Government claims that the dialogues are conducted exclusively among their spokesmen and ours, as repeated insistently. Like when Laureano Gomez and Lleras Camargo signed agreements in Europe with Sitges and Benidorm. It also aims to give the government plans a boost as best for the country.
It is hidden from the Colombian population that the government plans are reakkty only interested and agreeable to multinationals, bankers, businessmen and landowners. That cannot happen again in this country. Large majorities should be heard from and addressed. Our proposal addresses that.
Why has the FARC decided to take on this new attempt at peace? Weakness? Strategy? Realism?
Those who claim that military pressure was ultimately behind the move to political negotiations forget that this decade of war erupted when Pastrana unilaterally ended the peace process taking place in Caguan. It is the State who returns to the table for talks with the FARC, which will be made for their internal valuations. One of them, not made public, has to be the recognition that the enormous effort has been futile to beat us. The FARC is still here, fighting, resisting, moving. Now we return to the natural setting of policy, civilized dialogue. It is absurd to say that we have been forced to sit at the table, when it was the state that rose angrily. We talk, for a political solution has always been our flag and that of the popular movement.
Serious blows
But then the FARC have received severe blows during the last ten years?
There is no denying that we have received serious blows. And extremely painful ones. The deaths of four members of the National Secretariat cannot be minimized. However, we have assimilated with courage all these cases. None of the current members of the Secretariat has less than 35 years of experience in guerrilla warfare, which can be applied to most of the Central Staff. The changes are not improvised. 48 years of continuous struggle have produced a formidable machine. We went ahead, with pain in the soul, but more experienced and confident of our purpose. In every war there are casualties. The media campaign insists we are defeated, introduce us as an organization with no future. If it were to face a defeated force, they would not be working on further increasing the manpower and the already huge arsenal acquired. These are truths that the state and the media deliberately concealed.
So, although the FARC’s actions run differently than fourteen years ago, can it be said that the confrontation remains of great proportions? The defense ministes completely minimizes you and claims that confrontation only persists in ten rural isolated municipalities of the country …
The FARC-EP operates and moves in the same territories it occupies. The commands control joint task forces, brigades and battalions are often put on edge by mobile guerrilla activity. The casualties of the armed forces have been on the rise for some time. Of course, we also received blows, much publicized by the media. This is the conflict. A war is waged under all circumstances, there is no valid operating modes for all situations. It is obvious that conditions today are not the same as a decade ago, especially with massive use of military aviation, but there is daily battle. In all blocks FARC’s work varies depending on the equation at any time. Either way, the continuation of the conflict will involve more death and destruction, more grief and tears, more poverty and misery for some and greater wealth for others. Imagine the lives that would be saved ten years. So we seek dialogues, a bloodless solution, through political understanding. To this end we will come to Havana. We trust that the Government also understands the need to end the violence practiced so long against the Colombian people.
Original text in Spanish
Translation by redguard
