In the heart of the Americas lies a human refuge embraced by three mountain ranges, lulled by lush valleys, dense jungles, and bathed by two oceans. Springs and flowing rivers convert its lands into wonders of fertility, culminating to the south in Amazonia -- all of which makes Colombia an object greatly coveted. And from that avarice begins the people's martyrdom: from the cartography of the greed of a handful. Colombia, despite possessing everything it needs to create a dignified life for all 48 million of its inhabitants, suffers because an elite perpetuates colonial violence, clinging to local control while offering the country’s wealth to transnational power, and condemning the people to a bloody history of plunder.  

We have forgotten just how many generations have passed without ever experiencing even a hint of peace, nor a single leader with the will to allow real democracy to dwell for once in this land, instead of the macabre pantomime of ritual voting that loses its democratic substance through its dependance on the extermination of the political opposition. Through incessant repression, these rulers have tried to force us to bury our cries of overwhelming humanity in the depths of our pain.  

1. Making social empathy the first step towards real peace

We have decided to conjugate the feelings of our people in the first person plural, because we embody diversity, and because we have made social empathy the first step towards a real peace -- our people’s feelings cry out for justice in the voice of their exiled, dispossessed, impoverished, marginalized, disappeared, imprisoned, silenced, tortured and killed. And we have decided also to be the "we" who accompany our prisoners and dead, for although the violence of an intolerant elite has sought to erase their ideas and dreams, physically eliminating them or separating them from us by means of vile jailhouse bars, they continue to live in us through their desire for justice and dignity.  

2. Terror that aligns the latifundios with big business

Sixty-eight percent of Colombians live in poverty, with eight million of us wandering destitute through the streets. More than 5 million of us have been violently displaced by the repressive forces of the state or by paramilitaries working closely with the military regime. We have been subjected to the kind of terror that aligns the latifundios (large estates) on the side of transnational capital, to the detriment of the conditions necessary for our survival and dignity, as well as to the detriment of food sovereignty and of peace. Massacres, bombings, spraying and poisoning of the soil and water precede our mournful marches of forced exile. We -- campesinos, Afro-descendants, and indigenous people who have struggled to live on the soil of our ancestors --  have been exiled.   We are torn apart by pain that has already exceeded the tolerable limits of suffering. When we protest, we suffer extermination or are subjected to the ostracism and censorship that state terror imposes.  

3. Opening up space for tolerance to social demands from which to speak of peace

We are eight thousand political prisoners who have had all our human rights violated, eight thousand who cry out amid the indifference of this society, silenced and driven to alienation, who proclaim, even while suffering abhorrent torture, that dignity cannot be torn out in the same way they have torn out our fingernails and that prison bars cannot prevent the existence of our dreams. The prison system, which we denounce as an extermination camp for social demands, goes so far as to deny us health care and does so as a form of torture, pushing us to the point of death. Social organization, critical thinking, and the study of history and Colombian society have all been banned. Human rights defenders, trade unionists, critical intellectuals, and artists committed to their milieu, environmentalists, community leaders, and peasants, all of us are considered criminals and "terrorists”.   We are advocates of peace, and we are silenced for not accepting the reality that tens of thousands of children die annually in Colombia of malnutrition, lack of potable water, and curable diseases; for demanding a free education as the only road to sovereignty; for demanding that health care be a right and not a commodity; for raising our voices against the looting of our resources. There is a war by the state against thought and empathy. The forces of repression, be they official or paramilitaries, murder us even if we have never taken up arms. Countless voices lie in mass graves, many others are scattered on the pavement among puddles of blood left by assassins paid to eliminate dissident voices.  

4. The unmentionable war -- the dirty war

We civilians are being decimated by the dirty war. State terrorism is also part of the war, the part that is never mentioned in the mass media and yet represents the most abundant source of the bloodbath. The key to peace is to demand an end to the state practice of exterminating civilian participation in politics because, upon seeing this systematic marginalizing of participation in politics, people look to arms as the means of raising social demands.   We are not "the oldest democracy in Latin America" because we have not experienced democracy. They force us to remain silent so that we become complicit in the bloody "Security", which is nothing more than the security necessary to carry out transnational plunder without having to heed the just demands of the people; a "security" that translates into violation of the food sovereignty of the majority.  

5. U.S. interventionism underpins the war and represents a regional risk

Those same interests that have converted a portion of Colombia's poor into cannon fodder to protect the interests of transnational corporations and of a Creole minority also allow the installation of the imperialist threat against our brothers and sisters in the region. We have been condemned to relinquishing the sovereignty we inherited from the nineteenth century campaigns of liberation, and we are witnesses to the installation of U.S. military bases from which they impose the doctrines of trampling of human rights and control of drug trafficking as one more tool of domination. USAmericans enjoy total impunity for crimes committed in Colombia, by virtue of the immunity granted to them by the Colombian state. The U.S. justifies its intervention under the pretext of the "war on drugs" when in reality this fortifies its own coffers as well as a government and its narco-paramilitary structures, at the same time criminalizing the peasant cultivator of coca leaf despite knowing it is not cocaine.  

6. Peace is not the extreme degradation of one’s opponent         

   

These are the same rulers who pose displaying cut-off hands and break out in gleeful laughter next to corpses; the same ones who would turn us all into cheerleaders for extermination. They are the same leaders who put a price on life, who created the so-called "false positives" that are nothing but the murder of civilians used to stage military-media productions for psychological warfare: using corpses for necrophiliac exhibitionism that tries to degrade their opponents by presenting them as a pieces of meat in body bags. We declare that these Colombian women and men are not pieces of meat, and we reject this strategy of state terror that sickens the whole of society, degrading its morality.   Raise high the cry for peace with social justice for the majority: a peace born of joint discussion.    

7. Political negotiation, structural changes, questioning the economic model

The Colombian people cry out for a political solution: to implement basic structural changes to eliminate the conditions of deprivation, inequality and exclusion that have given rise to multiple forms of resistance. We urgently need an authentic agrarian reform, the cessation of the state practice of eliminating political opponents, the dismantling of the paramilitary strategy, a stop to the selling off of the country via concessions to multinational corporations (multinational mining companies now lay claim to 40 percent of the country), and an end to submission to the U.S. boot. This requires rethinking the development model of Colombian society: to remain a dependent economy, conceived of as a warehouse of resources with no endogenous development, sows the seeds of war.   This is not a matter of superficial negotiation, nor of negotiating incentives for the 'rehabilitation' for insurgents, which would only result in the reintegration of thousands of women and men into the nightmare of hunger growing daily in the cities’ beltway slums of misery. Nor is it about negotiating a 'reintegration' for the purpose of substantiating after the fact that thousands of 'reintegrated persons' have suffered extermination as a result being unarmed, as has already happened more than once in the history of Colombia. We appeal to social and historical responsibility; we do not want to endorse another mass genocide nor can we pretend that the dispossessed peasantry will resign itself to indignity.  

8. Redefining the sides in the conflict with ancomprehensive vision to advance towards peace

Peace is not just an agreement between the government and the guerrillas, because the sides in a conflict go beyond such a narrow definition that seeks only to deprive the conflict of its true social and economic character: on all sides we are Colombians. Furthermore, we also consider as part of the conflict the transnational corporations that benefit from the plunder, causing massacres and displacing populations; and likewise the United States, which continually intervenes in our affairs. One of the essential points in the problem is the gigantic business that the U.S. and European military-industrial complex does with the Colombian government: the buying of destructive war machines financed by the public treasury, and the growing external debt illegitimately imposed on the people of Colombia.  

9. For peace with social justice, until the last drop of our dreams

We do not believe in agreements that are based solely on the surrender of arms, because what would constitute a true peace in Colombia would be for the greedy to put aside their greed and to stop the depredation of Colombia’s resources at the expense of the exploitation and genocide of its people. To achieve peace, it would be necessary for the owners of the latifundios, the transnational corporations and the military class to deactivate their military machinery; and to stop once and for all the claims of military jurisdiction and other slights of hand by the dismal mechanism of impunity that perpetuates this horror. The military expense is enormous -- more than 12 billion dollars annually. For the sake of peace, we demand that this amount be invested in health, education, housing and internal development.   We want to be able to participate in a broad political debate and in social construction without being assassinated. We want an end to extermination used against social protest, we want political prisoners freed, and we want forced disappearances to end... . These are some steps.    Our intention is to come closer to the dreams of a people that under the threat of terror have been slow to awaken. We make a call to international public opinion to join in solidarity with the people of Colombia and to accompany it in the process of political negotiation of the social and armed conflict. We understand that the conflict is first of all social, and becomes armed due to the political intolerance of the government and because the primary reason for the length of the war in Colombia is the aid that the United States provides to the state apparatus.   In the heart of the Americas, to the sound of drums, of flutes, and of accordions, the soul of a people dances, nurturing in its polychromatic skin millennia of history, guarding hidden wisdoms whispered in the jungles. A people mourns over the tombs scattered among its silent latitudes. Colombia pulses to a geography replete with lilting waterfalls, abundant greens, rising, expansive, hidden jungles, appearing vast and immeasurable. Nothing in it is avarice, everything is abundance. Its people demand to live with dignity in this paradise that such a very few lay claim to as theirs alone. For peace, until the last drop of our dreams!   February 2012, arising from essential empathy, the team of collaborators at La Pluma     

First signatories

World

Atilio A. Boron, politólogo argentino Santiago Alba Rico, escritor, España Franck Gaudichaud, Catedrático. Francia Bernard Duterme, Sociólogo, director del Centro Tricontinental (CETRI) basado en Louvain-la-Neuve, Bélgica Fausto Giudice, escritor y traductor. Miembro fundador de Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística Michel Collon, periodista, Bélgica Luis Casado, escritor, Editor de Politika, Chile, colaborador de La Pluma PAIZ (Partido de Izquierda) Chile Salvador Muñoz Kochansky, Presidente PAIZ (Partido de Izquierda). Chile Camilo Navarro, Sociólogo. Miembro Dirección PAIZ. Chile Luis Alberto Jaqui Muñoz. Administrador Público. Universidad de Santiago de Chile (Ex UTE). Coordinador Nacional Estudiantil PAIZ (Partido de Izquierda). Chile Silvia Cattori - Periodista suiza Carlos Aznárez, periodista, director de Resumen Latinoamericano, Argentina José Bustos, periodista argentino residente en Francia, colaborador de La Pluma Manuel Talens, novelista, traductor y articulista, miembro fundador de Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Renán Vega Cantor, historiador. Profesor titular de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, de Bogotá, Colombia. Premio Libertador, Venezuela, 2008 Miguel Ángel Beltrán V., Profesor del Departamento de Sociología de la  Universidad Nacional de Colombia y perseguido político Víctor Montoya, escritor boliviano Carlos (Koldo) Campos Sagaseta de Ilúrdoz, Poeta, dramaturgo y columnista, Republica Dominicana Ossaba, Artista Plástico, Colaborador de La Pluma. Francia María Piedad Ossaba, periodista, directora de La Pluma. Francia Lilliam Eugenia Gómez, Ph.D. Eco-Etología, IA. Colaboradora de La Pluma Colombia. Álvaro Lopera, Ingeniero químico, Colaborador de La Pluma Colombia. Juan Diego García, Doctor en Sociología, Colaborador de La Pluma. España Marta Lucía Fernández, filósofa, Colaboradora de La Pluma. Colombia. Jorge Eliécer Mejía Diez, abogado colombiano, colaborador de La Pluma. Bélgica Azalea Robles, periodista, poeta. Colaboradora de La Pluma y de otros medios Lía Isabel Alvear. Ingeniera Agrónoma. Colaboradora de La Pluma. Colombia. Rafael Enciso Patiño, Economista Investigador. Colaborador de La Pluma. Venezuela Matiz, artista colombiano. Colaborador de La pluma. Bélgica Éric Meyleuc poeta, escritor, hombre de teatro y militante sindical. Francia Salvador López Arnal, colaborador de rebelión y El Viejo Topo. Elio Ríos Serrano, médico, ambientalista y escritor. Maracaibo, Venezuela Gilberto López y Rivas, Profesor-Investigador Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México Pedro Vianna, poeta, escritor, hombre de teatro y militante asociativo. Francia Cristina Castello- Poeta y periodista argentina residente en Francia André Chenet. Poeta y editor de revistas. Francia Sandrine Féraud. Poeta. Francia Cédric Rutter, periodista. Bélgica David Acera Rodríguez, actor. Asturias (España) Sinfo Fernández Navarro, Traductora Rebelion.org. Madrid Susana Merino, Traductora Rebelión. Buenos Aires, Argentina Agustín Velloso, profesor de la UNED. Madrid Rosina Valcárcel, escritora, Lima, Perú José Antonio Gutiérrez D. analista político solidario con los movimientos populares de Colombia Carlos Casanueva Troncoso, secretario general Movimiento Continental Bolivariano  Dick Emanuelsson, Reportero Suecia-Honduras Mirian Emanuelsson, Reportera Suecia-Honduras José Rouillon Delgado  Sociólogo-Educador Lima-Perú Martín Almada, Defensor de los Derechos Humanos de Paraguay. Graciela Rosenblum, presidenta Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre, Argentina Annalisa Melandri, periodista. Italia  Sandra Marybel Sánchez, miembro del Colectivo de Periodistas por la Vida y la Libertad de Expresión. Honduras Miguel Segovia Aparicio, Poeta; Barcelona, España Badi Baltazar, escritor. Bélgica Antón Gómez-Reino Varela, Tone. Activista social. Galicia Winston Orrillo. Premio Nacional de Cultura del Perú Myriam Montoya, Poeta. Francia Jaime Jiménez, abogado colombiano Enrique Santiago Romero, abogado, ex director del CEAR. España Hernando Calvo Ospina, periodista y escritor colombiano. Francia Ramón Chao, periodista y escritor gallego. Francia Jaime Corena Parra, Físico, Ingeniero Industrial y Doctor en Didáctica de las Ciencias. Venezuela Fernando Reyes U., Economista. Venezuela Sergio Camargo, escritor y periodista colombiano. Francia Colectivo Regional de apoyo a Vía Campesina y Salvación agropecuaria. Colombia Campaña Permanente por la Libertad de lxs Prisionerxs Políticxs Colombianxs, Capítulo Cono Sur Juan Cristóbal, poeta peruano y periodista Cristóbal González Ramírez. Periodista y profesor universitario retirado  y pensionado. Colombia Antonio Mazzeo, periodista, escritor, Italia  Mario Casasús,  periodista, México Mario Osava, Periodista, Brasil Félix Orlando Giraldo Giraldo, Médico. Colombia Polo Democrático Alternativo-Seccional Suiza. ARLAC-Suiza Mónica Alejandra Leyton Cortes .Estudiante; Miembro del Colectivo Soberanía y Naturaleza. Colombia Eliecer Jiménez Julio-Periodista-Suiza Ángela Peña Marín socióloga MsC en educación Ambiental, Colombia Marta Eugenia Salazar Jaramillo, comunicadora social, Colombia Diana María Peña Economista, Colombia Adolfo León Gómez; Economista; Colombia Héctor Castro, abogado. Francia Elisa Norio, defensora de de derechos humanos y ambientalista. Italia Guadalupe Rodríguez,  activista e investigadora de Salva la Selva. España Jaime Corena Parra, Físico, Ingeniero Industrial y Doctor en Didáctica de las Ciencias. Venezuela Fernando Reyes U., Economista. Venezuela Enrique Lacoste Prince, artista cubano. Colaborador de La pluma. Cuba

Argentina

Aurora Tumanischwili Penelón, FeTERA FLORES (Federación de trabajadores de la energía de la República Argentina en CTA)
Guillermo López., FeTERA FLORES (Federación de trabajadores de la energía de la República Argentina en CTA) 
Ingrid Storgen, Responsable del colectivo Amigos por La Paz en Colombia.
Marta Speroni, Militante por los DD.HH. 
Igor Calvo, Militante de base del FNRP Honduras
Aline Castro, Red por ti América, Brasil.
María Rosa González, Comunicadora Social Alejandro Cabrera Britos, Delegado general, ATE, Senasa Martínez, Dilab en CTA Carlos Guancirrosa, Agrupación Enrique Mosconi Carlos Loza, Junta Interna de ATE, AGP (Asociación General de Puertos en la Central de Trabajadores de La Argentina, CTA) Eduardo Espinosa (Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado, en CTA), Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano de la Provincia de Buenos Aires Carina Maloberti, Consejo Directivo Nacional - ATE-CTA Convocatoria por la Liberación Nacional y Social, Frente Sindical, Argentina: Agrupación Martín Fierro (Varela - Alte. Brown - Matanza - Mar del Platay Neuquen), Agrup.Sindical Tolo Arce-ATE-SENASA, Agrupación "Germán Abdala" - ATE-Ministerio de Trabajo de la Nación, Agrup Agustín Tosco-Río Segundo-Córdoba, Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Flamarión-Rosario, Democracia Popular-Rosario, Comunidad Campesina de Tratagal-Salta, Biblioteca Popular Fernando Jara-Cipoletti-Río Negro, Unión de Trabajadores de la Provincia de Chubut.

Europe

RedHer Europa (Red europea de Hermanadas y Solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano)
Tribunal Internacional de Opinión Sur de Bolivar, Paris, Francia
La Confederación General del Trabajo del Estado Español (CGT).
Colectivo Coliche, La Rioja. España
El Comité de Solidaridad Internacionalista de Zaragoza. España
PASC Projet Accompagnement Solidarité Colombie. Canadá
CO.S.A.L. XIXÓN(Comité de Solidaridad con America Latina de Xixon)
ASSIA (Acción Social Sindical Internacionalista).Estado Español
Komite Internazionalistak de Euskal Herria-País Vasco
Comitato di Solidarietà con i Popoli del Latino America Carlos Fonseca (Italie)
Colectivo Iquique de la Universidad de Zaragoza. Estado español

Colombia

RedHer Colombia (Red de Hermandad y Solidaridad con Colombia) Aca - Asociación Campesina De Antioquia Acader - Asociación Campesina Para El Desarrollo Rural- Cauca Afasba - Asociación De Familias Agromineras Del Sur De Bolívar y Bajo Cauca Antioqueño Alianza De Mujeres De Cartagena: "Nelson Mándela" Amar – Arauca Ascatidar – Arauca Asedar – Arauca Asoagros - Asociación De Agrosembradores. Valle Asociación Agroambiental Y Cultural De Taminango – Nariño Asociación Agrominera Del Rio Saspí – Nariño Asociación De Arrierros De La Montaña De Samaniego – Nariño Asociación De Mujeres Y Familias Campesinas Sanpableñas - Cima Nariño Asociación Movimiento Campesino De Cajibío – Cauca Asociación Agroambiental Y Cultural De Arboleda – Nariño Asojer – Arauca Asonalca – Arauca Asoproa – Antioquia Cabildo Indígena del Sande Nariño Cabildo Indígena de Betania Nariño Cecucol - Centro Cultural Las Colinas. Valle Ced Ins - Instituto Nacional Sindical Cima - Comité De Integración Del Macizo Colombiano Cisca - Comité De Integración Social Del Catatumbo Cna – Choco Cna - Coordinador Nacional Agrario Cna Huila Colectivo Icaria – Antioquia Colectivo Orlando Zapata – Antioquia Colectivo Soberanía Y Naturaleza Colectivo Surcando Dignidad – Valle Comité De Integración Del Galeras - Ciga Nariño Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Antioquia Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Atlántico Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Centro Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Eje Cafetero Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Nororiente Confluencia De Mujeres Para La Acción Pública – Suroccidente Comité De Derechos Humanos De La Montaña De Samaniego – Nariño Consejo Comunitario Del Remate Rio Telembi Nariño Coordinador Nariñense Agrario Corporación "Somos Mujer y Nación" Corporación Aury Sará Marrugo Corporación Jurídica Libertad – Medellín Corporación Sembrar Corporación Social Nuevo Día – Medellín Cospacc - Corporación Social Para El Asesoramiento Y Capacitación Comunitaria Cut  - Subdirectiva Arauca Escuelas Agroambientales De La Unión – Nariño F.C.S.P.P. - Fundación Comité De Solidaridad Con Los Presos Políticos Fcspp - Seccional Valle Fedeagromisbol - Federación Agrominera Del Sur De Bolívar Fedejuntas – Arauca Frente De Mujeres Populares De Bolívar Fundación De D.H Joel Sierra – Arauca Fundación Del Suroccidente Y Macizo Colombiano - Fundesuma Nariño Fundación Territorios Por Vida Digna – Cauca Fundación Tomas Moro –Sucre Kavilando – Antioquia Lanzas Y Letras – Huila Movimiento De Mujeres De Los Pueblos De Nariño Movimiento Juvenil De Nariño Movimiento Juvenil Macizo Joven De Nariño Mujeres Sobre Ruedas Nomadesc - Asociación Para La Investigación y Acción Social Organizaciones Sociales De Arauca Periódico Periferia – Medellín Pup – Poder y Unidad Popular Proceso Nacional Identidad Estudiantil- Palmira Proceso Nacional Identidad Estudiantil-Cali Red  De Jóvenes Populares De Cartagena Red De Agrosembradores De La Cordillera Nariñense Red De Chigreros De Guachavez – Nariño Red De Familias Lorenceñas "Las Gaviotas" – Nariño Red Proyecto Sur - Huila

Sign on the Manifesto

Other languages : Français Español Deutsch Ελληνικά  Italiano