>are concrete steps toward that goal: reorient the economy
>toward national social needs; genuine and thorough land
>reform; completely restructure the Armed Forces; a sovereign
>foreign policy independent of the demands of U.S. imperialism.
>
>This policy is described as "Bolivarian"--in the spirit of
>Simon Bolivar, the great Latin American national-liberation
>leader of the 19th century. The FARC-EP uses the term in the
>sense of national unity in the face of imperialism.
>
>ARMED STRUGGLE AND DIALOG
>
>Another important feature of the "Historical Outline" is a
>detailed account of the FARC-EP's experience in dialogs
>with various national governments. From the very first
>years, when Liberal guerrilla leaders who negotiated an end
>to their armed struggle faced assassination, a "historical
>doubt as to the government's offers of peace and possible
>truces" emerged.
>
>This experience was enriched by the Uribe Accords of 1984.
>After these agreements, the FARC declared a truce and launched
>the Patriotic Union (UP) to participate in legal political
>activity. Three years later, the government openly broke the
>truce.
>
>Over 4,000 UP leaders and activists, including many people
>who had been elected to local office, were murdered.
>
>Similar events unfolded after a round of talks in 1991-92.
>Several other guerrilla groups adopted the government's
>offer for amnesty in exchange for laying down arms. Many in
>these groups have since been assassinated or given up their
>political struggle.
>
>The FARC-EP and the ELN, at that time united in the Sim�n
>Bol�var Guerrilla Coordination, retained the armed struggle
>after it was clear that the government refused to discuss
>fundamental changes in the armed forces.
>
>The book presents documents to show that in each case, it
>has been the government's duplicity that has caused the
>collapse of agreements. It presents several exchanges of
>letters showing the government's intransigence on key points
>during past talks.
>
>Documents directly addressing the current talks include a
>speech by Secretariat member Raul Reyes at the opening of the
>talks in San Vicente de Caguan in January 1999, along with
>news releases on matters of importance.
>
>The FARC-EP says that in the current talks: "Disarmament and
>demobilization are not matters being discussed. Our arms will
>be the only worthwhile guarantees for the carrying out of the
>accords and, in the case they are carried out, these arms will
>lose their importance and be kept in the hands of the
>Colombian people."
>
>The U.S. government has shown that it is preparing a massive
>military campaign against the FARC-EP and the ELN. The
>unfolding revolutionary struggle in Colombia against the
>backdrop of U.S. intervention makes "FARC-EP: Historical
>Outline" necessary reading for anti-imperialist activists,
>especially in the United States.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00aa01bfb957$2a0d47f0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Colonel admits money laundering
>Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 21:37:39 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>COLONEL ADMITS MONEY LAUNDERING
>
>By Deirdre Griswold
>New York
>
>A scandal of enormous proportions involving the U.S.
>military's "war on drugs" in Colombia is being swept under
>the rug, at the very same time that the administration has
>asked Congress for $1.7 billion to expand the Pentagon's
>operations there.
>
>The U.S. Army colonel formerly in charge of Washington's
>entire "anti-drug" operation in Colombia has admitted in
>Federal District Court in Brooklyn that he laundered
>profits from his wife's drug smuggling.
>
>U.S. Army Col. James Hiett said in court on April 17
>before Judge Edward R. Korman that he used thousands of
>dollars from heroin smuggling to pay household bills. But
>this story, which has not only national but international
>dimensions, was tucked away in the Metro section of the
>April 18 New York Times.
>
>There have been no headlines, no television reports, none of
>the publicity that such an explosive story would merit.
>
>The colonel's wife, Laurie Anne Hiett, admitted in January
>that she had conspired to smuggle more than $700,000 worth of
>heroin out of Bogota last year and had flown to New York at
>least twice to pick up payments for the drugs, reported Alan
>Feuer in the April 4 New York Times. Some of the shipments had
>been mailed from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota.
>
>The colonel claimed he knew nothing about it and was cleared
>by the Army Criminal Investigation Division after a three-
>month "inquiry."
>
>But evidence was produced by the U.S. Customs Service that
>finally forced the colonel to admit to money laundering. He is
>to be sentenced June 23 and can receive a prison term of
>between 12 and 18 months.
>
>Meanwhile, Clinton's "drug czar," Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
>continues to get plenty of television time for his spurious
>claims that the U.S. troops now training and equipping the
>Colombian Army are only there to combat drug trafficking.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00b001bfb957$403a0220$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Free Elian demonstrations on May 11
>Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 21:38:17 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>DEMONSTRATIONS CALLED FOR MAY 11:
>STRUGGLE CONTINUES TO FREE ELIAN & FAMILY
>
>By Teresa Gutierrez
>
>Eli n Gonzalez is no longer in the clutches of the Miami
>right wing, but he and his family--Juan Miguel, Nercy and
>Hianny--are still not home in Cuba. A court date looms over
>them and it cannot be said how the case will play out.
>
>The Gonzalez family are being held at the Wye River
>plantation some 30 miles outside of Washington. Several
>have described this as "a new sort of prison," since the
>U.S. government is making it impossible for Cuban diplomats
>to communicate with them.
>
>On May 11, a federal judge in Atlanta will hear arguments
>for "political asylum" for Elian. Around the country,
>demonstrations will be held in several cities to demand that
>this legal charade end now.
>
>There is still a danger that the U.S. government will tie
>the child up in court, preventing the family from returning to
>Cuba any time soon.
>
>Nonetheless, the case of Elian Gonzalez has opened up a
>new chapter in U.S.-Cuba relations.
>
>MILLIONS GLIMPSE THE REAL CUBA
>
>The struggle to send Elian home has had a long-lasting
>positive impact on the consciousness of millions in the U.S.
>People who had up to now heard mainly negative propaganda put
>out by the U.S. government saw another side of Cuba.
>
>Average folks with no knowledge of the real Cuba saw that
>the revolution could produce a child so healthy and resilient
>that he could survive the nightmare Elian went through.
>
>People saw a father, Juan Miguel, who just a few months ago
>was an average worker living a simple life amidst a community
>and country he loved. But Elian's tragedy forced him into the
>vortex of international politics. Juan Miguel rose to the
>occasion, not only winning his child from the clutches of the
>kidnappers but in the process also winning the hearts and
>minds of millions of people.
>
>That these images were allowed into the mainstream press
>speaks volumes about the broader agenda of the U.S. ruling
>class towards Cuba. The fact that so much sympathetic news for
>Cuba's position was allowed shows that two views now clash in
>the U.S. ruling class on how to handle the Cuban Revolution.
>
>FAST OR SLOW POISON
>
>After 40 years of blockade and sanctions, they've failed to
>crush the Cuban Revolution from the outside. Many now think
>they should focus more on eroding it from the inside with
>Track 2--inciting a dissident movement inside Cuba while
>allowing more cultural, academic and other normalized
>exchanges.
>
>The Elian case has revealed big cracks in the relationship
>between the reactionary Cuban Americans and their puppet
>masters, U.S. imperialism. The right-wing Cubans in Miami
>have been discredited. They are a major liability for the
>ruling class--the same class that created and nurtured
>them.
>
>They're trying to revive their support by beating their
>chests and appealing to the anti-communism of the bourgeoisie-
>-as in their march on April 29. But the magnificent unity in
>Cuba shows that this gang has no influence there--and
>therefore can be of little use in U.S. imperialism's counter-
>revolutionary plans.
>
>Now right wingers of all stripes are duking it out in Miami.
>The irritation of the Anglo conservatives with their former
>allies came through in the anti-immigrant demonstration there
>praising Attorney General Janet Reno and the Immigration
>Service for their show of force.
>
>The April 22 Justice Department raid at the house where
>Elian was being held was fairly mild by U.S. standards. No one
>was hurt. Much worse happens every day in oppressed
>communities. However, no class-conscious worker feels like
>applauding a police action by the same repressive government
>that is now hurrying to arrest Puerto Rican resisters in
>Vieques.
>
>How much better it would have been if the progressive
>movement had been strong enough to free Eli n itself,
>without the aid of the very government that put him there
>in the first place. But the long delays allowed by the
>Clinton administration gave the Miami right wing time to
>dig in, and they were clearly not going to turn the child
>over willingly.
>
>Perhaps what forced the hand of Attorney General Janet
>Reno even more was Juan Miguel himself. The night before
>the raid he announced in extreme frustration that he and
>his family would just head to Miami themselves to pick
>Elian up. But before that he would call on the people of
>the U.S. to join him in Miami.
>
>Would not that have been a scene for the U.S. ruling
>class? Juan Miguel, Nercy and Hianny leading the people to
>set Elian free!
>
>The reunion of Elian and Juan Miguel does not negate the
>fact that the U.S. policies that created this tragedy are
>still very much intact. The U.S. government continues its
>entrenched hostile attitude towards the Cuban Revolution
>and its leadership. The blockade is still in place and the
>Cuban Adjustment Act still entices Cubans to leave without
>authorization.
>
>The greatest tribute anyone can give to Juan Miguel and
>Elian is to build a movement that tears down the anti-Cuba
>architecture of U.S. policy, ensuring there will never be a
>case like this ever again.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00b601bfb957$516af2c0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Vermont vows
>Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 21:38:46 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: VERMONT VOWS
>
>It is not full equality. But the same-sex civil-union bill
>that Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed into law April 26 is
>an important step forward--in practical terms for residents
>of one state, symbolically for the rest of the country. It
>is also a boost for the overall progressive struggle.
>Because it strikes a blow against division and bigotry,
>winning the Vermont law contributes to unity among the
>working class and oppressed.
>
>Let there be no question. The Vermont law is a sweet
>victory for our side.
>
>The lesbian/gay/bi/trans liberation movement is not about
>people contorting themselves to fit into the oppressive
>institutions of sexist, anti-gay capitalist society. But
>this movement is about challenging and overturning
>oppression. That is why Vermont is a victory. It
>contributes to battering down the hoary structures that
>uphold inequality.
>
>Same-sex couples are routinely denied the most basic legal
>rights in this country. Along with violence and harassment,
>this outright discrimination is a prime aspect of the
>oppression faced by lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans
>people. Now, in Vermont at least, the law provides some
>relief. In matters ranging from medical insurance and
>health care to landlord-tenant law and property taxes,
>same-sex couples must be treated virtually the same as
>married heterosexual couples.
>
>"Virtually," of course, is the rub. Same-sex civil unions
>will not be recognized by any other state, or by the
>federal government. Even within the state, the Vermont
>Freedom to Marry Task Force noted in a statement, "the fact
>that the status is separate from civil marriage reinforces
>just how far we have to go before we reach a place of
>genuine legal equality with our heterosexual neighbors."
>
>There is still so much to achieve in the movement for
>lesbian/gay/bi/trans liberation. The key word in getting
>there is "movement." It is because this is a movement for
>social justice--a movement that in three short decades has
>drawn millions into the streets and transformed the
>consciousness of millions more--that the Vermont law was
>won. It is because this movement has allied itself with the
>anti-racist struggle, with labor, with the women's
>movement, that more victories are sure to come.
>
>Wherever gains are made, it is the struggle that wins
>them. Wherever the forces of reaction lash out, it is the
>struggle that can drive them back. This is the lesson of
>all that has been achieved since the 1969 Stonewall
>Rebellion.
>
>So let us congratulate those in Vermont who are at last
>free to take vows of love. And let us renew our vows--to
>struggle, united, until full human liberation is won.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00bc01bfb957$6e227af0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] The right guys -- and women -- won
>Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 21:39:34 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the May 11, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL
>
>THE RIGHT GUYS -- AND WOMEN -- WON
>
>With the arrogance only a true imperialist could display,
>U.S. Sen. John McCain said April 28 that "the wrong guys"
>won the Vietnam War. His comments, made during a highly
>publicized visit to Ho Chi Minh City, outraged the
>Vietnamese people and millions worldwide.
>
>Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokesperson Phan Thuy Thanh
>responded: "Our people were the victims of [a] brutal war
>of aggression. . It runs counter to the norms of morality
>that these people who brought bombs and shells to sow death
>among our people and wreak havoc with a country now pass
>themselves off as having the right to criticize their
>victims."
>
>McCain, a failed Republican presidential candidate, was a
>Navy pilot during the war. His father was a commander of
>U.S. forces in Vietnam.
>
>In 1967 McCain's A-4 plane was shot down while raining
>death on Hanoi, North Vietnam's capital. He was captured
>and imprisoned for much of the war. Despite his crimes, and
>despite his self-serving rhetoric while building his
>political career, McCain was treated as well as could be
>expected--as he admitted during a 1994 visit.
>
>This year the socialist government magnanimously allowed
>war criminal McCain and his entourage to once again visit
>the country just as the Vietnamese people celebrated the
>25th anniversary of their just victory over U.S.
>imperialism.
>
>McCain should have come on bended knee, begging
>forgiveness for his crimes against their homeland. Instead
>he came to defame the people's revolution and to glorify a
>war that, as Thanh noted, left three million Vietnamese
>dead and four million wounded.
>
>Vietnam has struggled along a hard road since its
>reunification in 1975. Washington has refused to pay one
>cent in reparations for the horrendous damage caused by the
>war--flouting the Paris peace accords. The mostly-
>agricultural nation has tried to carry out socialist
>construction, but was hard hit by the loss of its economic
>partners in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
>
>Although a decades-long blockade has been officially
>lifted, Washington continues to look for ways to undermine
>Vietnam politically and economically. Trade talks between
>Hanoi and Washington have deadlocked because the Clinton
>administration wants to impose a yearly congressional
>"review" of Vietnam's status--similar to the restrictions
>it imposes on People's China.
>
>McCain speaks for the ultra-right, militarist wing of U.S.
>imperialism. But the whole capitalist class is united in
>wanting to return Vietnam--and all Third World countries
>that have achieved some measure of independence--to
>colonial status. Like Britain with Zimbabwe and its other
>former colonies, Wall Street will never stop trying to
>derail Vietnam's independent development.
>
>That's why the war against Vietnam--and Korea, Cuba, Iraq,
>Yugoslavia, etc.--is not over, even if the bullets have
>stopped flying.
>
>Imperialist wars won't be over until major revolutionary
>upheavals in the U.S. and other centers of global
>capitalism take the weapons and political power away from
>the exploiting class, which is trying to turn the whole
>world into one big sweatshop.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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