For more than 27 years the ELN has proposed that the development of a process to solve the internal social and armed conflict implies the active and binding participation of the whole society, especially the historically excluded communities.
As I said in my previous column, after 27 years of going through the proposal of Participation of Society, in its original version National Convention, of going around several countries and scenarios, it showed its head and real body on August 3 in the event of installation of the National Committee of Participation, held in Bogotá, the colorfulness of skins and cultures, of concrete faces of the real and deep Colombia was seen, the absence of the thousands that could not arrive due to lack of space was also felt. This is the Colombia that will never be able to fit in closed spaces and anti-democracy.
The first ideas began to be heard in a synthetic or summarized way, what the ELN had to say to begin with, was said in a concrete way by Commander Pablo Beltrán. The real voice is yet to be heard and it is what comes after the design. Other things came out in President Petro’s closing remarks, which are worth mentioning.
Among the things that were heard there was a very special one, referring to the slogan of the National Liberation Army of “Not one step back… Liberation or Death”, it was said that it was fashionable in the 60’s, but it was no longer valid; now it could not be said: Win or die, but: Win or live.
It is worth remembering that in the 70’s there was a guerrilla in Colombia that said: Win or die. Maybe they understood that life had to be something else or they had other expectations.
For those of us who have been social leaders or guerrilla leaders, above all, life comes first, not only our personal life, but that of the communities, that of the forgotten people, and it is for those lives that we are willing to die fighting, of course not to defend that miserable life of death, but to help create another life, different, human and dignified. It is also clear to us that in the struggle we carry out it is a priority to stay alive in order to accomplish our mission, that is what we were taught and continue to teach.
Life and death in the end is one and only existence or passage through this world, if we know how to live to defend the collective life, but to change a consignment to claudicate or disguise it is another thing.
We must remember that the past negotiations left doubts in the people, especially in the fighters. Well, many loosened up in the fight, some were frank and others disguised their weaknesses with a political aspect. Without a doubt, each guerrilla that demobilized was a weakening and uncertainty for the people, for the dispossessed. Of course, there may be political analysis of the reasons for the armed uprising, its validity or not, but the people also resort to it, making a waste of courage, and in that we also know that some lacked… yes, of that.
At every moment in the history of Colombia and the world, it was said that reality had changed and that now the struggle was different, thus demobilizations and weaknesses were justified, but the country continued without changing. These organizations refused to change to continue fighting and practically gave up. Now they want to make us see as if we had stagnant thinking and refused to change, but it is the opposite. The ELN has changed throughout its history and that is why it remains and has come this far with a proposal to rebuild the nation based on the Participation of Society in the new vision of changes and their materialization. The modifications of the ELN, its internal transformations cover several fields: political, military, organic, cultural and philosophical, they are not at all unknown and for decades the environmental, gender, energy, decrease and austerity causes in the use of resources so that future generations can exist; the need for a different, more horizontal world where there is another order of things to be able to face the civilizational crisis that threatens the existence of humanity, life and the planet itself. The main and greatest transformation of the ELN, and one that is growing every day, has been to place society, its people, at the center of its concerns, as well as to stop believing the story that by having a leftist thought It is the navel of the world, today we build more hope together with others, we trust and rely on the power of thought and collective strength.
It is not that we are not interested in the energy transition and other issues on the world agenda, but now the first thing is to put our house in order: Colombia.
Reaching this event is not by chance, nor has it been easy, today it is seen as something historic and it is, so we might wonder why we didn’t get to it sooner, we would have saved time and lives, but there were other ways of seeing peace and to address the crisis in the country that led us to the armed uprising.
People did not attend this event to listen or make speeches, they only came to point out a path, to get together with others so that society itself designs and builds it, nor is this event to serve as an electoral platform for anyone, the only purpose it is to seek a change in Colombia for the good and happiness of all, making it fairer, more equitable and democratic.
Some of the people who were at the event, at other times have expressed that the ELN strayed from the ideology and spirit of Camilo Torres Restrepo, nothing more forceful proves the contrary, Camilo would be happy about this event, seeing how the Society with its Participation will diagnose the country’s problems and then build, based on a National Agreement, an Agenda for Changes for Colombia.
If there were a democracy in Colombia where parliament is interested in society, this would have been resolved, just like with the 1991 Constituent Assembly, which left substantive issues unaddressed. That is why we could say that with this process of Participation of all sectors of society in multiple scenarios and for an agenda of national and social interest, we are facing an Alternative Parliament, which goes beyond simple parliamentarianism, to exercise dialogue and power decide the essence of democracy.
Based on what the President has said, a substantive debate is being opened, since the Society would gain nothing by building solutions, building a National Agreement to be presented to Congress; It should be the opposite, that all parliamentarians are going to find out about the real problems in Colombia together with the people who suffer from them.
From: https://eln-voces.net/los-cambios-de-ideario-vencer-o-paris/