Interview with Comandante Antonio García, by the Al Carajo Portal
What has it been like to negotiate with the first government that calls itself democratic and progressive, with that of President Gustavo Petro?
Antonio García: It began with a certain expectation, but understanding that security issues are always matters of State and the political regime, where governments have relative autonomy when they do not have majorities in parliament and certain balances in the other powers such as justice, the military and ideological management through communication companies, all of them dependent on the great economic powers.
In this world, which is the real one, not the one managed by the “opinion makers”, no one who moves in the political field can be naïve. The current government is the product of circumstances that made possible confluences of the popular camp that came from the social outbreak and also from liberating sectors, therefore Petro does not govern alone, but in those conditioned circumstances.
The ELN calmly took on the beginning of the process, listened to the various tones that moved in the Government Delegation and projected the continuity of the positive that came from what was negotiated in the Government of Juan Manuel Santos, but we knew that in the end we would face the essence of the Regime and the State. In addition, it was clear that Petro comes from a vision and practice of the left that demobilized and became functional to the establishment.
It was shown at various times as if there were differences within the Government Delegation, also between it and the Office of the Commissioner, but when these differences are not resolved in the direction of respecting the process and the fluidity of the agreements, but are imposed to the detriment of the process, they are no longer differences between the government side, but we are facing a veiled strategy that ends up being managed to harm the peace process, the agreements and therefore the ELN. It would be a good synthesis of what happened.
What was the event that triggered the rupture or freezing of the peace dialogue table?
AG: We cannot point to a single case, but a series of situations both at the Table and in the public sphere, where there has been an attempt to modify what was agreed with media management that in the end ends up damaging trust, because we have to be in a tiresome tug-of-war, because at all times we have to be making clarifications, being that there is an agreement on how to jointly inform the country, such as Mesa, which was systematically violated.
You point out that the Colombian government did not comply with the agreements signed. Can you list the government’s failures and the solutions that you propose on each point?
AG: The differences between Otty [Jose Otty Patiño, chief negotiator for the Colombian government] and the Government Delegation are public knowledge, which can be a communication strategy. But the unfulfilled agreements are public knowledge, it is a pity that the character of the International Guarantors and Permanent Companions does not qualify everything that happened.
It must be understood that a rebel organization that has taken up arms does not respect or feel interpreted by government laws or by its justice system, until a new political and legal framework is agreed upon, and of course it clearly marks social and political transformations for the country with the participation of society.
The root of the problem is there, that the government wants to apply its laws and its justice to the ELN, which are not the product of any agreement and without having yet agreed on any transformations for the good of the country and its people. As they say, they want the ELN to demobilize and disarm, or at least to promise that in a year or a pre-established date; therefore, the ELN would also have the right for the government to commit itself specifically to the structural transformations that the country requires, but we still do not have precise such changes, so we would have to wait for that formulation of changes to be proposed by society. A negotiation can never be based only on what a single party wants or favors, but based on a mutually consented agreement.
The State and the sectors of power became accustomed to the rebel guerrillas demobilizing in exchange for their “legalization” and parliamentary participation, but the offers of transformations were nothing more than sad chimeras, as was the case with the M-19, EPL and the FARC; but with the ELN it will not be like that, nor will the ELN modify its policies due to media pressure exerted by the groups in power. Decisions in a table are the power of the negotiating parties.
You are aware of the structural violence in Colombia of which millions have been victims, including you, now, are you responsible for the attack in Puerto Jordán, Arauca? If so, why do they attack the bases and not directly attack power?
AG: Structural violence is that exercised by the Mode of Production and by the power structure in a society, because in the end both the effects of a country’s economy and the power that manages conflicts are the determinants of that structural violence. It has been shown that more people die in the world from diabetes than from the effects of violence, crime or armed conflicts and wars. It means that more deaths are produced by the eating habits that have become the interests of capitalism; the other major cause of deaths is due to mismanagement of social conflicts rather than to the application of excessive repression by governments that evolve into massacres, displacement and armed confrontation.
The use of force and weapons cannot be a monopoly of States alone, society also has a legitimate right to resort to it, it is admitted in International Law, it is also a conflict that has been going on for more than 60 years, continuously and with a historical record of attempts at a political solution that have not been evaluated, and with little or almost no monitoring and control by the State and its institutions.
The attack in Arauca on the State Military Forces corresponds to the attacks we have received from orders given by the Minister of Defense and the Commander of the Military Forces, we have also been attacked, we have many casualties. Therefore we make use of the right to self-defense, and as the popular jargon says: “the best defense is the attack.”
Also in Arauca, the Military Forces and in particular the attacked unit have been the ones who have most supported the Pescado gang (Ex-FARC), and are the ones who have offered the most support and protection.
The Military Forces are part of one of the powers of the State, they obey its policies and are an integral part of that structure of power and war.
If one of the parties does not move forward to make peace in Colombia, how would you act so that it does move forward?
AG: Everyone who is in the war does so in accordance with their interests or motivations, due to the circumstances that sectors of society have experienced. No one assumes such a long war for sport or just because; only gangs are circumstantial or transitory. The peoples persist in the objectives. If the objectives are possible through peace, we also opt for those paths, but as long as the counterpart only seeks our annihilation it will not be possible, it is necessary to truly disarm the spirits that think that the peoples or part of them are obliged to obey the ways of governing that are not shared and that harm society.
The universal doctrine on political solutions to armed conflicts points out two essential conditions that must be met to make a peace agreement possible: the first says that the more powerful party must renounce annihilating another weaker party, the second says that the political persecution of the opposition must end. Neither of them has been fulfilled in Colombia. Governments say: “we must bring the guerrillas weakened to the negotiating table”, we must “make them bleed”; what authentic rebels can believe in governments that say such blunders without embarrassment? What serious government has considered an amnesty or pardon for political prisoners?
Compliance with these two principles of political settlement would open up a real option for peace. But since in Colombia the Presidents must pass themselves off as Generals of the war, they have to “speak loudly” in the barracks; but the true soldiers, the patriots, those who believe and think of the Nation, in the bottom of their hearts laugh and make strength for us to resist to build a future of the nation for all Colombians and very surely there we will meet.
The ELN goes to peace scenarios, but has not yet heard these principles from the mouths of the governments. The day that peace is true will come.
President Gustavo Petro denounced a plan to assassinate him – it is not new because of the different attacks that have been made on him – and to overthrow his government through a coup d’état. You can give us your appreciation of these denunciations from the military, political and social levels.
AG: Any power that is real or transitory or fictitious or transitional is exposed to attack. At first, this government was interpreted as being transitional; that although it was part of a coalition with liberalism, it could generate conditions for a transition to a democratic government with popular roots; but it has not been like that. His behavior has been sinuous, always inclined to negotiations and conciliations with the old political powers and when his agreements are blocked by them, he goes to seek popular support.
Of course, the political coalition of the current government seeks to become the third political force within the political regime, to dispute power against the extreme right and the center right, of course it has a margin of alliance with the latter, to which it turns to achieve governability, but in exchange for concessions.
It is true that any of these governments can be attacked or threatened with attacks, but usually a coup d’état is not announced, but is carried out in secret and conspiracy. It is like the attacks on Trump, which, as they are not effective, are classified as an electoral strategy to rise in the ranking. I am not saying that the threats to Petro are not true, but at least the gringos warn him of the dangers, according to him it was the DEA who warned him, because in other misadventures on the continent, it was the gringos who gave and give the coups d’état.
Let’s talk about the famous Pegasus software used to spy on and obtain information from journalists, politicians, and the media. In your computer analysis, did Pegasus manage to obtain information from your organization?
AG: The ELN is aware that through other means the Military and State Security Forces have obtained information about the ELN’s plans, but it is obvious that all conspiratorial organizations have levels of security that are only handled by the Superior Headquarters, to which these programs have access, because they would have to get into our physical heads. At present our National Directorate is aware of these dangers and we are more rigorous in the security of our plans and purposes. We have no record that this program could have affected us. At present, higher-level plans are only in the physical head of Commanders.
Comandante, Russia warned NATO not to pass long-range weapons to Ukraine — it has used some on Russian territory — because it will respond forcefully. Are we on the verge of World War III?
AG: It is said that World War III began more than a decade ago, and its purpose was to prevent the global hegemony of the United States from passing into other hands, therefore it advanced a strategy of war of recolonization throughout the world based on wars, which led to the deconfiguration of the existing international powers that could affect it such as Russia. China, the Middle East, the Russian surroundings, North Africa, among others. But that strategy was exhausted, because from the transitory triumphs obtained by the United States, it moved on to responses of resistance that have been questioning the power of the United States and its global military instrument, NATO. After its defeat in Syria, the threat from Ukraine to Russia has not been successful and ended up affecting its allies -Europe-; today even the very existence of Israel, as a Security State, is questioned by the emergence of forces capable of confronting it in Palestine as in its entire geopolitical environment, where the capacity of the United States fails to guarantee stability.
We could say that what is being questioned is the winning capacity of the United States for the war, there has already been a capacity for resistance, where the imperialist military occupations have been reversed through the resistance of the peoples, as has happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the African Sahel; Russia’s response in Ukraine, and now Palestine’s capacity for resistance and struggle. There have been triumphs of the anti-imperialist resistance of the peoples, but it is also possible to negotiate processes in sovereign conditions for the peoples and nations. Only the struggle of resistance of the peoples has prevented the eternal war of empires. It is the new horizon in which we find ourselves.
Source: ELN Voces