Colombia: the International Day of the Peasant Struggle is commemorated
Hereby we publish a summarization of an article published in Nueva Democracia from Colombia. The translations of the excerpts are unofficial.
The democratic newspaper Nueva Democracia from Colombia has recently reported on the Commemoration of the International Day of the Peasant Struggle. They reported on their presence in an act celebrated during the days 17th and 18th of April. Several peasant, student and popular organizations participated. In the event were specially important the denounces of reformism, the combativeness of the peasant movement and Gustavo Petro’s government unmasking.
In the act there were speakers whom highlighted the background of the peasant struggle and the seizures of lands carried out by peasant and indigenous organizations. For example a comrade from the organization Liberation of the Mother Land (Liberación de la Madre Tierra – LMT) highlighted several details of their struggle showing the combativeness of the peasant movement: “(…) He explained us how the struggle has been difficult, since 2015 until now they [Translator’s note: the State authorities] have murdered 11 comrades whom struggled in the land seizures. However, despite the repression, currently they have taken 27 properties from big landlords whom had sugar cane monoculture as an only crop, but now these are community lands. These properties have been defended in harsh clashes against the police which is trying to evict the peasants in many occasions. But the State repressive forces had also paid the cost, as in 2007 when two policemen died in the clashes.”
The Gustavo Petro’s anti-popular role was denounced in several interventions. The same LMT’s speaker explained how was the disappointment of peasants before the reformist promises: “Speaking more of the current situation, he said, that with the arrival of Petro to the government, there has been a kind of pause in the land liberation processes, ‘we stop the process, because Petro promised agrarian reform […] people say: Petro will buy the 27 properties that we have already under our control… So far Petro has bought 2 properties”. After that in one of the interventions was mentioned that “we cannot expect the State to solve the problem, and the agrarian reform we have to do it by ourselves, the organized peasants”.
The newspaper Nueva Democracia had an important role to denounce the Gustavo Petro’s government and to highlight the path which must be followed by the people in order to conquer the land: “After this was set out the discussion about which is the path of the people in order to conquer the land: the bureaucratic path, through the ways and institutions from the old State, as the supposed agrarian reforms offered in past decades by the ruling classes (and now by Petro), and which has not given lands to the peasant masses; or the democratic path, independent, popular, and through it the peasant masses take the lands from the latifundium”.
The People’s Women’s Movement (Movimiento Femenino Popular – MFP) also participated taking as an example the people’s women’s struggle: “They are our example and not the women whom serve to the big bourgeoisie and big landlords, as Paloma Valencia or Francia Márquez.”
During the commemoration was present the heroic people of Palestine’s flag and the Palestinian Resistance was saluted several times by the attendants to the event.
