Statement of the whom were judges of the Supreme Court and forty of whom were civilians.
COLOMBIA
DOCUMENT nel who were taken as hostages. The fact that the government ordered this action demonstrated that it wanted a military solution of the problem.
2. The resolutions voted by the
Colombian section of the Fourth International
Senate and the House of Representatives were totally hypocritical. A parliament that has done its utmost to prevent the most minimal reform, which is against the process of political liberalization, a parliament led by the nose by the two traditional parties, has no moral or poli-
ON NOVEMBER 8 a massive military operation was launched by the Colombian army against the occupation of the Palace of Justice in the capital Bogota, by the April 19 Movement (M-19) guerillas.
The operation cost 95 lives and was personally authorised by
President Belisario Betancur and his Congress who ruled out all possibility of negotiation despite demands by hostages held in the
Palace of Justice that this be done. The army operation in fact sparked off protests by 30,000 court workers demanding to know why the government had refused to negotiate.
We publish below the statement of the Revolutionary Socialist
Party (PSR) - Colombian section of the Fourth International), on these events.
With respect to the occupation of the Palace of Justice by a commando group of April 19 Movement, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (the Colombian section of the Fourth International)
following statement to makes the public opinion, the workers and peasants movement, and democratic forces:
We condemn the military operalaunched by the Colombian army against the Palace of Justice the April 19 movement. This assault represents a crime against the lives of the judges and civilian persontical authority to condemn the action of the April 19 Movement.
We have stressed that the violence in this country in the past and today has an official origin, that is, those responsible for it are the government, the army, the Liberal and Conservative parties, and the parliament that follows their orders.
3. We do not support the military action of the April 19 Movement. This was an isolated action carried out in disregard for the present state of the mass movement, and which therefore obscures for the masses the role that they can and must play as an organized force in the struggle against the capitalist system and the government of Belisario Betancur.
Such actions by. the April 19 movement have served as a pretext for rightist forces, the army, and the government to step up their repression against the Colombian people and to increase the budgetary appropriation for the military. That is why these sectors are calling for a militarist solution in the long run.
Socialist leader murdered
Belisario
4.
The of government
Betancur bears the sole responsibility for the deaths of the chief justice
THE COLOMBIAN socialist leader Cesar Florez Gonzalez was shot down on October 30 in the city of Riochacha. It seems that two mercenaries perpetrated the crime. Cesar Florez was well known throughout the Northern Coast region of Colombia for his work on behalf of the disadvantaged. A lawyer, he dedicated himself to helping towns around the city of Cartagena. named after him by the local people who wanted in this way to express their gratitude to the socialist leader.
As member of national leadership of the Partido Socialista Revolucionario (PSR), the Colombian section of the Fourth International, Cesar Florez had been threatened with representatives of the landlords. The police in Cartagena also spared no efforts to harass him. He was illegally arrested on two occasions. The protest organized by his comrades and the solidarity of the oppressed in Cartagena won his release.
A large number of people from the shantytowns attended the funeral of Cesar Florez, who at the time of his death was part of the leadership of the Partido Socialista, a recent splitoff from the PSR.
The murder of Florez comes in the context of a desperate offensive launched by the government, the army, and the most reactionary forces in Colombia, which are trying to suppress by violent means the protests of the workers and poor masses against the declining standard of living and the failure of the process intended to bring peace to the country.
Indeed, only a week after the murder of Cesar Florez, the government of Belisario Betancur ordered the army to send its tanks against the Palace of Justice where a guerrilla unit of the April 19 Movement had taken hostages. The government's overkill operation cost the lives of 95 persons, 26 the people living in the shanty
In fact, one of these settlements was death several times by anonymous twelve of
Rodrigo O' Farrell of the Supreme Court, Alfonso Reyes Echandia; of the Supreme Court judge Maria Ines Ramos; of the civilian personnel; and of the members of the April 19 Movement.
Thus, the major blow to the so-called "democratic" opening has come from the bipartisan government itself;
call on the workers and peasants movement, on its parties, and on all democratic forces to demonstrate their condemnation of the bloody solution that the Betancur government and the army gave to the occupation of the Palace of Justice. We call on the exploited people to block the advance of militarism. It is necessary to continue the struggle for a genuine democratic opening, for the implementation of the accords signed with the guerrillas, for the dismantling of the paramilitary groups, and for the lifting of the state of siege.
Signed: National Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Bogota, November 7, 1985. International Viewpoint 25 November 1985