Caracas to Honor FARC Founder With Plaza, El Universal Reports

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Bloomberg

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's capital plans to honor the founder of Colombia's largest rebel group by naming a plaza for him, El Universal reported.

Venezuelan groups sympathetic to socialist causes in Latin America, including the country's Communist Party, will inaugurate a plaza in Caracas to honor Manuel Marulanda, who died in March at the age of 77 after decades as the rebel's top commander, the Caracas-based daily reported.

A bust of Marulanda will be placed in the 23 de Enero neighborhood in Caracas tomorrow, the newspaper said.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a_TCE_y78rZg&refer=latin_america

---

Spanish videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wVySpWmpE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_uOJ1rt1eg

[villager]

1. Fuck FARC. They murdered my friend's son. They're no different at all from what they claim to be

... fighting.

[davidinalameda]

2. a terrorist by any other name is just as deadly

[IndianaGreen]

32. We murdered 10,000 innocent civilians for every person killed on 9/11

Who is the real terrorist?

[rayofreason]

33. What an idiotic statement.

10,000 x 3,000 = 30 million

WTF are you talking about?

I have seen you post of lots of really ignorant stuff (like your apologies for Stalin), in keeping with a pathetic belief in that discredited 19th century religion of scientific socialism despite the judgement of history (phrenology and homeopathy still live on as well), but this one is a real hoot.

I assume that you would also conclude, by the same thought process passes for "logic" in this case, that during WW2 we killed 30,000 innocent civilians for every person killed at Pearl Harbor (2400). And to show our true terrorist nature, we started killing them even BEFORE 12/7 in places like Nanking and Poland.

Actually, I take that back. 30,000 x 2400 = 72 million, which is a reasonable estimate of the all the dead in that conflict. You are claiming that in the current conflict US forces have deliberately killed almost half the number dead in WW2 in innocent civilians alone! Therefore my example of applying your thought process to WW2 is far to reasonable and conservative. Let's look at this quantitatively.

estimated fatalities of Iraqi civilians = 100,000 (Iraq Body Count) vs. 30 million - multiplier is 300 (let's call it the IG factor)

Assume ALL of them killed by US and NONE of them deliberately slaughtered to foment civil war by anti-gay, misogynistic, head-chopping Jihadis (wouldn't want to blame any innocent anti-capitalist muslims without IRONCLAD, UNASSAILABLE PROOF that those car bombs were REALLY set by them). That gives us the 10,000 per 9/11 dead ratio you claimed, if we include the IG factor. Similarly, blame US for all WW2 deaths (why not?). So we get that US killed 300 x 30,000 (using the IG factor) innocent civilians for ever person dead at Pearl Harbor, and the total number of innocent civilians we killed during WW2 was (drumroll...)

300 x 30,000 x 2400 = 21.6 billion dead

OMG!!!!!!! Who is the real terrorist now?????

[Darwins Doberman]

3. Let's see

Chavez is friends with Robert Mugabe, was friends with Saddam Hussein, gets along well with Holocaust Deniers/terrorists like Ahmadinejad, announces his support of Hamas, and apparently wishes to honor murderous South American terrorists who actively engage in rape, kidnapping, and murder.

I must be missing why he has any support from a single liberal.

[AlphaCentauri]

5. triky question?

lets turn the table:
How a liberal can support a government who supported

COLONEL HUGO BANZER, President of Bolivia
FULGENCIO BATISTA, President of Cuba
SIR HASSANAL BOLKIAH, the Sultan of Brunei
P. W. BOTHA, President of South Africa
GENERAL HUMBERTO BRANCO, President of Brazil
VINICIO CEREZO, President of Guatemala
CHIANG KAI-SHEK, President of Taiwan
ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA, President of Honduras
ALFREDO CRISTIANI, President of El Salvador
NGO DINH DIEM, President of South Viet Nam
GENERAL SAMUEL DOE, President of Liberia
FRANÇOIS & JEAN CLAUDE DUVALIER, Presidents-for-Life of Haiti
GENERAL FRANCISCO FRANCO, President of Spain
ADOLF HITLER, Chancellor of Germany
HUSSAN II, King of Morocco
FERDINAND MARCOS, President of the Philippines
MAXIMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ, General of El Salvador
MOBUTU SESE SEKO, President of Zaire
GENERAL MANUEL NORIEGA, Chief of Defense forces, Panama
TURGUT OZAL, Prime Minister of Turkey
MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLEVI, Shah of Iran, King of Kings
GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, Prime Minister of Greece
PARK CHUNG HEE, President of South Korea
GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET, President of Chile
GENERAL SITIVENI RABUKA, Commander, Armed Forces of Fiji
GENERAL EFRAIN RIOS MONT, President of Guatemala
ANTONIO DE OLIVEIRA SALAZAR, Prime Minister of Portugal
HALIE SELASSIE, Emperor of Ethiopia
IAN SMITH, Prime Minister of Rhodesia
ANASTASIO SOMOZA, SR. AND JR., Presidents of Nicaragua
ALFREDO STROESSNER, President-for-Life of Paraguay
GENERAL SUHARTO, President of Indonesia
RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO, President of the Dominican Republic
GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA, President of Argentina
MOHAMMED ZIA UL-HAQ, President of Pakistan

...

[Darwins Doberman]

7. me personally, i find it repulsive we've ever dealt with these people

and anyone who takes pride in, say, the fact we dealt with the man who helped Mengele avoid prosecution for a few years (Stroessner), is sick.

I know some rastafarians who would find you impugning Halie Selassie as a less than divine figure to be blasphemy (not me though, I think he was insane).

The fact of the matter is there's this mystifying belief that Chavez is some amazing, wonderful human being when what he does is wallow in the pigshit with some of the most repugnant human beings on this planet.

[EFerrari]

11. We don't get enough outright propaganda on these threads.

I look forward to your contributions.

[AlphaCentauri]

23. well there's this mystifying belief that our shit smell like roses and shines like gold

we walk on water and cure Leprosy.

Then we do the things we dislike and many times we are worse.

[Orrin_73]

19. TURGUT OZAL, Prime Minister of Turkey

Was not a dictator, he was chosen by the people of Turkey in 1983 electios. Not every person on that list is a dictator!

[reorg]

20. No

He was chosen by the military with whom he cooperated after the coup d'etat in 1980 and when he was subsequently "elected" in 1983, the traditional democratic parties had been suspended from taking part in this farce.

[Orrin_73]

21. Im afraid you are wrong

Turgut Ozal was a high level bureaucrat in 1980, he was appointed as acting finance/economy minister. When in 1983 the elections were announced Ozal formed a party (ANAP) against the wishes of the generals, who themselves had founded two parties, namely a conservative and a leftist party. Ozal was even threatened by the generals not to enter the elections but he defied them and won. The parties of the generals lost the election. Ozal opened up the economy of Turkey and allowed foreign investment, he did more for the Turkish economy then all the presidents and prime ministers before him since Ataturk!

[rayofreason]

34. Orrin_73 is correct

Turgut Ozal was a democratic leader, elected by the people. You should get your facts straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgut_Özal

[reorg]

38. you guys need to read up a little on your history

After the "strategy of tension" was successful in causing thousands of political murders, mostly of leftists, the generals took over in 1980 and installed the conservative Özal as "vice prime minister" directly under the general, Evren. They cracked down on the political left, imprisoned activists and their leaders, torturing and killing many of them.

In the first "general election" a few years later, all politicians who had held office before were suspended from taking part or even joining the newly founded "political parties". Except Özal, who founded a party of his own and "won". He ranks high up there in the eighties gallery of assholes along with all the other neoliberal figureheads.

[AlphaCentauri]

41. Yep and after he was Selected, he continued with the massacres and tortures of leftist

[David__77]

6. I love and support Hugo Chavez.

He's the best Latin America has to offer. Venezuela is far better for his work. He, like the American presidents, takes his national interest as key. The US national interest apparently lies in supporting the likes of Saudi royalty and right-wing dictators. The US MADE Saddam Hussein, by the way. And US meddling in Iran paved the way for the murderous Islamic republic there. Perhaps you should tend to your own country's affairs.

[Darwins Doberman]

8. So... American foreign policy makes it alright to praise and support

people who commit genocide, who deny the Holocaust, who advocate terrorism, who has ruined his country and made its currency worth less than a pocket full of hedgeclippings?

[EFerrari]

10. If I were you, I'd run before that false premise falls on your head

and decapitates you.

lol

[Darwins Doberman]

12. so you're going to deny that Chavez was buddy-buddy with Hussein?

and Chavez isn't friendly with Ahmadinejad? Or Mugabe?

[EFerrari]

13. So, how many more right wingnut talking points do you have?

I've got all day.

[Darwins Doberman]

14. see i don't apologize for being friendly with disgusting human beings

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/876265.stm

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8J6NURG0&show_article=1

But the Associated Press is a right wing wire service, and the BBC are a bunch of fascists.

[EFerrari]

15. Authorized Propaganda is nothing to write home about

and maybe you should ask John Pilger about the BBC.

[Darwins Doberman]

17. I see providing evidence of my point being accurate

will have as much effect on you as me describing the first three minutes of the universe's existence with indisputable scientific evidence has on my Christian fundamentalist friends who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

You know, it is possible to disagree with Chavez's rhetoric and who he makes his bed with without criticizing the movement he represents. Chavez isn't the mythical Jesus of Nazareth who never ever did anything wrong, yet I doubt you're even willing to concede that.

[bemildred]

22. The US government has done far more for Saddam Hussein than Chavez ever thought of:

And likewise Iran:

http://www.mrdowling.com.nyud.net:8090/images/608shah.jpg

You do know that the Iranian nuclear program got its start way back when:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran

[AlphaCentauri]

24. You don't have a point

Pointing out who Chavez talk to doesn't mean anything, it's like saying that Bush is sleeping with Putin, because they were sitting together in the olympics.
Also Chavez is Venezuela's president elected and he has the backing of the majority on his policies.

[EFerrari]

27. Somewhere a bridge is lonely. n/t

[reorg]

18. Wow, good find.

So, Chavez opposed the sanctions against Iraq and thinks Iran has the right to build nuclear power plants. What a MONSTER!

[EFerrari]

28. There were many people all around the world that protested

the starving of Iraqi children and plenty now who see BushCo's move against Iran as a tired rerun.

[reorg]

35. including the UN administrators

Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, who resigned and made the effects of the sanctions widely known:

"I am resigning because the policy of economic sanctions is . . . destroying an entire society. Five thousand children are dying every month. I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide." (Halliday)

http://www.newstatesman.com/200410040012

[fascisthunter]

37. Darwins Poodle

[fascisthunter]

36. commit genocide? Who are you talking about?

the political right wing, yes...

[EFerrari]

4. James Petras wrote a tribute to Marulanda on his passing:

Homage to Manuel Marulanda

Pedro Antonio Marin, better know as Manuel Marulanda and ‘Tiro Fijo (Sure Shot)’, was the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP). He was without a doubt the greatest revolutionary peasant leader in the history of the Americas.

. 05.26.2008

Over a period of 60 years he organized peasant movements, rural communities and, when all legal democratic channels were effectively (and brutally) closed, he built the most powerful sustained guerrilla army and supporting underground militias in Latin America. The FARC at its peak between 1999-2005 numbered nearly 20,000 fighters, several hundred thousand peasant-activists, hundreds of village and urban militia units. Even today despite the regime’s forced displacement of 3 million peasants resulting from scorched earth policies and scores of massacres, the FARC has between 10,000-15,000 guerrillas in its numerous ‘fronts distributed throughout the country.

What make Marulanda’s achievements so significant are his organizational abilities, strategic acuity and his intransigent and principled programmatic positions consisting of support of popular demands. Marulanda, more than any other guerrilla leader, had unmatched rapport with the rural poor, the landless, the subsistence cultivators and the rural refugees over three generations.

Beginning in 1964 with two-dozen peasants fleeing villages devastated by a US directed military offensive Marulanda methodically built a revolutionary guerrilla army without either foreign financial or material contributions. Marulanda, more than any other guerrilla leader, was a great rural political teacher. Marulanda’s superb organizing skills were honed on the basis of his intimate ties with peasants – he grew up in a poor peasant family, lived among them cultivating and organizing, and spoke their language addressing their most basic daily needs and future hopes. Conceptually and through daily trial and error, Marulanda worked out a series of strategic political –military operations based on his brilliant understanding of the geographic and human terrain. Between 1964 to his recent death, Marulanda defeated or evaded at least seven major military offensives financed by over $7 billion dollars in US military aid, involving thousands of US ‘Green Berets’, Special Forces, mercenaries, over 250,000 Colombians Armed Forces and 35,000 member paramilitary death squads.

Unlike Cuba or Nicarangua, Marulanda built an organized mass base and trained a largely rural leadership; he openly declared his socialist program and never received political or material support from so-called ‘progressive capitalists’. Colombia’s armed forces were a formidable, highly trained and disciplined repressive apparatus, bolstered by murderous death squads, unlike Batista’s and Somoza’s corrupt and rapacious gangsters, who plundered and retreated under pressure. Marulanda, unlike many better-known ‘poster-boy’ guerrillas, was a virtual unknown among the elegant leftist editors in London, the nostalgic Parisian sixty-eighters and the New York Socialist scholars. Marulanda spent his time exclusively in ‘Colombia profunda’, the deep Colombia, preferring to converse and teach peasants and learn their grievances, rather than giving interviews to adventure-seeking Western journalists. Instead of writing grandiloquent ‘manifestos’ and striking photogenic poses, he preferred the steady, unromantic but eminently effective grass roots pedagogy of the disinherited. Marulanda traveled from virtually inaccessible valleys to mountain ranges, from jungles to plains, organizing, fighting…recruiting and training new leaders. He eschewed tripping off to ‘World Forums’ or following the route of international leftist tourists. He never visited a foreign capital and, it is said, never set foot in the nation’s capital, Bogota. But he had a vast and profound knowledge of the demands of the Afro-Colombians of the Coast, the Indio-Colombians of the mountains and jungles, the land claims of millions of displaced peasants, the names and addresses of abusive landlords who brutalized and raped peasants and their kin.

http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1736&more=1&c=1

[reorg]

16. thanks for posting this

Seems like the decent thing to do what Chavez did: commemorate a courageous leader of the disenfranchised and the disposssessed.

[Judi Lynn]

25. The Colombian dispossession of their land, homes is criminal, and the U.S. financially supports the

people responsible. Our own media just doesn't have the time or inclination to mention that wildly subsidized Colombia (3rd largest foreign aid recipient in the world) has the 2nd largest humanitarian crisis in the world, second only to Sudan. I'll bet almost NO Americans have ever even heard about it, not once from our own media, even though Americans are paying through the nose to keep their death-squad-loving, massacre, mass-grave-creating, genocidal right-wing government going.

[Unvanguard]

26. ...and was responsible for creating a murderous, destructive terrorist group to boot

that was about as substantively "socialist" as Joseph Stalin's Russia.

It's disgusting that anyone is inclined to glorify this man.

[EFerrari]

29. When the poor fight back, they're murderous terrorists. Yes, I know. n/t

[Unvanguard]

39. FARC does not represent the poor any more than criminal gangs in the inner city do.

That's why they don't particularly care about killing the people they want to "liberate."

[EFerrari]

42. Apparently there are a number of people who disagree with you

and are willing to do it in person and in public.

[IndianaGreen]

31. blah, blah, blah. When members of the upper class murder they are called democrats

When the peasants and workers decide to strike back at their murderers, they are called terrorists.

Class warfare by any other name is still class warfare.

[Unvanguard]

40. Do you have anything more substantive than pseudo-Marxism?

Seriously, examine FARC's human rights record... or just talk to a Colombian.

:eyes:

[bitchkitty]

9. Viva Marulanda! May his life inspire others. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

30. Down with the Colombian elites and the American lapdogs in Latin America!

FARC has made many tactical mistakes, including the one in which they laid down their arms and came down the mountains only to be butchered by rightwing death squads, but the reason there was a FARC to begin with was the oppression of the peasants and workers by the Colombian ruling class.

This war has been raging for nearly half a century, and some people choose to forget the roots of the conflict, or how the Clinton Plan Colombia has led to genocide and population displacement.