Original: housha source wechat official account: housha has been authorized to reprint
Since the United States put forward the “Monroe Doctrine” in 1823, the later rulers of the United States have regarded Latin America as their own “backyard”. When Latin American countries became independent one after another and European colonists completely lost their dominance, the United States has turned this place into its own “backyard”.
In the “backyard”, the country with the closest relationship with the United States is Colombia.
From the perspective of the political landscape of Latin America, only Colombia has never had left-wing political forces come to power.
However, this pattern is likely to be broken after this year’s general election. After the election polls in April, Gustavo petro, the candidate of the left-wing League “Convention on the history of Colombia”, has a clear advantage.
The US media began a new round of smear campaign against petro. Why did they say “again”, because in the 2018 Colombian election, the US media launched a fierce attack on petro, helping right-wing candidate Duke win the election.
The Biden administration’s energy was constrained by the Ukrainian crisis this time, and it did not invest enough in the Colombian general election. It only released big moves in the final sprint stage. On May 23, Biden announced that Colombia would be granted the status of “non NATO ally”.
Biden wrote in his memorandum to Secretary of state Antony Blinken: “in accordance with the power vested in me as president by the U.S. Constitution… I hereby confirm that Colombia will become a major non NATO ally of the United States.”
In other words, in order to help Colombia’s right-wing camp continue to govern, Biden unilaterally granted Colombia a status similar to that of a “NATO member”, and the United States will share strategic interests with Colombia.
However, Biden’s move is too late to recover the defeat of the Colombian right wing.
In the vote held on May 29, the left-wing Pedro won 40.44%, the center right-wing Hernandez won 27.99%, and the right-wing Gutierrez won 23.95%, which was directly eliminated.
As no one won more than 50% of the votes, the “final” will be held on June 19, with Pedro competing against Hernandez.
In order to make a last ditch attempt, the Biden government “guided” Gutierrez’s “Columbia League” to transfer all the votes to Hernandez. Gutierrez has also announced that his camp will vote for Hernandez on June 19, on the grounds that “I don’t want to lose this country”.
However, according to the latest polls, although the 62 year old petro’s advantage has narrowed, he is still about 7 percentage points ahead. It is unlikely that the right wing wants to turn the tables.
Hernandez also has a weakness in age. The real estate tycoon is 77 years old. If he finishes four years, he will be 81 years old.
The Colombian right wing is facing the situation of losing power, which is mainly due to two reasons:
1? Domestic
Under the impact of the epidemic, people’s livelihood is difficult, the economy is depressed, but the rich groups are more greedy. About 40% of the people live below the poverty line. Drug trafficking and gangs are still rampant. President Duke’s promises before he took office have not been fulfilled;
2? International
The two U.S. administrations of trump and Biden paid lip service to Colombia but failed to deliver it. In particular, they did not provide timely assistance in vaccines and medical supplies. However, Latin American countries have shown an obvious left turn trend. Mexico, Argentina, Chile and other big countries are all left-wing winners, and Brazil’s general election polls this year are also left-wing leaders.
Therefore, the left-wing alliance of the “Convention on the history of Colombia” led by petro has become the greatest hope of the Colombian people to improve their living conditions.
However, the United States never wants to see a change in the weather in Colombia, because this is not only the backyard of the United States, but also Colombia has always been a political pillar for the United States to control South America.
How close are Colombia and the United States? When the United States intervened in the Korean War under the banner of “United Nations forces”, the Colombian army was among the participating countries, and it was also the only military of Latin American countries.
Why did 1100 Colombian soldiers go to Korea to fight with the volunteer army? Because the United States helped president Gomez to power at that time, he must serve the United States.
The same is true of President Duke today. The United States sealed a “street president” guaido in Venezuela. The Duke government immediately recognized guaido. When the United States wanted to overthrow President Maduro, Duke let the army move along the border and planned the assassination of Maduro.
As early as the 2018 election, petro said that he would not continue to maintain humiliating “cooperation” with the United States. He also said that Colombia has no foreign policy and has always been an extension of the United States’ foreign policy.
In 2018, the main attack point for the United States to defeat petro was his left-wing guerrilla experience, which means “terrorism”. The American media played up the terrible memories of the civil war during the active period of the left-wing armed forces, but this time it did not work.
In fact, the root cause of the rise of Colombia’s left-wing armed forces is the cruel plundering and enslavement of the Colombian people by the United States, including the rise of other Latin American left-wing armed forces.
Is the “backyard” country “democratic”? It is defined by the United States. Colombia has been in power by the right wing for decades, and even the military government is a “democratic” regime, no matter what cruel means they use to govern the country. On the contrary, countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are “undemocratic” and must be overthrown.
However, the close relationship between Colombia and the United States has also doomed this country to never have peace.
Leftist armed forces
Colombia’s earlier history was not written. It began in 1936, when Colombia implemented the new constitution. This constitution abolished the status of Catholicism as a state church, deprived the Church of its special rights, and established the “separation of powers”, the multi-party system, the system of direct election of the president and members of Parliament, and the eight hour working system.
Isn’t that quite western democracy? But even so, the United States could not accept it, because it was difficult for the United States to control Colombia when the Liberal Party was in power.
At the end of World War II in 1945, the United States intervened in Colombia’s internal affairs and helped the Conservative leader Peres win the general election by taking advantage of the power dispersion of the Liberal Party (the introduction of two candidates).
Then the United States gave guns and guns to help the Peres regime persecute the liberal forces, and wanted to ensure that the Conservative Party remained in power.
On march30,1948, the ninth Pan American conference was held in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, with the participation of US Secretary of state Marshall. The leaders of the Latin American independence movement also gathered in Bogota, including the young Castro.
Gaitan, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, attended the meeting. He also promised to interview the times, the organ of the Liberal Party, on April 9. The Liberal Party will announce its cooperation policy with the Colombian Communist Party.
However, when Gaitan walked from the Capitol building to the newspaper office that morning, he was fired several times by a gunman and died on the sidewalk. The gunman was surrounded and killed.
On April 13, without any investigation, the US State Department suddenly announced that the Colombian Communist Party had murdered Gaetan, which was confirmed by British ambassador Michaels.
In this way, the Peres regime used the Communist Party’s rebellion as an excuse to massacre the left-wing forces, including the Liberal Party led by Gaitan.
This was a very absurd military operation. The Liberal Party retreated into the countryside and established armed forces to fight against the massacre by the government forces.
Since then, Colombia has entered a “period of violence”. The more chaotic Colombia is, the more dependent the right-wing regime will be on American forces.
The real murderers of Gaitan are the US intelligence agencies and Colombian agents. They have killed many birds with one stone, disrupting the Liberal Party and creating an excuse for killing the Communist Party. The right wing has obtained the foundation for long-term governance.
The Communist Party of Colombia has established the Communist Youth League, the women’s Committee and the “Sucre camp” in the mountainous areas. It has also established the first Communist guerrilla in Latin America to implement armed self-defense.
In 1950, Gomez came to power, fell completely to the United States, and sent troops to the Korean battlefield.
In 1953, general Rojas launched a coup and became president. In 1954, he was recognized by the United States, which further intensified the persecution of the left wing.
In 1957, the Liberal Party and the conservative party jointly overthrew the military government. The two parties signed a political agreement in Spain to establish a national front. The president took turns every four years. The posts of cabinet ministers and seats were equally divided.
In 1958, after the establishment of the kamago government, it began to fight the Communist Party. In fact, the “National Front” is still a regime dominated by the right-wing Pro American forces.
In 1961, general Rojas established the “National People’s League”. It is worth mentioning that in 1974, this organization established the M19 (April 19 movement) armed group. The current candidate, petro, participated in M19 at the age of 17 and was arrested at the age of 25.
M19 is not the left wing in the eyes of the left wing, but it is the left wing in the eyes of the right. After leaving M19, petro became a leftist and entered the political arena, and won the mayor election of Bogota. After the 1990s, M19 became entangled with drug cartels and became a purely violent organization.
However, M19 can only rank fourth in front of the real left-wing armed forces.
On may1,1964, with the help of US military advisers, new president Valencia launched an attack on the marktalia area, and used 20000 troops (one third of the army) to encircle and suppress the Communist forces.
The main armed forces of the Communist Party withdrew into the mountains. In april1966, according to the spirit of the ten Congress of the Communist Party of Colombia, the “revolutionary armed forces of Colombia” (FARC) was officially established.
Another armed force entered Santander Province, with the main force being young students, not farmers. Later, it developed into the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second largest Anti-government force.
In january1968, a brand-new armed force appeared in Colombia. It has super combat power and controls the new Antioquia region. It is called the people’s Liberation Army (the media often confuse it with the National Liberation Army).
This is a Maoist armed group. They have also established a new Colombian Communist Party (the Red Faction).
The United States is very afraid of the “Colombian people’s Liberation Army”. Major Ralph of the Central Intelligence Agency once commented:
“The people’s Liberation Army, which is not the type supported by Havana, has sincere support… It is carrying out a new way of struggle in Latin America.”
After 1991, the “Colombian people’s Liberation Army” was the first organization to lay down its arms and return to society, while the other three became warlord like armed forces or cooperated with drug gangs.
In 2016, the Colombian government reached a ceasefire agreement with FARC and ELN, and the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Colombian President Santos. What is the Nobel Peace Prize? As we all know, it shows that the ceasefire agreement is beneficial to the United States.
In addition to the left-wing armed forces, Colombia also has extreme right-wing armed forces, such as the “United self defense force” (AUC), which are very cruel and have links with the government and drug trafficking groups.
It can be seen how chaotic Colombia is. If the left can come to power in the form of elections, it may bring an opportunity to Colombia’s development. When Latin America turns left collectively, the United States does not dare to be hard on it.
However, the United States, IMF and other financial institutions will certainly withdraw investment and loans from Colombia, so that Colombia has to choose the right-wing forces again. So, who will solve these problems? America is nervous.
Latin America is by no means anyone’s backyard. The people here are also fed up with the plundering and enslavement of the devil. I believe that there will be exorcists to help them get rid of their evil claws in the future.