"While there is a will to fight, there' ll be hope of winning". This is the title of the manifesto released by guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army (FARC-EP) who announced the continuation of the armed struggle against the bourgeois state.
In a 32-minute video featuring Ivan Marquez, a leading figure of FARC, alongside Jesus Santrich and other ex-rebels, the colombian guerrillas denounced the "betrayal" of the 2016 peace agreement by the Colombian state.
"This is the continuation of the rebel fight in answer to the betrayal of the Havana peace accords by the state. We were never beaten or defeated ideologically, so the struggle continues," Marquez said.
The peace accord between the government of Colombia and FARC-EP was signed on November 2016 in Havana after four years of negotiations. Ivan Marquez was a key negotiator in this process.
As part of the peace process, the FARC turned into a political party and was assigned a number of seats in Colombia's congress. Márquez was assigned one of the FARC's five seats in the senate. But days before he was due to take up his post in July 2018, he announced he would not do so in protest of the assassinations, persecutions and imprisonments launched by the colombian government against FARC ex-rebels. One of those who were arrested and imprisoned on the orders of the U.S. was Jesús Santrich who was falsely accused for drug trafficking. Santrich was released last June and dissapeared from the public scene until yesterday.
"Betrayal, perfidy, judicial persecution, political insecurity, the murder of social leaders and ex-combatants, has forced us to take up arms... We announce to the world that the second Marquetalia has begun under the protection of international law that assists all the peoples of the world to rise up in arms against oppression" said Marquez in the video.
Reading the manifesto, Ivan Marquez accused the bourgeois colombian state for "betraying peace", refered to the legacy of Manuel Marulanda (the historical leader of FARC) and Simon Bolivar and recalled that during the three years since the peace agreement, 500 militants, trade unionists, fighters for human rights have been murdered, while 150 ex-rebels have been assassinated.
Read the Full Manifesto of FARC-EP rebels (spanish / español )
