Colombian prisoner David Ravelo speaks to North Americans
Colombian prisoner David Ravelo speaks to North Americans
by: W. T. Whitney Jr.
April 14 2016
Prisoner David Ravelo recently presented two historical reports - excerpts are below - that, centering on Barrancabermeja, offer a local and intensely personal perspective on struggle in Colombia for rights and survival. The two victims Ravelo writes about were his comrades. For him, they were also heroes, along with others in his native city. Ravelo himself is a hero, we think.
For North Americans largely unaware of the U. S. hand in Colombia's political chaos and humanitarian crisis, Ravelo provides a crash course. He testifies to ramifications in Barrancabermeja of U. S. interventionist policies toward Colombia.
Anti-communist objectives informed U. S. backing for a "national security state" in Colombia. Since 1964, the U. S. government has provided financial, material, and personnel support for the Colombian government's war against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). U. S. military experts at the time counseled Colombia's government to insert paramilitary capabilities into its counterinsurgency program. Colombia's U. S. - backed military and police forces went on to collaborate with paramilitaries.
Colombia's brand of counterinsurgency has extended to civilian society. Ravelo's first-hand reporting documents the resulting murder and mayhem that descended on Barrancabermeja. He builds the case for U. S. complicity.
In his recollections historian Ravelo becomes a reporter as he provides background information bearing on pressing news today. Violent repression is on the rise now in Colombia, and on that account Colombia's current peace process is stumbling. FARC negotiators are refusing to submit the insurgency to violent attacks in a time of peace, as happened back in the era Ravelo is writing about. What he records reflects their worst fears.
Barrancabermeja's history encapsulates Colombia's long record of social revolution, militarization, violent repression, and lost promises. Located on Colombia's huge Magdalena River, Barrancabermeja hardly existed until 1921 when the Standard Oil affiliate Tropical Oil Company established its refinery there. Leslie Gil, revealingly enough, titled his new book "A Century of Violence in a Red City."
More:
http://peoplesworld.org/colombian-prisoner-david-ravelo-speaks-to-north-americans/