Library:Letter to General Alvaro Valencia Tovar

Letter to General Alvaro Valencia Tovar
Manuel Pérez, author.
Written by	Manuel Pérez
Written in	1994
Source	Memoirs - Manuel Pérez Martínez

Letter to General Alvaro Valencia Tovar

Manuel Pérez
1994

Álvaro Valencia Tovar:

I thank you, sir, for the advice, regardless of its source, even if it is laden with ulterior motives and malice, because advice, no matter what, always contains something positive.

It is important that the public remember that you have had much to do with the ELN, because you directed the operations against our organization with the aim of eliminating us from the very beginning! You were involved in abuses against rural communities and commanded the Fifth Brigade when the operation took place in which Father Camilo Torres Restrepo died in Patio Cemento, Santander. Our organization acknowledges that we carried out an attack against you in which you were wounded. Everything seems to indicate that there is not much sympathy between you, as a General, and our revolutionary organization, but despite this, we constantly find ourselves crossing paths in the course of history. In this context, you offer me advice accompanied by questions, which I will gladly answer so that the Colombian people can be aware of them.

1. I advocate for a democratically elected government, chosen with absolute impartiality and in a clean manner, putting an end to political bossism, vote buying, and so on. This government should govern to guarantee democracy in crucial decisions. A national assembly of the people should be established, the Armed Forces should defend the exercise of democracy, and an independent judicial branch should be created to function independently of all entities and individuals in the nation.

2. I advocate for an economy that takes into account the needs of life, work, and development of all citizens, in harmony with the development of the rest of the world and nature. I consider it absurd to talk about market liberalization when the most developed countries are fiercely protectionist. Development is being pursued in an absurd way when it is destroying both nature and humanity.

3. I seek the liberation of millions of impoverished citizens, but I am skeptical about the good intentions of the dominant sector, after hundreds of years of demagoguery, empty promises, and broken pledges. This is not the time for blank checks based on naive good faith. I believe that the conquest of the rights of the vast majority—regarding health, education, decent housing, food, clothing, and recreation—will be difficult, even though all of this is part of fundamental human rights. The brutal selfishness of the richest and most powerful, enshrined in laws, the organization of society, forms of government, methods of repression, and prevailing ideologies, will not be remedied by individual acts of repentance.

4. Violent death, hunger, and widespread ecological damage are the natural means of enrichment. Or tell me, before the 1964 guerrilla movement, wasn't there hunger and hundreds of thousands of deaths? Yes, there was the infamous period of "La Violencia," and before that there was the Thousand Days' War, and before that there was the struggle for independence, and before that there was the struggle of our glorious indigenous and Black people organized in palenques (maroon communities) and guerrilla groups. All these struggles were always acts of resistance by the people to free themselves from domination, slavery, hunger, and persecution. In other words, neither poverty nor violence arrived with the guerrillas; rather, these are always the product of the domination of the powerful.

5. You ask me about the overcrowding in large cities. Indeed, this exodus from the countryside has been going on since the 1930s and 40s, when the powerful were interested in seizing the land worked by poor peasants, and in having large masses of unemployed people in the cities as a reserve army to advance industrialization with cheap labor, even if it meant many deaths. More than three hundred thousand died during La Violencia, and millions from hunger. Violence has continued since then, with "your" Army playing a significant role in the massacres, bombings, machine-gunning, torture, and rape of the population! The Army of which you are an ideologue, trainer, and teacher. It is within this context that I also speak of the mistakes that have been made from within the popular movement, and which must be corrected. In a war, the civilian population is sacred!

6. There are certain values in which we educate our comrades: honesty and integrity, industriousness, loyalty to the interests of the people, transparency in word and deed, as well as education in truth and in the value of one's word. The country and society are undergoing an irreversible process of corruption, decay, and disbelief. All of this stems from the environment of illicit enrichment, the disregard for life, drug trafficking, paramilitarism, social violence, and the inhuman brutality instilled in the armed forces. It is necessary to establish a system of liberating morality. We are the country with the most violent deaths in the world. Most of these deaths are not related to the conflict between guerrillas and the state, but rather to common crime committed by the poor in their struggle to avoid starvation and by the rich in their pursuit of accumulating more easy money. In any case, I acknowledge that transforming the men who wield weapons is an arduous task, but one that is achievable if undertaken with the noble ideals of humanity.

7. I am sensitive. Every day I become more sensitive to suffering; I assure all of Colombia of this. I feel for the millions of men without work, without education, healthcare, and housing; countless children wandering the streets. Hundreds of massacres that fill me with indignation, because they are also attributed to the guerrillas when they are perpetrated by your Army (Riofrío, Trujillo, Los Uvos, Macaravita, Honduras and La Negra, Segovia, Lagartos, Manila, Fusagasugá, etc.). I grieve for the thousands of ordinary people who have been killed and disappeared, whom no one mentions. Human rights organizations claim that we have 1800 disappeared persons, but I believe there are more. On the other hand, I wish the kidnappings would not happen.

8. I wanted all the millions of pesos that are allocated to the war to be used to solve the problems... Do this, and the war will end immediately. I assure you. Peace is the ultimate goal of resolving social, economic, and political problems.

9. Finally, I tell you, Mr. Valencia Tovar, that I find no contradiction with Jesus of Nazareth, who always scourged, cursed, and denounced the rich, powerful Jews and imperialist Romans; he called blessed those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice; he was capable of driving the merchants out of the temple and of dying on the cross to defend these ideals of love, truth, justice, and life.

10. I hope that what I am writing to you will be published in the same column where you wrote the "Ten Questions to Father Pérez," and that it is not a journalistic ploy lacking any sincerity towards the country, towards your conscience, and your military honor.

Sincerely,

Manuel Pérez Martínez.