<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> <DIV align=justify>In Colombia a civil war exists. It is a civil war that that has nothing to do with the promotion of the class interests of the working class. The FARC and the ELN are the principal guerrilla armies claiming to represent the interests of the masses. But there is little or no difference between these movements and the forces of the state. Both are merely different expressions of the interests of the bourgeoisie and thereby serve different functions in perpetuating the existence of that class.</DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>The masses are merely pawns in the conflict between the different bourgeois political interests. The FARC and the ELN are petty bourgeois organisations that ultimately represent the interests of the bourgeoisie --analogous to the Provo IRA. Like the IRA they cannot and do not want to promote the class interests of the masses --however much they pretend otherwise. Like the IRA they are prepared to do a deal with the forces of the state in the interests of establishing a bourgeois settlement. The issue is the price at which they are prepared "to betray their principals" --as some might put it.</DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>The essential difference between FARC/ELN and the bourgeois political forces centred in and around the Colombian state is not the essential bourgeois class interests which each in its own way sustains. The difference is a more derivative, perhaps even more superficial, one. FARC/ELN express bourgeois interests in a way that is more accommodating to the petty bourgeois masses on which their support is based. Consequently a bourgeois settlement must be one that includes conditions that in some partial way satisfy the needs of the peasant masses. This compromise, like the Good Friday Agreement, must be dressed up in bright colours in order to deceive, confuse and diffuse the Colombian masses to render it more possible to foist compromise on them. The success in implementing such a compromise allows the leadership of FARC/ELN to establish itself within the institution of the state in such a way that it can preserve its petty bourgeois interests as an integral part of the state. </DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>This is what Sinn Fein/IRA in Ireland have been striving to achieve. They are hoping that their petty bourgeois interests are sustained within the structures of the British state in a Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland Executive and other state and para-state bodies. Consequently the economic sustenance of Sinn Fein/IRA petty bourgeois interests will shift its support (through its existence as a armed organisation) from  economic sources that may have been less than legitimate to more explicit economic support in the state. In this way it will have succeeded through compromise in shifting the economic source of its existence from outside the imperialist to inside it. In this way this petty bourgeois interest will have been successfully colonised by the state --by imperialism. The corporatist imperialist state will have further integrated interests that had existed outside it into its very imperialist statal being. In a previous period this same state largely colonised the British working class in a similar way --it cannibalises all that challenges it from the outside.</DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>Ultimately both Sinn Fein/IRA and FARC/ELN seek are more sophisticated and subtle capitalist state that appears to encompass the interests of a variety of different petty bourgeois elements while essentially and effectively serving the interests of the bourgeoisie. They thereby seek to restructure the capitalist state investing it with a colonising capacity --colonisation through a corporatist strategy. In short the struggle of Sinn Fein/IRA and FARC/ELN is a pro-imperialist struggle for the restructuring of the capitalist state. To suggest that these political elements are revolutionary from the point of view of the masses merely invests them with a revolutionary mystique which belies the essential political interests which they express.</DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>Warm regards<BR>George Pennefather</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV align=justify>Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site at<BR><A href="http://homepage.tinet.ie/~beprepared/">http://homepage.tinet.ie/~beprepared/</A></DIV> <DIV align=justify> </DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>