Free Liliany Obando

I have had two opportunities to participate in the conference of solidarity with Latin America and the Asia Pacific organised by yourselves and I can say with an awareness of these matters that it is more than the simple realization and attendance at an event. From my experience I can say that it has been a valuable tool for building bridges for communication, to exchange experiences of resistance, to strengthen ties of fraternity and solidarity and to launch concrete initiatives between the organisers, attendees and the organisations from the countries participating.

In the case of my country, Colombia, the existence of a prolonged internal social and armed conflict, results in it being less attractive for many solidarity activists. In the space of this conference we can make known our reality, our struggle and resistance, our dreams and hopes. We also have the possibility of strengthening our previous relationships between the political, social organisations and unions in your country and ours. And it was also from our participation in the conference that we saw the birth of the solidarity organisations with our country called Peace and Justice for Colombia and the International Network in Solidarity with Colombian Political Prisoners. Furthermore, you are arranging new and important visits of delegates from various organisations from your country to their counterparts in Colombia. And it is through these conferences delegates from social and political movements of countries that are geographically so distant find common struggles and agendas.

These are sufficient reason to endorse and pass on fraternal greetings to this new Conference in Solidarity with Latin America and wish that the results deepen the unity, the solidarity and the coordinated action in the struggles of our peoples to achieve what South American liberator Simon Bolivar described as “the greatest happiness possible, the greatest social guarantees and the greatest political stability”

THE WINDS OF SOCIAL CHANGE FOR SOUTH AMERCIA

Fortunately in this new Conference we can continue enthusiastically with the winds of change, little by little have kept blowing and strengthening in Our South America from the Rio Grande and the Caribbean to Tierra de Fuego. We salute dignified Cuba and their 50 years of Revolution; the well deserved triumph of Farabundo Marti  Front for National liberation (FMLN) [in El Salvador]and we remain hopeful of the changes towards the development of socialism in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in the Nicaragua of Sandino, for  the Indigenous and popular forces in Ecuador and Bolivia. We remain hopeful that soon the revolutionary prairie will burn and extend to all of our South America, to realise the dream of integration of our peoples,   to achieve definitive independence and finally build this “Patria Grande”, Bolivarian and socialist among all us for all us.

Notwithstanding these winds of freedom we cannot, we must not drop our guard and ignore the continuous stalking, dangers and traps that the empire extends over the region using the complicity of kow-towing and lackey governments, like that of Colombia, which over the heads of the people and without embarrassment, has decided to give up their sovereignty and allow the establishment of 7 military bases or perhaps even more on our territory. So it has been demonstrated, as we warned at previous conferences, that the Colombian conflict has little by little ceased to be an internal conflict fought under the pretext of fighting the imperialist war against “terrorism” and “drug trafficking”. It is revolutionary South American that is at risk.

For more than 40 years the Colombian people have struggled tirelessly and resisted in all its forms a terrorist state that has always permitted the intrusion of the United States in its internal affairs. It has been and remains a heavy toll of sacrifice paid by our people sacrifice to achieve their liberation. Unfortunately our historical, social and political conditions have not permitted us to build a new country exclusively through peaceful means; we have had to resort to the sacred right to rebel against a tyrant although this option has been criticised and considered unworkable, even by those who in the past had to resort to that process to achieve revolutionary change.

Today, in this the new context of the US militarization in our South America, the resistance of the Colombian people draws together in all its forms to defend each and every one of the revolutionary projects in the region. Our resistance does not deserve to be isolated, nor stigmatized, nor denied. On the contrary, the Colombian people who are resisting deserve all the solidarity possible, all the support of the movements, organisations and revolutionary and progressive peoples from other parts of the world. They all have the assurance that with the same dedication and courage that our people have resisted in Colombia, we will be able to struggle and defend the “Patria Grande” of Bolivar because, as he taught us “The people have fought for freedom in order to put an end to the tyrants”.

Comrades, although on this occasion it was not possible to be with you physically, these free words have been able to pass through bars and go beyond the walls of the prison to get to you. I wish to conclude my intervention with the words borrowed from my fellow political prisoners: “always we must be Quixotes ... we must all be among equals galloping with Rocinante, with the love of Dulcinea, the Dulcinea of social change. All with the flashing spear of ideas, of unity, of action. All with the helmet open to meet the gaze of the executioner with a smile so as not to show our anguish, so that our voice conquers any confinement” and so that our commitment will endure any battle for the sake of freedom, peace and social justice of our people.

To you with revolutionary greetings

Liliany Obando

Colombian Political Prisoner

Not one Yankee soldier in our “Patria Grande”!

For our fallen, not one minutes silence, a whole life given to combat! Honour and glory to their memory!

Colombian political prisoners – we are not terrorists, we are revolutionaries struggling for a New Colombia with Social Justice!

Freedom for all the Political Prisoners!

Freedom for the Five Cuban Prisoners held in the US!

Freedom for Sonya, Simon and Ivan – illegally extradited and convicted in the US!

Humanitarian Exchange of Political Prisoners now!