"I don't know anything more healthy, that returning to the people
primitive sovereignty to allow it to remake their social contract ... This is more than just
and eminently popular, and therefore, very typical of an eminently democratic republic"
SIMÓN BOLÍVAR

The important aspects that so far have been agreed on the issue of political participation, place the Colombians in a position to begin to open the doors of a true democracy.

All initiatives submitted by the FARC at the Havana talks, which we called 100 minimum proposals for real democratization, peace with social justice and national reconciliation, have been inspired by the demands and proposals by social and political organizations of the country, they arose from the respective thematic forums, and the strength of our word has been present in the courageous mobilization of a people who, without fear of repression and criminalization, has raised their flags to demand structural changes that are required to the foundation of peace.

Colombia is experiencing a spring of dreams of justice: above all the most humble, the dispossessed have taken to the streets to tell the rulers they cannot keep ignoring them; that the fate of the country depends on the participation of all citizens and not a privileged few oligarchs who have taken it in their hands to loot it and sell it favoring the multinational corporations. People want to decide and this is the core of real participation.

That is what we discussed during the last six rounds of talks, and then the first thing to be resolved is the need, in our country, for the respect of the right to life, to difference, to political choice, to non-stigmatization, and for ideas to be discussed without fear of being killed, persecuted, disappeared or criminalized, that is what happens when you act under the rule of foreign doctrines who see in the citizen an enemy within.

This is our cry, this is our demand, and therefore, as part of this important event, we express our total condemnation of the assassination on November 2 of Cesar Garcia, leader of the gold mining resistance to the gold exploitation by the Anglo Gold Ashanti, in La Colosa (Tolima), after a forceful decision by plebiscite where the communities of the region have said NO to the mega mining and presence of multinationals that destroy water sources and possibilities of life. Justice doesn't do anything, and the mainstream press which often revels reporting on frivolities, does not give a case as serious as this the visibility which it deserves. Then, of which democracy are we talking about?

The military treatment which has so far been given to the mobilization of outraged protesters cannot continue, because the government and all layers of power are owed to the people and it is the people who should be listened to; a concept of security should have at its core the interests of human being, even above the often petty interests of the States, and should be based on principles of sovereignty, non-intervention and free determination of the peoples according to the development and welfare of the majority.

It is in this context and within this framework that we have reached the first but very important approaches and agreements relating to the second item on the agenda of the general agreement of Havana: the commitment to convene without delay the parties and spokesmen of social organizations calling them to develop guidelines to finally have a statute for political opposition, is perhaps one of the most important achievements, and on the other hand, they should create in democratic national events, the foundations for the emergence of standardization that gives true recognition, guarantees, to the existence and rights of the social movement.

Much has been said of the need to reform the restrictive law on citizen participation mechanisms (Act 134 of 1994) and also on the urgency to rethink draconian security laws for which we believe it is time to begin drawing new routes, if indeed the commitments established when we begun discussing the guarantees for mobilization and protest are to be attended. We have agreed, for example, that being these activities a form of political action, they are a legitimate exercise of the right to assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and the opposition, in a democracy; that all of these enrich the practice of political inclusion and that the government should ensure the spaces to channel citizen demands, without abuses. Thus, in order to ensure the full realization of these rights, we have come to the commitment to define the review, and if necessary, to change all the rules that apply to mobilization and social protest. This, added to the commitment to expand and strengthen citizen participation bodies for dialogue and building work schedules at all levels to enable early response to the requests and proposals of citizens.

These issues, and many others, distributed in twenty pages, are those that give us optimism for further progress in the discussions towards the signing of peace and termination of the conflict. However there is still a long way to go, and it is only with the feet and the determination of the people in the streets, of the sovereign proposing and deciding, that it would be possible to expand democracy as a prerequisite to reconciliation, and to turn, what so far are only aspirations and commitments, into reality .

We reiterate now, and will continue to do so, that this is not a process of subjugation, but, surely, if indeed we move along the path of the transformations that national majorities have claimed, the signing of a peace treaty will be a reality.

In this plan an essential issue of confrontation is contained and that is to make clear its origins and responsibilities. So we insist that consensual integration of the commission of truth and historical responsibility of the conflict is needed, especially if we have the urgency to address an issue as sensitive as the victims, so often used grotesquely by media manipulation to stigmatize and demonize the insurgency.

For us who keep in the depths of our hearts the pain of the death of thousands of members of the Patriotic Union, of countless children of the people killed under the chainsaw of paramilitarism and decades of institutional repression, or more directly we are loaded with the mourning for the hundreds of guerrillas, militias and revolutionary fighters who have fallen in the struggle to build a better Colombia, our identity with the victims of the confrontation is indisputable, and for that we will rise and continue to rise our voice at the talks in Havana. It is false, that, as some politicians in power, seeking to take advantage of the pain of those suffering from war say, the guerrillas refuse to receive the families of the victims of the conflict. We open our arms to them, and anyone who wants to contribute to the building of peace, and it in this spirit that we insist vehemently on the need to integrate the commission we have so often proposed.

The conquest of peace depends a lot on these approaches, but, beside the progress of the talks, there are other issues without solution of which progress is slow: The success of peace depends on the elimination of corruption, an end to the interference of the mafias that one way or another have captured the state, in all its bodies: executive, legislative and judicial. How about the example of government contracting? How about the charges to the comptroller? And the attorney?
We must curb white collar crime of a financial sector that sells sovereignty, destroys the country giving free rein to the depredation of natural resources and the usurious looting of the pockets of all Colombians. But secondly, and perhaps more urgent because it largely depends on impunity which continue to reign, we must put hand with a lot of determination to the entire judiciary.

A corrupt justice born out of a regime corrupt and culpable for so many years of confrontation, has neither the competence nor the capacity, nor the historical conditions necessary to act. Today, after so many multiple scandals, justice is left with no moral authority to play a defining role in the new Colombia. It has to be rebuilt completely. How can the government believe that it is possible submitting to a transitional justice when the same government says that the justice is corrupt and that a  total reform of the judicial branch is required?

Among the responsibilities of the state is that of justice be left to rot, for the widespread corruption that was born years ago in the executive (contracts and commissions in all areas), and spread to justice through that revolving door (where the same people exit from the same door, and the same enter to do the same), and the same in the Congress. The Congressmen investigated and in prison always represented the parties and the regime.

But well, as today we are in a kind of balance that is citizen participation regarding peace, this implies talking of democracy, which requires that we do not lose sight of the fact that the fate of this can not be in the hands of three or four gentlemen owners of media and advertising. There may be all sorts of mechanisms for participation if we want to show the country as a democracy of paper, but the information is what leads to these mechanisms ending up being channels of expression of thoughts previously cooked and sold by these three or four individuals, who are always those in power.

The supposed democracy we have today can not keep being part of a privileged class, as it was a farm, or livestock, because democracy is measured by the result of popular expression and participation and this popular expression is mostly tied and manipulated by those who hold and control the media.

Without democracy in the ownership of the media, all that is done in many fields of interest or for the peace treaty itself, could remain in a limbo, because through media matrices today fictitious favorable environments or dissatisfaction with the process are generated. Hopefully we could count with all those who feel truly Colombian, to bet on reconciliation and not on the continuation of the war.

Thanks to Cuba and Norway, guarantors countries, and to Venezuela and Chile as accompanying countries for the protection through their presence and good offices, of the running smoothly of the process. And thanks to our compatriots who have put faith and enthusiasm on the possibility of building a Colombia that provides opportunities for all.