Catatumbo, a resource-rich region in Colombia, has become a battleground where armed conflict has created a humanitarian crisis of poverty, displacement, and violence. This article examines how capitalist interests have fueled this conflict, the various armed groups competing for control, and the devastating impact on local populations caught in the crossfire. PL’ers in Colombia have been involved in this struggle, raising consciousness about this capitalist hellscape, introducing workers to communist ideas using Desafio (CHALLENGE), our sharpest ideological weapon in the fightback against these vicious attacks.
Catatumbo is a region in Colombia marked by ongoing armed conflict. Its poverty and marginalization have surpassed any barbaric threshold, sparking political and electoral interest among opportunists. This region, rich in food and mineral production, is ravaged by the capitalist laws of war and profit. A population of 80,000 workers are caught in the crossfire of this escalating war, forcing 56,000 to flee the carnage in the region, in what is being characterized as the largest displacement crisis in the region in decades (Human Rights Watch, 3/27). The violence in Catatumbo underscores the urgent need for a communist revolution. Only when workers organize collectively to smash the imperialist and their local capitalist rulers, responsible for these destructive profit-driven wars, can the working class become the custodians of a world and guarantee a future free from war, displacement, and exploitation for all humankind.
Catatumbo: a capitalist battleground and hellscape for the working class
The workers of Catatumbo are mired in forced displacement, fleeing the confrontation and targeting of armed groups fighting for control of this area and dominating drug trafficking, natural resources, and slave labor. These groups include the The National Liberation Army (ELN acronym in Spanish), which emerged as a revolutionary guerrilla group with a nationalist ideology; The Popular Front for Liberation (EPI acronym in Spanish), a reformist guerrilla group; the Rastrojos paramilitary group; the Gulf Clan; and state repression through its military forces.
All of these armed factions seek to dominate land ownership and oil production. This contradiction has claimed the lives of 60 people in the last month and displaced more than 40,000 people who resisted the plunder and exploitation of imperialist capitalism.
The social crisis in Colombia is part of the economic crisis of global capitalism, which is why there is no solution to problems that have lasted for more than a century. In this region, conditions of marginalization and neglect have left its inhabitants living for decades in uncertainty and instability due to violence.
The current and previous governments have promised investments, peace processes, demobilization, and the implementation of alternative developments to remove the population from these activities, but everything remains promises. The inhabitants have no choice but to work for organizations that murder, rape women, and impose terror, with the complacency of politicians, corrupt officials, and all kinds of mafias fighting over the multimillion-dollar profits.
These profits are generated by the smuggling of weapons, people, supplies, and drug trafficking. The internal boss struggles generate terror and racist displacement. These are not limited to Colombia; in Palestine, Mexico, Peru, and throughout the world, many workers are fleeing wars, unemployment, droughts, sexism, police brutality, and economic exploitation.
From Catatumbo to Gaza workers need communism!
Workers in Catatumbo have long struggled to escape these situations, but the state bosses have not allowed residents to propose solutions due to the contradictions surrounding capitalist profits. Instead, they enable armed groups to stigmatize social leaders, putting their lives at risk. Due to the border position of the region, armed groups exercise parallel governance, which benefits companies such as Ecopetrol, Hocal, Drummond,
Cerrejón, Cemex, Fedearroz, Alpina, and others.
These conditions also benefit corrupt rulers, public forces, and thugs, who demonstrate that wage exploitation and capitalist scourges are inevitable. Only the power and unity of the working class in the countryside and the city, students, and the dispossessed from all over the world, through struggle and organization for communist society, will we be able to put an end to the hell and dark night that capitalism has created.
Meanwhile, the current government makes deals with class enemies, speaks of total peace, saving democracy, and electoral politics to distance the working masses from the revolutionary path. Armed with our newspaper, DESAFIO (CHALLENGE), we are participating with different organizations in sit-ins, rallies, political discussions, and helping to paint murals in solidarity with displaced people.
