Colombia: Against forced recruitment – Insubordination!

The education of military personnel, from the soldier to the highest ranks,
necessarily turns them into enemies of the civilian society and the people.
Mikhail Bakunin


Once again, on last Tuesday, December 13th, the Colombian State, head of its repressive military forces, called thousands of young people into its clutches to meet the demands of ‘democracy’. Tortuous ranks, tears of disconsolate fathers and mothers, corruption such as the State only knows how to make and a murderous apparatus feeding itself is all that we can think of on this new day.

For us, the libertarians, the military service — compulsory or not — must disappear, like any other hierarchical and/or permanent political–military apparatus. But we cannot have double standards; the revolution that we want (a social one) should fight against the Capital for freedom, equality and justice, therefore it cannot become a struggle that denies the social freedom of the individual, nor a hierarchical one, let alone a struggle that sacrifices means for ends. In this vein, it is here that we refuse to submit to both the right-wing State and the left opposition whose sole purpose is the seizure of power.

Following this reasoning, we should conceive militarism as a natural violent expression of capitalism and the State, the tool by which the social struggles of the people are repressed. We must also understand that it is legalized and moralized by the same government which makes its oppression seen in the eyes of the people as a concept that transcends beyond the physical (weapons, soldiers, military infrastructure, etc.) and turns into violent and discriminatory aptitudes induced by the bourgeoisie (speciesism, sexism, racism, etc.), which are used in turn to justify the existence of the state ‘law enforcement’, thus completing the self-destructive cycle of capitalism.

Thus, the State puts its weapons in the hands of the people (especially the youth) in order to suppress the very people and struggles. It is obvious that the government seeks to fill its ranks with unemployed youths without education, coming from grassroots sectors and vulnerable population. For this reason the antimilitarist struggle must also be the struggle of those below against those above.

We must continue the struggle for the complete abolition of obligatory military service, but with a vision always focused on the demise of the army, the police and the State. The conscientious objection, as antimilitary tool, must remain widespread and supported from anarchism, by stressing that it is one of the many expressions of insubordination to any government and of the social struggle in which we find ourselves. We also call for an active — and not passive — antimilitarism, libertarian and, above all, connected with the people’s struggle, the class struggle… and the struggle for complete and integral freedom.

Colectivo Libertario Thrash Iria
http://thrashiria.blogspot.com/

Source: Portal Libertario OACA via Fear to Sleep
http://www.portaloaca.com/articulos/opinion/4319-colombia-contra-el-reclutamiento-forzado-iinsumision.html

http://feartosleep.blogspot.com/2012/01/colombia-contra-el-reclutamiento.html

In Colombia men are obliged to arrange their military status upon reaching
18 years of age.

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/