A Workers’ History of Fake Leftists in Latin America

With history as a guide, the current “peace” process between the Colombian government and the FARC will only lead to more misery for the working class. FARC, who had abandoned revolutionary struggle decades ago, will only serve as the new bosses in the capitalist government.  We have seen this happen in a number of Latin American countries.  Below are just three examples.   
Nicaragua’s Sandinistas
In 1979, in Nicaragua, the so-called “Marxist” rebel Sandinista army overthrew the U.S.-backed fascist regime of Anastasio Somoza. Somoza’s family had long ruled Nicaragua under the command of Citigroup, the U.S. ruling class’ most powerful bank. After the Sandinista uprising, the U.S. bosses used the profits of weapons sales to Iran (provoking the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war) to finance an army of death squads in Nicaragua, called the “Contras.”
The ensuing civil war was coordinated directly by the CIA. The Contras also began growing cocaine  – which first made its way to the streets of Black neighborhoods in the U.S. during this period. Following a brave mass fightback against tens of thousands of deaths, and even more raped and tortured by the Contras, the Sandinistas agreed to a ceasefire deal and “open” elections in 1990. Instead of organizing the masses around fighting for a workers’ dictatorship, the Sandinistas agreed to participate in the capitalist dictatorship’s “free and fair” elections. They were immediately voted out of power by a coalition of CIA-financed parties.
For the next 16 years, with the Sandinistas as the “official” parliamentary opposition, Nicaragua dropped to becoming the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti. Under the presidency of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega since 2006, half of all children and adolescents live in poverty. There were 240,000 workers between the ages of five and 17 in the early 2000s(The Guardian, 5/19/15).
El Salvador’s FMLN
In El Salvador throughout the 1980s, a heroic armed struggle led by the “Marxist” Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN) fought the fascist U.S.-backed government. CIA and Pentagon-trained death squads slaughtered more than 70,000 workers, and raped, tortured, and mutilated tens of thousands more. The FMLN’s armed struggle defended and was supported by the working class. Instead of seizing state power for the working class, they followed the pattern of the Sandinista class traitors, and surrendered, negotiating participation in the capitalist government. After consecutive FMLN Presidents, every one out of three workers lives below the poverty line. Crime and gang activity continue to bring misery to the working class, making it the murder capital of the world.
Guatemala’s URNG
In Guatemala, following a 36-year insurgency following the CIA coup in 1954, the “Marxist” Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) led an armed struggle against the fascist U.S.-backed regime for 36 years. In 1987, they entered UN-sponsored “peace” negotiations. They became a legal political party in 1998. With U.S. president Bill Clinton making a vague reference to the “dark” decades of U.S. atrocities there, the URNG misleaders won the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently, about 60 percent of Guatemalan workers live in poverty.  Like El Salvador and Honduras, millions of workers are leaving the country because of the gang wars created by capitalism.
According to Jay Root of the Texas Tribune,On top of gang violence, there is staggering income inequality, high youth unemployment and low high school graduation rates, particularly in heavily indigenous Guatemala. About 60 percent of the people in Honduras and Guatemala live in poverty” (10/10).
According to the same article, “for the first time since records have been kept, more non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. That will almost certainly happen again in 2016, the latest figures indicate.”  
Millions of workers bravely fought and died in these movements, believing they would lead to revolution. Participating in capitalist governments has only led to continued and increasing misery for the working class. It did bring power to the workers. PLP fights to organize the veterans of these struggles, and the heirs to their vision of a communist world. Only by building a mass, revolutionary communist party can we defeat the bosses once and for all.