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 Kolumbijski FARC potvrdio smrt vođe Marulanda

[b]Manuel Marulanda[/b] je bio osnivač i vođa FARC-a, a umro je od posljedica srčanog udara  na rukama svojih suboraca i drugova.



Kolumbijska ljevičarska pobunjenička skupina FARC je potvrdila da je njihov dugogodišnji vođa Manuel Marulanda umro  od posljedica srčanog udara. Nagađanja da je vođa umro su počela još u subotu kada su mediji prenijeli izjave iz redova dužnosnika kolumbijske vojske, a informaciju je potvrdio i kolumbijski ministar obrane Juan Manuel Santos u svom intervjuu tjedniku Semana.

No, čekala se potvrda smrti od strane same pobunjeničke skupine jer je kolumbijska vlada Marulanda već 17 puta proglašavala mrtvima. Ta je potvrda došla u nedjelju kada je FARC objavio priopćenje u kojem je napisao da je ''veliki vođa mrtav'', piše bbc.

Novi vođa je Alfons Cano

Manuela Marulanda će zamijeniti Alfonso Cano koji se već smatra ideološkim vođom grupe. Neki stručnjaci smatraju da bi smrt osnivača mogla značiti i kraj ove gerilske grupe, dok drugi misle da bi Cano mogao prekinuti niz poraza koje su pobunjenici doživjeli u posljednje vrijeme.

Bilo kako bilo, nešto će se u organizaciji i djelovanju FARC-a pod novim vođom sigurno promijeniti.


Betancourt: Uribe bi trebao ublažiti ton s FARC-om

PARIZ - Kolumbijski predsjednik Alvaro Uribe trebao bi ublažiti ton kad govori o gerilcima FARC-a, rekla je nedavno oslobođena Ingrid Betancourt, pozvavši Uribea na prekid govora mržnje.

Betancourt je prošlog tjedna oslobođena nakon više od šest godina zatočeništva kod pripadnika Revolucionarnih oružanih snaga Kolumbije (FARC), koji još drže stotine talaca pa je Betancourt, koja je 48 sati nakon oslobađanja otputovala u Francusku, rekla kako bi kolumbijski predsjednik morao promijeniti taktiku ako ih želi pokušati osloboditi.

"Predsjednik Uribe i ne samo on, već cijela Kolumbija, trebali bi promijeniti neke stvari", izjavila je Betancourt za radio RFI u prvoj javnoj kritici upućenoj nekadašnjem političkom protivniku nakon povratka na slobodu.

"Mislim da je vrijeme za promjenu govora radikalizma, ekstremizma i mržnje, snažnih riječi koje nanose duboku bol ljudskom biću", rekla je, dodavši kako su potrebni snošljivost i poštovanje. "Postoji trenutak u kojem se netko mora odlučiti razgovarati s ljudima koje mrzi", dodala je.

Betancourt se natjecala protiv Uribea na izborima 2002., ali je oteta uoči njihovog održavanja. Već su se pojavile glasine da bi se mogla uključiti u sljedeću predstojeću utrku, nakon što Uribeu istekne drugi i posljednji predsjednički mandat.

Colombians Stage `Million Voices' March Against FARC

 Millions of Colombians dressed in white marched throughout the country and in major cities worldwide today to express outrage at 40 years of violence and kidnapping by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Helicopters hovered over Bogota, car horns sounded and workers threw paper from windows as the march, dubbed ``A Million Voices Against the FARC,'' began. Protesters in 27 cities in Colombia and 104 worldwide are marching. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who backed the march, has called on citizens to pressure the country's biggest guerrilla group to free its 750 prisoners held in jungle camps.

``The FARC is behind most of the suffering in Colombia,'' said Jaime Vaquero, a Colombian who organized the march in Ottawa, Canada. ``Kidnapping is abominable and the FARC can't remain indifferent to the millions of voices against them.''

The protest has attracted more attention since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last month urged that the FARC, classified as a terrorist group by the U.S., be recognized as an ``army'' with legitimate goals. Chavez's call upon governments across Latin America and Europe to recognize the FARC was widely rejected.

`Reject the FARC'

``This is Colombia in its entirety saying no more FARC,'' said Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo in Bogota's Plaza Bolivar before chanting ``no more FARC, no more FARC.''

Organizers said they expect at least 5 million marchers worldwide. Major Ricardo Gomez Blanco, spokesman for the Colombian national police, said it's impossible to estimate how many will join the march, though he said he expects it to be bigger than a July 5 march in which more than 3 million people took part.

In Venezuela, protesters filled the Francisco de Miranda avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in eastern Caracas, waving white flags and wearing white T-shirts.

``I came to support the Colombian people,'' said Marianella Col, 56, a housewife from Caracas's Altamira district. ``When Chavez says the FARC aren't terrorists, he's wrong. They're kidnappers and assassins.''

Street vendors in Bogota sold T-shirts emblazoned with the march's slogan: ``No more kidnapping; no more lies; no more deaths; no more FARC.''

FARC Hostages

``I have never sold so many shirts in a single weekend,'' said Emilio Avila, as he handed over three of the T-shirts.

Armed with modern weapons and financed by drug funds and ransom payments, the 14,000-strong rebel group incurred widespread anger last month after releasing two women held captive for six years only to seize six tourists four days later. The group released videos and letters from hostages, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, chained and looking emaciated. Some were chained by the neck.

``This is very emotional,'' Clara Rojas, former vice presidential candidate and one of the women released Jan. 10, said on RCN television. ``I just hope the FARC listen to this.''

The FARC, which describes itself as the ``People's Army,'' said in a message to Venezuela's Information Ministry yesterday that it will release three more hostages to Chavez. Gloria Polanco de Losada, Luis Eladio Perez and Orlando Beltran Cuellar, all former Colombian lawmakers, will be freed due to poor health, the guerrillas said in the statement.

Stand United

``We stand united against the FARC,'' said Lucila Castro, 64, after singing the national anthem. ``No one backs their terrorist ways and hopefully united we can make them change.''

Millions of Colombians protested in July after 11 lawmaker hostages were killed just weeks after Uribe freed 150 guerrillas. The rebels claimed the captives were killed in crossfire after an identified armed group approached the guerrilla camp.

Michael Shifter, a vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, said the march won't have any influence on the guerrilla group, which earns billions of dollars controlling most of the coca production in Colombia.

``They have factored into their strategy that there is widespread revulsion of them,'' Shifter said. ``The march will be a reminder to the world, but the problem won't go away.''

Many companies have given workers time off to join the protest, including Bogota's stock exchange. Trading was suspended today for five minutes as traders went to the streets.

``The march is a rejection of the FARC but also of Chavez,'' Shifter said. ``This will send a strong message to Chavez that Colombia is totally against the FARC and his support of them.''

Colombian guerrillas, paramilitaries and criminal groups hold more than 3,000 hostages who are used to raise funds for weapons purchases and drug trafficking.

Military Crackdown

Since his election in 2002, Uribe has launched a military crackdown on the FARC and on the smaller National Liberation Army as well as their rightist paramilitary foes.

Kidnapping has fallen by 83 percent since 2002 and homicides are down 40 percent, according to government figures. Terrorist attacks are down 76 percent.

About 40,000 paramilitary and guerrilla fighters have handed in their weapons in return for reduced jail sentences and job training, according to the government.

The FARC first appeared in 1964, when Manuel Marulanda and 48 rebels were attacked by thousands of troops in a jungle hideout and has since battled 11 administrations.

 The Women of the FARC 


Latin America’s most deadly terrorist organization, the FARC,cultivates an image of romance and revolution. To emphasize their revolutionary egalitarianism they highlight the importance of women in the ranks. Approximately a quarter to a third of the FARC fighters are women, and pictures on the FARC’s website nearly always include a few FARCettes. Sympathetic journalists have gushed over the guerilleras and the FARC’s own descriptions of FARC life verge on pornography (I’ve excerpted examples of both below). The reality is of course quite different (see this excerpt from a report by Human Rights Watch.) A recent dramatic demonstration of this unreality came when a FARCette named Angelica hijacked a plane in order to escape her life with FARC and surrender to Colombia authorities.

Nonetheless, FARC propaganda works and occasionally attracts international recruits such as Tanja Nijmieijer, a young Dutch woman who, filled with revolutionary fervor joined the FARC. Portions of her diary were found when Colombian forces raided a FARC camp in August. The picture is not pretty, not frightening, more banal. But a far cry from the egalitarian image the FARC seeks to project. Based on Tanja's description, it is a movement of petty tyrants.

Terrorist groups need to be defeated by arms, but also in battle. Destroying the FARC’s progressive image and splitting it from its connections with the international left is a key component in neutralizing it overall and perhaps bringing some peace to Colombia.

Compare and contrast, excerpts below:

Here is a fawning piece in which life with the FARC is portrayed as an Outward Bound personal growth experience:

    …there was little doubt that the guerrillas in that particular camp had achieved an impressive degree of gender equality. It was not just evident in their activities and words but, more importantly, in their way of being.

    …The softness of the energy exhibited by the male rebels towards their female colleagues, their absolute lack of machismo, their acceptance of them as equals, was actually quite astounding. And for the women, they also exhibited many feminine qualities for a group of females living a traditionally male lifestyle. In fact, maintaining their femininity was important to the female guerrillas. During off-duty hours we often observed female rebels getting together to apply make-up or to braid each other’s hair. Evidently, equality in that FARC camp was not about women acting like men.


This innocence hardly compares with FARC’s own writing about the FARCettes. LOVE BENEATH THE INTIMACY OF THE MOSQUITO NETTING, which reads like a bad undergrad imitation of Gabriel Garcia Maquez style magical realism, is no longer on the FARC’s website, but can be read in its entirety here:

    To form a couple they talk to the commander: "We want to be partners." The commander calls them both in and explains: "you have to behave in such-a-such way, respect each other, be with this person only, not with one and then another because if there is not respect, they don't let them be together and they separate them..." Sonia expanded her observation….

    "There are no marriages here, there are loving Associations," stated Diana. There are very intense relationships. The intimacy of any relationship follows: they join their tents and their beds. Intimacy is born beneath the intensity of the mosquito net, the neighboring tent doesn't matter. Cries are stifled, you learn how to stifle the passionate outburst of orgasm in complete silence, in the silence of mingled sweat and the pleasure that invites blissful sleep, intertwined. "The couple shares the same tent and you get used to intimacy with other tents close by. It is not like intimacy in civilian life. For example, there are also places where they are in general quarters, so you sleep in one bed on one big frame or blanket. Sometimes they put a couple beside you, or a single compañero/a, and then you could say that privacy is the mosquito net. This is intimacy in the guerrilla." said Eliana.



Commander Sonia, long my favorite FARCette, is now serving a 16 year sentence for conspiring to produce and import cocaine.




Here, for a different perspective are some excerpts from Ms. Nijmieijer’s diary. One of these three things doesn’t belong (but which one is closest to the true):

    21 July 2006: …I almost forgot the big news: two comrades have AIDS, and there may be more. No one here uses contraceptives. The girlfriend of one of them has no idea what it means. She told me the news with a big grin and her boyfriend seems totally unconcerned. Another girl, who used to have a relationship with the man, is really worried.

    24 November 2006: I'm tired, tired of the FARC, tired of people and tired of living in this commune. I'm fed up of never having anything of my own. All of this would have a purpose if you knew what you were fighting for. I don't believe in it any more. What sort of rebel movement is this? Only a few people have money or cigarettes or sweets and the rest of us have to beg for a share, but you know the higher-ups will just be nasty and say no. It was exactly the same four years ago when I joined, nothing has changed. A girl with big tits and a pretty face can totally undermine a unit that has worked together for ages (...) I don't know if I'll ever get out of this jungle (...) I want to get out of here, at least out this unit. But you know that you're a sort of prisoner here (...) It's not the FARC so much as this unit.(...) but had enough of all that blah blah blah about being a Communist (...)

    (No date): Dear Jans, there's a party today. But of course the commandants and their women have had their own private party. It's so corrupt. And now all the lower ranks are allowed to drink whatever the head honchos couldn't manage to pour down their throats yesterday (...) Yesterday that idiot Margaret offered me some sweets. That bitch had a great big bag of sweets. I felt so humiliated. A woman who is with one of the commandants is in a totally different class. They have privileges and they give orders. But they also have to produce children.

Posted by Aaron Mannes at 4:52 PM
Labels: FARC, Modernization/Development, Venezuela, Women's Rights
4 comments:

Anonymous said...

    i question the authenticity of your diaries
    April 6, 2008 11:24 PM
Anonymous said...

    How would you know?
    May 22, 2008 11:26 AM
Anonymous said...

    there is enough evidence and interviews that i have to ask...who would question this? good work...i hope to see more of this. please bring light to the dark

FARC oslobodio četvero talaca!

Pripadnici Revolucionarnih oružanih snaga Kolumbije (FARC) oslobodili su četvero talaca - trojicu policajaca i jednog vojnika, koje su držali zatočene više od godinu dana
'Pustili su nas uz uvjet da tijekom dana medijima prenesemo neke njihove zahtjeve. Ako ih novinari ne objave, naći će se na njihovu popisu za otmice', izjavio je Walter Lozano, jedan od oslobođenih talaca.

Unatoč tomu što ljevičarski pobunjenici iz FARC-a sve češće gubi bitke s vladinim snagama, i dalje u neprohodnim dijelovima zemlje drže gotovo tisuću otetih osoba.

Oslobođeni taoci prebačeni su danas brazilskim helikopterom Crvenog križa s tajne lokacije na jugu zemlje do jednog grada 90 kilometara istočno od Bogote.

Najavljeno je puštanje na slobodu Alana Jara, bivšeg guvernera koji je otet još 2001. godine.

Predviđen je i treći let helikoptera Crvenog križa, jer bi do kraja tjedna mogao biti pušten i pravnik Sigifredo Lopez.

Ministarstvo obrane Kolumbije priopćilo je da će vojne operacije u blizini mjesta preuzimanja talaca biti obustavljene.

Riječ je o prvom oslobađanju talaca u proteklih godinu dana. FARC je prošle godine pretrpio niz udaraca, uključujući smrt trojice zapovjednika, dezerterstvo i spašavanje grupe važnih talaca, koje su htjeli iskoristiti za postizanje nagodbe.