i took the time yesterday night to translate this article for my colleagues - we are running an activity at school about the colombian conflict on monday morning, february 4th - the day of the international march for peace in colombia. wherever you are please check out the following website for info about marches near YoU.
www.colombiasoyyo.orgThis article was written for El Pais, one of the main newspapers in Spain, by Joaquin Villalobos, one of the biggest leaders of the Salvadoran Guerrillas in the 1980s and 1990s.
Legitimacy instead of mistreated hostages.
Joaquin Villalobos, JAN 16 2008, “ El Pais”, Spain
When I first began to learn about the Colombian conflict, I found it hard to believe that the leaders of the FARC travelled in air conditioned vehicles and that their camps had many commodities. It also surprised me that many of their commanders were clearly overweight. The Salvadoran civil war was explained by the excessive power of the state, but in contrast, the Colombian conflict is explained essentially by the inability of the state to control their own territory. Colombia has regions where there hasn’t been government control for over 40 years. This space was filled by paramilitaries, guerrilleros, narco-traffickers and bandits that converted themselves automatically into authority, with the indifference or consent of governments.
The Salvadoran guerrillas were fighting in each square meter of our small country against an authoritarian government that was militarily supported by the USA. In Colombia, on the other hand, the FARC have been a sedentary guerrilla force, that have controlled extensive territories where there hasn’t been government presence without much fighting. For this reason, they have been in the mountains for 43 years and some of their leaders have died from old age. Also in Colombia, however, the M-19 Movement (19th of April) was the first Latin American guerrilla group that negotiated political reform, at the cost of many lives. Now, the M-19, as the political party Polo Democratico, is a part of the political opposition in the country. It is possible that the left could win the next elections in Colombia, as in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Panama, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
Some continue to view countries in Latin America as banana republics, where political violence is legitimate. Geographical control, and an increase in money earned from cocaine coincide with the growth of FARC violence in the 90s. Before then, they were a lazy insurgence, and because of that held little relevance. In 1990, when their political leader Jacobo Arenas died, the FARC was left without an ideological base in the face increasing numbers of cocaine plantations in their territories. They began to extort narco-traffickers and ended up in control of the majority of the cocaine production in the world. They transitioned from the last political guerrilla into the first narco-trafficking army, converting themselves into a real challenge to the Colombian state. The governments of the past 20 years have had to strengthen state authority and correct past abuses. First, they made peace with the political insurgents, and later they dismantled the big drug cartels headed by Pablo Escobar. Next, the central government came up with successful ways to combat the culture of violence, and finally they began to regain control of the countryside. They proposed negotiations with the FARC, which failed due to the kidnapping of 12 parliamentarians that were eventually executed in June of 2007. The force of both the military and the police grew, and they became a permanent part of municipal governments of the 1120 municipalities of Colombia. The Paramilitaries were fought and began to be demobilized. The Guerrilla leaders lost their vehicles with air conditioning and their camps with refrigerators. Cornered, they turned to terrorism. One hundred and seventeen townspeople died while taking refuge in the Bellavista church, when it was destroyed by the FARC. A car bomb with 200 kilos of explosives demolished a Bogota club full of families. These acts became the norm, and deaths and injuries of civilians numbered in the thousands.
Now, the FARC´s violence is sporadic. In 2007 they were not able to take hostages within areas controlled by the state. Many of their combatants are demobilizing themselves voluntarily -2400 last year. There is also evidence that some leaders of the guerrilla have regained their comforts and commodities on the other side of the Colombia-Venezuela border.
The FARC does not have a future as a guerrilla force, even though they do have a future as narco-traffickers. The immense Colombian jungle allows them to keep the people they kidnapped in the past hidden and to use them as their last bit of political power. The rough conditions in which they keep these people is evidence of low morale and loss of control among the FARC, supported by the fact that they didn’t know the whereabouts of the child Emmanuel. The FARC have made kidnapping, narco-trafficking and extortion their principal activities. They are the best kidnappers on the planet.
An insurgent group can negotiate for political legitimacy in many ways that are just, however, to demand legitimacy in exchange for mistreated hostages and death threats is equivalent to asking for respect for being evil. The anti-neoliberal ideals of the FARC do not justify exploiting the pain of the hostages or their families. If Chavez were helping rescue hostages only to do something positive, it would be a good thing. If his political recognition of the FARC revives the violence in Colombia, however, it opens the doors of his country to the drug trade and turns him into a guardian of these cruel narco-terrorists.
take a think, march on monday.
no more FARC. no more paramilitaries. no more violence. we want peace.
colombia soy yo.
