Here are some of the latest updates in the war the FARC is waging against the fascist, criminal oligarchic dictatorship that has always ruled Colombia. Please note that this blog supports the FARC's campaign to the hilt. The system in Colombia is shit, and it needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.
September 22: An Ecuadorian patrol occupied a FARC base along the border with Colombia, setting off a firefight in which 1 soldier was wounded.
October 8: The Ecuadorian Defense Minister noted that the border area of Ecuador and Colombia is is very thick with FARC guerrillas, which is amazing considering that the group is on the verge of collapse and defeat.
October 8: A force of 30 soldiers waded into a minefield in Barbacoas municipality in Nariño Department. 8 soldiers died in the ensuing explosions. Through August, the FARC, despite tottering on the edge of collapse, has somehow managed to kill 70 Colombian soldiers with landmines.
Barbacoas municipality in Nariño Department. This department borders on Ecuador.
Nariño Department in Colombia. The FARC is very active in this area along the border with Colombia.October 12: The FARC bombed two small hotels in Neiva, a city in the south of the country, killing 1 person and wounding 12 more. The motive for the attack was not known.
October 14: A community organizer was assassinated by paramilitaries while participating in a community meeting in Curvaradó in Choco Department. Walberto Hoyos Rivas was a community leader for two Afro-Colombian communities in the Bajo Atrato region of Choco Department.
Chocó Department in Colombia. This area has a large population of Afro-Colombians and there has been fierce fighting here for a long time. The fighting probably started in 1993 when the EPL, A Maoist force, appeared. Since then, paramilitaries have taken over much of the province, but obviously, they haven't helped anyone.In March, 2007, it was reported that 50 kids starved to death here in less than three months. This is some of the richest land on Earth, but most of the population lives in horrible poverty. Most of the land is controlled by a tiny, murderous elite who are always seizing new peasant lands, using the Colombian military and the paramilitaries as their enforcers.
There is 400 inches of rain here, making this area the rainiest lowland on Earth. Nevertheless, the capital of the Department, Quibdó, has no water supply. The population here is mostly Afro-Colombians and Zambos (Black and Indian mixed race)
He led groups that opposed armed seizures by the fascist Colombian military of peasants' land by rich scum in order to convert peasant farms into palm oil plantations and cattle ranches. If peasants oppose the armed seizure of their lands, this is what happens to them.
People here wonder why I support the FARC. This is why. There is no space for democratic opposition to the murderous Colombian elite. If you go against them, you may just die. Under those circumstances, the entire unarmed Left may as well just take up arms instead of waiting for the army to come out and kill you.
Furthermore, this is why the FARC even exists in the first place. If the government and the oligarchy didn't run around murdering people who went against, the FARC would never have needed to take up arms in the first place.
October 15: A private helicopter carrying a commander of the Army's 8th Mobile Brigade went down during an operation against the FARC in Tolima Department. 4 soldiers, including the commander, were killed. The helicopter was apparently shot down by the FARC.
Tolima Department in Colombia. Large agriculture is big here, in particular large plantations.October 16: Ecuadorian forces carried out raids on FARC camps in Buena Vista and along the Putumayo River in Sucumbios Province. Guerrillas abandoned the camps and fled across the border to Colombia. The Ecuadorians may be doing this because Colombia is threatening them over the presence of FARC camps in Ecuador.
Sucumbios Province in Ecuador. Long a FARC haven. My understanding as of a couple of years ago was that most of the peasants in this region supported the FARC, but I don't have any recent data.October 19: FARC Guerrillas passing a military checkpoint in La Momposina in the department of Guaviare on a motorcycle threw explosives at the soldiers as they rode by, killing 3 and wounding 15 more. Guaviare is swarming with FARC guerrillas, which is amazing considering that the organization has been decimated and is on the brink of defeat.
Guaviare Department in the jungles of Colombia, swarming with nearly-defeated FARC guerrillas hiding behind just about every bush. I believe there is a lot of coca growing and cocaine production in this department.October 20: Reports indicate that the FARC has actually made alliances with some of the demobilized paramilitary gangs which were used as death squads to carry out the government's dirty war against the Colombian people.
A number of new organizations have sprung up in the wake of the demobbing of the paramilitaries, but the FARC has entered into nonaggression pacts with some of them, such as the "Don Mario" organization and Pedro 'Cuchillo' Olivero Guerrero's gang, while waging war on others, such as the Águilas Negras.
The fact that pacts are being made with some of these new paramilitaries shows that they are more interested in control of drug trafficking than anything else.
October 30: An excellent article by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), Colombia’s Political Horizon: The Rise of a New Left, notes the rise of a new leftwing political party in Colombia, the Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA, or Polo).
The PDA somehow managed to get 22% of the vote in the last Presidential election, which is amazing for a country in which leftwing candidates are typically murdered like flies. The party's ideology ranges from moderates to hard Left. Some demobbed guerrillas from the ELN are reportedly participating in the party.
In Bogotá, the country’s capital, PDA mayoral candidate Samuel Moreno defeated the Urubista candidate, so the PDA now controls the capital city itself.
Uribe's support is high but thin. 80% of the population lives in poverty, and Uribe has deep ties to the murderous oligarchy that has always run the country, including personal ties to the paramilitary death squads.
He has run on a security first ticket, and he has indeed pursued the war with the FARC vigorously. The FARC is now under the worst pressure that any Latin American guerrilla group has ever been under and they have suffered some serious blows.
As representative for the murderous elite, of course, Uribe has not and will never do anything to improve the shitty lives of the overwhelming majority of Colombians.
When he ran for office, Uribe formed a new political party, splitting off from the Liberals and Conservatives, two oligarchy-based parties that hate each other, despite being almost identical ideologically. He played off the fact that people are sick and tired of these corrupt, horrible and decrepit parties.
Uribe was elected by a wide margin in the last election, but 75% of Colombians didn't even bother to vote. Political surveys are done by phone, and most rural Colombians don't even have one. So a vast section of the electorate has nothing whatsoever to do with national politics.
The Polo has a Leftist platform similar to that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The Polo has been making inroads in devastated slums that no major candidate would ever think of entering.
The Polo also has a good approach on the insurgency. Their idea is apparently with a Polo government in power, the FARC would probably disarm or declare a ceasefire and go into electoral politics. I think that analysis may be correct. Electing the Polo may be the best way to end this long civil war.
Great article - highly recommended! Finally, some good news to come out of this tragic country.
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