Kongressman Ng Columbia, Inatake, Patay!

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Spanish translation (en Español). French translation (en Français).

This is the Tagalog translation of the Colombian Congressman Has Stroke on Live TV post.

Dito sa videong ito, kuha sa di masabing oras, isang kongressman na taga Columbia, si Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo, ay kasalukuyang pinapaliwanag sa mga mamamayang Columbian, ang batas nang bigla siyang atakihin.

Nasa kalagitnaan siya ng pagsasalita nang bigla niyang sinabi, pasensiya na, ito, ito...Tapos sinabi niyang inaatake siya. Namatay siya sa ataking iyon. Masasabi mong atake dahil sa panginginig ng buo niyang katawan.

Ang ilaw ay kaiba sa videong ito. Pagkatapos niyang atakihin, ang ilaw ay biglang lumabo siguro dahil sa ang lahat ng lalaking nakaitim na kasuutan ay naglapitan sa kanya, kaya ang nangyari ang iris ng camera ay umayon sa pagbabago ng ilaw ng kapaligiran at makakakuha ka ng magandang resulta dito.

Un Représentant du Congrès Victime d'une Attaque Cérébrale en Direct à la Télé

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Spanish translation (en Español). Tagalog translation (isinalin sa Tagalog).

This is the French translation of the Colombian Congressman Has Stroke on Live TV post. Translator: Natalie from France.

Voici encore une incroyable vidéo. On ne connais pas la date exacte de cette vidéo, on y voit un membre du congrès colombien, Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo, qui est en train de discuter à propos de la réforme de la lois colombienne qui permettra que les citoyens colombiens obtiennent l'autorisation de faire certaines choses, quand soudain il est victime d'une attaque cérébrale.

Alors qu'il est en plein milieu de son discours, soudain, il dit « je suis désolé, c'est.....c'est..... » puis il s'effondre et meurt victime d'une attaque cérébrale. On peut deviner qu'il s'agit d'une attaque parce qu'il tremble.

L'éclairage est bizarre. Après le malaise, l'éclairage devient plus lumineux. Cela est probablement dû au fait que de nombreux hommes en costumes sombres arrivent sur la scène filmée. Lorsque cela se produit, la caméra compense en éclaircissant de façon intéressante.

RIP Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo.
Repose en paix Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo

Un Congresista Colombiano tiene un Derrame Cerebral en Televisión

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French translation (en Français). Tagalog translation (isinalin sa Tagalog).

This is the Spanish translation of the Colombian Congressman Has Stroke on Live TV post.

Y aquí tenemos otro vídeo increíble. En este vídeo (que se grabó en una fecha desconocida) un congresista de Colombia, José Fernando Castro Caycedo, está hablando sobre la reforma de la ley colombiana que permitiría que los ciudadanos obtuvieran permisos del gobierno para hacer determinadas cosas, cuando de repente sufre un derrame cerebral.

Él está en medio de su discurso cuando de improvisto dice "Lo siento... Es... es...". Entonces tiene el derrame cerebral. Murió como resultado de esta apoplejía. Por la manera en que empieza a temblar está claro que es un derrame.

La iluminación de este vídeo es algo extraña. Después de que José Fernando Castro sufre el derrame, la iluminación de repente se vuelve mucho más fuerte. Esto es probablemente debido a todos los hombres vestidos con trajes oscuros que se aparecen precipitadamente en la escena. Cuando esto ocurre, el iris de la cámara tiene que compensar debido al cambio en la iluminación, y de este modo obtener efectos interesantes.

DEP José Fernando Castro Caycedo.

Colombian Congressman Has Stroke on Live TV

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Spanish translation (en Español). French translation (en Français). Tagalog translation (isinalin sa Tagalog).

Yet another incredible video. In this video shot at an unknown time, a Congressman from Colombia, Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo, is discussing the reform of Colombian law that would mandate that citizens get permission from the government to do something, when suddenly he has a stroke.

He is in the middle of his spiel when suddenly he says, "...Sorry, it's...it's..." Then he says he is having a stroke. He died as a result of this stroke. You can tell it's a stroke by the way he keeps falling to his left side, which indicates a right brain stroke.

The lighting is strange in this video. After he has his stroke, the lighting suddenly becomes much lighter. This is probably due to all of the men in dark clothes who have rushed to the scene. When this happens, the iris of the camera has to compensate due to the change in lighting and you can get some interesting effects.

RIP Jose Fernando Castro Caycedo.

Updates From the "Defeated" FARC

In the 3-month period encompassing August, September and October, 107 FARC guerrilla attacks took place. That is over one attack per day. During that period, the Colombian military suffered 131 killed and 358 wounded, for a total of 489 casualties. The military suffered over 1 killed and 4 wounded per day, or almost 6 casualties a day. Pretty good for a guerrilla army on the verge of defeat.

489 casualties, and not one word on any of it from the US corporate media. No wonder Americans think the guerrilla is near defeat.

20 businesses were attacked in various cities and towns,including Bogotá, for refusal to pay revolutionary taxes. 2 helicopters were shot down and 6 more were hit by guerrilla fire.

Apparently these figures are for the Eastern Bloc of the guerrilla alone, but a Spanish speaker may want to look that over, because my Spanish is not that great.

Make no mistake about it, the FARC is undergoing some hard times. But only six years ago, they were said to be on the verge of taking over the country. This army has been around for 43 years and they have been on the verge of defeat for real many times. They recovered every time. It is probably not possible to defeat the FARC militarily.

Red Resistencia is an interesting FARC website, with very regular and well-done communiques from the "defeated" guerrillas. ANNCOL, the New Colombian News Agency, is frankly nothing more than the news agency of the FARC, but it is very well done, with many new stories filed every day. I can't understand how a defeated guerrilla army does such a great job of keeping up these websites.

ANNCOL-Brasil (in Portuguese) is the support network of the "defeated guerrillas" in Brazil, where they have long had a large support base, especially with members of the PT ruling party (though probably not the Lulaistas - the supporters of the moderating Presidency of Lula).

The website of the Colombian Communist Party, and its famous newspaper, Voz. FARC has always been nothing more than the armed wing of this party. The PCC site is also very well-done. The nicely-done website of the "defeated" FARC Eastern Bloc.

The FARC is deeply allied with both the Cuban regime and with Chavez' government in Venezuela (Yes, the propaganda is true.). As far as how deep that alliance goes, I have no idea. Apporea is a leftwing, pro-Chavez site out of Venezuela.

The FARC is also allied with the FSLN Sandinista party (and presumably the Sandinista government) of Nicaragua (Yes, this is true too.). The website of Chavez' Telesur TV out of Venezuela, designed to provide a progressive alternative to the rightwing Latin American media. Mundial is a leftwing radio station out of Venezuela, also run by the Venezuelan government - this is their website, with lots of text on it.

All of the above is in Spanish only.

Latest News on the FARC in Colombia

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

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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Reports of the FARC's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Following up on an earlier post, it appears that reports of the FARC's death have been greatly exaggerated. For example, in the very short period between when the media learned of the death of FARC commander Manuel Marulanda in late May 2006 until the accession of Alfonso Cano, an anthropologist, in late June, to the top leadership position, many attacks were waged by the FARC.

I count 23 attacks over a 27 day period, and those are only the attacks that were covered by the press. Many others are not even reported.

The FARC bombed the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline in Norte de Santander, shutting it down.

On May 27, the FARC's 50th Front bombed a train carrying coal in La Guajira department, derailing it.

From May 30 to June 3, there was heavy fighting between the FARC's 21st Front and the Colombian Army in Zaragoza, Antioquia, which caused the displacement of 500 civilians.

Around May 31, the FARC's 59th Front blew up power pylons and burned trucks at roadblocks in La Guajira department.

On June 4, the FARC's 50th Front used a roadside bomb to attack a police convoy with three trucks and 30 policemen near Génova, on the border between Valle del Cauca and Quindío departments. Three police were killed and three more were wounded in this attack.

On June 4, the FARC detonated a land mine on an army patrol in Quebrada Seca, near the city of Peque e Ituango, in northwestern Antioquia. 1 soldier was killed and seven more were wounded.

On June 4, a member of the paramilitary death squad The Heroes of Granada was assassinated in the middle of Medellin in the district of Manrique-Las Granjas. The FARC may have been responsible.

Between June 7-11, the FARC carried out five attacks on military personnel in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca.

On June 9, the FARC shot down a Colombian Air Force UH-60 helicopter in Mayoyoque, near Puerto Guzmán in Putumayo. The helicopter was destroyed and three soldiers were wounded.

On June 9, the FARC's 8th Front destroyed three power pylons in Patía, Cauca.

On July 14 and 15, the FARC bombed a police station in Tarazá, Antioquia, wounding four policemen.

On July 14 and 15, the FARC's 9th Front bombed a hotel in Granada where army intelligence was staying and bombed a police station in the same city. There were no casualties.

On June 15, the FARC's 50th Front detonated a land mine on an army patrol in Quindío, killing two soldiers.

On June 16, the FARC bombed four targets in the heart of Bogotá, including a police station in the Suba district in northwestern Bogotá.

On June 22, a FARC detachment attacked a police patrol near a police station in Caguán, Huila, killing one policeman and wounding one more.

I Thought the FARC Was "Near Defeat"?

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Guess not.

Nope.

This is one hardass rebel army. The US corporate media says they still have 7,000 men under arms, down from 17,000, and in my opinion, their militia numbers in the 100,000's. I strongly disagree with the 7,000 number, and I think the actual number of FARC troops is probably at least 20,000. They have a presence all over the nation and in several surrounding countries too.

It's true that they have been dealing with the most intensive military offensive against any rebel group in the history of Latin America, and in recent days, suffered the loss of some top commanders. But they will weather these changes. As soon as a top commander dies or is killed or captured, there is someone else waiting to take his place.

James Brittain notes that the FARC has currently waged some of its most impressive attacks in a long time.

A reporter noted in 2004 that there is an unstated fear that the guerrillas could overrun Colombia's major cities at any time. As a way of dealing with this, the venal and murderous Colombian ruling class periodically issues proclamations touting the weakness of the FARC, how they are near defeat, how they are suffering from massive defections, etc.

During Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota from 2000-2006, the Colombian regime repeatedly said that the FARC was near defeat. Analysis indicates that instead, attacks have grown over time. During 2008, the US media got into the act, crowing that the FARC was "near defeat". But this year, the FARC attacked Colombia's most important oil infrastructure facility and wiped out entire Colombian military battalions.

Between the 29th of April and the 6th of May, the FARC carried out repeated attacks on Colombia's largest oil pipeline and halted the export of up to 3 million barrels of oil. At the same time, the FARC attacked various transportation routes crucial to the flow of military supplies and the movement of oil in Colombia's north.

An essential bridge was destroyed in Cesar Province, preventing the movement of troops and paramilitaries. In Norte de Santander, the FARC attacked forces guarding the Caño-Limón Pipeline.

These last attacks were just hours after the US Ambassador visited the region and crowed about the near-defeat of the FARC. On May 3, Colombia deployed a battalion to the region to resume the flow of oil. The battalion was quickly destroyed by the FARC, which kept attacking the pipeline for another 2 days.

On May 27, the FARC attacked Colombia's largest coal mine, derailing 40 wagons out of a 110 wagon train carrying 110 tons of coal. Further attacks hampered Colombia's ability to engage in foreign trade by shutting down many export routes.

The North was thought to be relatively free of the FARC in recent years, as their center of operation was said to be in the South, but these attacks proved that wrong. In 2007, when the FARC was "near defeated", somehow the number of internal refugees grew by 38%. Colombia now has the second largest number of internal refugees in the world, 4.1 million, second to Sudan.

The FARC has auxiliaries in all neighboring countries, the FARE in Ecuador, the FARV in Venezuela (demobilized but ready to fight if need be), the FARB in the Dog's Head of Brazil, and the FARP in Peru.

The FARP has expanded all the way down to central Peru lately, where they have had great success forming base communities with peasants who hate the state but are disgusted by Sendero's brutality. Many former Senderistas in Peru, up to 1,000, have signed on with the FARP. FARP has linked up with the devastated remains of the MRTA in San Martin Province and sent the MRTA leftovers back to Colombia for armed training.

They have also linked up with what is left of Sendero, a considerably less radicalized organization. A column of Senderistas from the Huallaga Valley was also seen marching off to Colombia. In Peru, the FARC troops are uniformed, healthy, well-armed and supplied, with modern communications equipment and brimming with confidence.

They come into the villages and offer basic necessities and health care to peasants who are pleased to see them and find them impressive compared to the ragtag guerrillas they are used to. Just because Sendero has been badly hammered does not mean that the people of Peru are not in a revolutionary mood.

The FARC also operates R & R bases in Panama and operates all across northern Brazil to southern Guyana, where they tax gold mining operations. This is one way the FARC has reacted to the largest offensive ever launched against any Latin American guerrilla group - they have expanded to all of the surrounding countries.

80% of Colombians live in poverty while a greedy and sociopathic oligarchy bleeds the country dry. There is no democracy in Colombia. Anyone opposing the state from the Left can be killed at any time.

When members of the FARC put down their arms to run for office in the 1980's and formed the Patriotic Union, they were massacred like flies. Years later, 5,000 UP activists lay dead, and the party was disbanded. This is how the Colombian regime responds to challenges from the Left, even unarmed. With bullets. Until that changes, war will go on.

Colombia is currently one of the US' top allies in the world, and the US' top ally in Latin America. It's unfortunate that US' best friend in the region is such a murderous and fascist state, but it speaks volumes about the nature of the US state itself.

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Manuel Marulanda

Great photo of Manuel Marulanda (seated) from the early days.


The more classic view that people are a lot more familiar with - the veteran revolutionary and guerrilla. In the background are uniformed FARC troops.

I've already been over on this blog why the Colombian revolutionaries really have no alternative but to fight. When they tried to lay down their weapons, they were slaughtered like flies. As long as there is no open space for peaceful dissent in Colombia, armed struggle will be a sensible option.

Via a couple of articles out of People's Movement Support Group, we now learn a lot more about Sure Shot - Manuel Marulanda. The essential moment in the Colombian struggle and the one that actually gave rise to the FARC 16 years later was the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the presidential candidate that the people had pinned their hopes on.

Colombia has always been ruled by two ruling class parties - the Liberals and the Conservatives. Although they hated each other, there was never much difference between the two. Gaitán was a new kind of Liberal - a leftwing populist that was actually going to work for the people and not the oligarchy for once.

Even his own Liberal party condemned him, and he was quickly assassinated by unknown parties. The killing set off La Violencia, a conflict between the Conservatives and Liberals that killed 200,000 people in a small country over the next 16 years. The peasants in the countryside split off to form militias to slaughter each other.

The Conservatives represented the older oligarchy, and the Liberals represented some nouveau riche up and coming members of the oligarchy who wanted in. However, the Liberals were joined by many peasants and Communists. The two parties finally signed a peace treaty in 1963 and decided to declare war on the Communists.

Pedro Antonio Marín Marín, later Manuel Marulanda, was born into a poor peasant family around 1930. At age 13, he was forced to leave home to find work. Great system! At some time after 1948, Marín was attacked in his home by a Conservative militia. This led him to join the Liberals. He took the name Manuel Marulanda after an Afro-Colombian union leader who was tortured to death in 1953.

In the late 1950's, he joined forces with Jacobo Arenas to form a Marxist guerrilla group modeled on the Fidelistas fighting in the mountains of Cuba. It was as a guerrilla that he earned the name Tiro Fijo or Sure Shot.

The Colombian ruling class and US imperialism are overjoyed that Marulanda died. He died at age 77 in the arms of his lover, surrounded by his guerrilla comrades. The imperialists and their lackeys have made up a lie that he was killed by a bomb from a Colombian jet. This is not true.

It is little known that there is a fierce guerrilla war raging in Colombia. You don't read about much in the news, but the FARC, while conducting an orderly retreat under a severe offensive, is counterattacking against the Colombian military, and there are many small battles taking place every week.

The FARC is quite popular in Colombia, especially amongst the rural poor. If you go out into some areas of the countryside, all adults that you see will be members of the FARC. The peasant farmer in the countryside with his cows will have a sidearm. The woman cooking in her kitchen cooks food for guerrillas.

This is the FARC's rural militia, and it numbers up to 200,000-300,000. This is much more than the 15-20,000 full-time soldiers of the FARC. These peasants have been part of the FARC's support base for decades. That's just the way it is in a lot of places. FARC has had a much harder time organizing in the cities, but they do have urban militias.

The kidnappings that the US media screams about all the time are usually just arrests for not paying revolutionary taxes. Every Colombian with an income of over $1 million/year (that's a lot of people) has to pay revolutionary taxes every year (usually 10%). Most wealthy Colombians just do it. They drive out 25-50 miles from the city they live and pay the guerrillas. Then they are free for another year.

Some wealthy Colombians have not been paying taxes lately, so they have been arrested by the FARC for tax evasion. They will be released when they pay their taxes. So it's not really the "kidnapping and ransom payments" scenario that the media wants you to believe.

The FARC is even very popular across the border in Ecuador, especially in the rural areas. The notion that this group has no support is a lie propagated by its enemies.

Another lie is that these guerrillas live in luxury because they are narco-traffickers. They do tax drug crops in their regions of control, including cocaine. However, all of the money goes towards the war. No FARC guerrillas or leaders live in luxury.

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Manuel Marulanda (Sure Shot), Presente!

One of my all-time heroes, and one of the Great Men of the Latin American revolution, is dead.

RIP Pedro Antonio Marin (Tiro Fijo).

New leader? Alfonso Cano, an anthropologist and the group's chief ideologist. There were many anthropologists among Sendero Luminoso's top ideologists too, as I pointed out in a previous post. Nothing like field work among the oppressed to turn one into a raving revolutionary.

And yes, I do support the FARC, of course. Unequivocally and 100%, and so should all of you.

This movement is grotesquely misunderstood. If it existed in any kind of real democracy instead of in a terrorist death squad state, they never would have had to fire a shot, or at least would have laid down their weapons long ago. As is, they'd be insane to give up the gun. For the time being in Colombia, there is no other way.

In the 1980's, a section of the FARC disarmed and formed a legal political party called the Patriotic Union. Despite unbelievable repression, they managed to gain a respectable showing in some elections.

They were slaughtered like flies by the Colombian state with US military and intelligence assistance until 5,000 UP activists lay dead. The movement disbanded and scattered and has not been heard from since. The FARC is not insane. They already tried to lay down their guns. Look at what happened. At this point, the FARC is not going to lay down their guns until they get a say in running the country.

There is hardly anyone on the Left running for any office anywhere in Colombia. Anyone who does can be and may well be targeted for death by US-Colombian military intelligence terror machine.

Any Left organizations, including environmental groups, labor unions, peasant organizations, Indian movements, neighborhood and citizens' groups or peace communities who have declared themselves neutral, can be and may well be routinely targeted with death by the US and Colombia.

If I were a Colombian, I would either not write this blog, or, if I did, I would arm myself and join the FARC. After a while, it doesn't make sense anymore to wait for the government to come out and kill you. If the US-Colombian military-intel death machine is going to come out and try to kill me anyway, I may as well be armed so I can fight back.

As you can see in the case of the Wayuu Indians, they got tired of the US-Colombian military coming out to kill them, so large numbers of them joined the FARC, and many others formed their own guerrilla organizations. Attacks on the group dropped way down after they took up arms to defend themselves.

Often, the US-Colombian military death squads will start to raid villages and stage killings and massacres of villagers. At some point, at least lately, a FARC unit will intervene and drive the attackers away, saving many lives. You can see that the FARC is the only thing keeping the US-Colombian military from staging vast massacres across the land.

It is said that the FARC adds to the violence in Colombia. Far be it. The FARC had an autonomous zone carved out for it a few years back. The main city in this jungle, a town of only 25,000, had an incredible homicide rate of 1 killing/day. After the FARC came in, that was reduced to 1 killing/year. Some murderous guerrillas!

The FARC has been an armed self-defense group from its origins in the peasant community of Marquetalia in 1964. The leftwing peasants of Marquetalia, tired of the mad violence that was sweeping the land in La Violencia, essentially seceded from the war and made their own private Idaho on some land they owned in Western Colombia.

It's true that they were Communists, but there were only a few hundred of them, and they were nonviolent. The US and Colombian governments became alarmed at these live Communists existing openly on Colombia's land, and plans were made to exterminate them. The US Ambassador and US military cooperated closely in these plans. The US recommended everything be thrown at the peasants, including chemical weapons.

The US-Colombian army (with US advisors on board) finally attacked the area, but the peasants of Marquetalia were not all killed. Some survived and armed themselves to fight back. This was the beginnings of the FARC, and this has been the story ever since.

There was a march a while back against the US-Colombian death squads that haunt the land. A huge number of persons showed up in cities all across Colombia. Very quickly afterwards, with only a couple of weeks, the US-Colombian military killed about a dozen marchers and leaders. Just like that. This is what happens to the unarmed opposition in Colombia.

If the FARC falls apart, nothing will change. Colombia will be as big of a shithole as ever, but now there will be no way for the people to fight back against the US-Colombian state and its killers.

I read this article in English a while back, but now it's disappeared into some memory hole somewhere. Here it is in Spanish if you can read Spanish. Upshot of the piece is that the FARC does not depend on dope. They tax all crops in the areas they control, which is normally about 40% of the country.

This includes drug crops like coca. People grow coca because the state has not provided them the wherewithal to make a decent living growing anything else, despite the fake US-Colombian crop substitution program of recent years. During Plan Colombia in Putumayo Province, much of the land was devastated with herbicide, including perfectly legal crops, and most of the residents became ill with chemical poisoning.

US-Colombian death squads quickly appeared in the area and started murdering peasants right and left. This was around 2002. After a couple years of that, about 8,000 Indians in Putumayo had signed up with the FARC.

This is why people join the FARC, my doubting readers. Not because they feel like turning terrorist and destroying some glorious democracy because they are evildoers, but because the army keeps coming out to try kill them and spray poison all over them and their crops.

This article (dead link) lays out what Colombia is really like. It portrays a rural region in Colombia. The US-Colombian state does not touch the coca plantations of the rich in this region. Here, the rich own all the land, and the poor live in wretched misery.

It was not always this way. There used to be vast numbers of small landowners scattered through this whole region. They're mostly gone now, part of a project by the US-Colombian military to steal the people's land for the rich and kill anyone who resisted.

Most of this area has gone over to vast cattle ranches in the hands of a few ultra-rich landowners. These landowners hire death squads to keep this sick state of affairs as it is. This is why the FARC is always kidnapping these wealthy landowner "innocent civilians". They are not so innocent! These are the people who run the death squads.

There are still peasant farmers in this region, but they are now crammed into miserable and tiny plots that are a shadow of the ones they farmed. It's barely enough to feed oneself. The many peasants who were run off the land altogether now live crammed in teeming urban slums that never existed before.

If you drive through the area, there seems to be open land everywhere - for cows. You see a few miserable peasants with tiny plots, and then you see vast and teeming slums. On the highway is a death squad and US-Colombian military checkpoint to keep the peons from rising up about this fucked-up bullshit. To accomplish the sickening state of affairs in this blighted region, the US-Colombian military killed 100's to 1000's of people.

Now let us go to a large city - Medellin. The FARC militias were all run out a few years back, and the death squads run the show now. The poor are crammed into horrid slums on hillsides with no paved roads, no water, no sewage, no electricity, no nothing. The shit runs down the gutters, people gather rain for water, and when it rains, the hills slide down on the makeshift shanties.

Down below, watching the Dickensian slums above with cold eyes, are the death squads. If any slum dweller raises a peep about their miserable situation, they may just get a bullet. The death squads are put there by the US and Colombia to make sure that that disgusting state of affairs stays just the way it is.

Westerners have the temerity to ask why there is a revolution in Colombia.

How could there not be one?

The FARC has definitely been hit hard lately in a lot of ways. The Colombian military has doubled in size since 2000 (mostly due to an infusion of US money) and the FARC has been experiencing, since 2005, the most concerted military offensive that any Latin American revolutionary army has ever faced.

They may conceivably not make it, but if they don't, the violence will not end. The state will continue to kill the people, and it will still be impossible for the Left to organize or run for office without getting killed. If the FARC goes, there will only be successors; there will be no justice.

Personally, dire as things are, I think that the FARC will pull through. One of the ways that they reacted to the offensive was to branch into other nations. The FARE is in Ecuador¹, the FARV, with 1000's of members, is in Venezuela², the FARP is in Peru and doing very well³, and the FARB is in the Dog's Head region of Brazil⁴. FARC is in Panama and Guyana, and they have activists in Bolivia helping Morales' party.

A previous post gives details on all of these FARC splinters.

Great blog on Colombia. Machetera is also great and so's People's Movement Support Group.

Notes

1. This report from 2000 describes how both the FARC and the ELN had a growing presence across the border in Ecuador and how the FARE had just formed to protest against Plan Colombia. On May 15, 2000, the Ecuadorian military intercepted a FARE patrol in Sucumbios Province on the Peruvian border.

Two FARE members were killed and five more were wounded or captured in the shootout. In early 2000, the FARE blew up an oil pipeline in Ecuador. On August 28, 2002, the FARE set off a leaflet bomb in a McDonald's in Guayaquil that caused serious damage to the property. As of 2000, it was still a small group in the country. Whether or not the FARE still exists in not known.


2. The FARV is nothing but the name of the FARC in its rear guard zone inside Venezuela. The FARC has such zones and forces in all of the countries bordering it.

3. The FARP is nothing but the FARC inside Peru. They have penetrated deep into Peru and has recruited many former members and supporters of Sendero Luminoso. Former commanders of the MRTA have also joined the FARC's army in Peru. For now, they are not doing much except laying down base areas, but they are very popular with rural Peruvians who got sick of Sendero's mad violence.


4. The FARB is very little known, but it probably just the name of the FARC in its rear-guard area inside Brazil (Dog's Head region) There is another FARB inside Brazil that has been threatening and even killing some PT mayors and officials. It is supposedly a far Left group of PT dissidents angry at some PT officials for selling out the people.

Others think that the group does not even exist and instead is merely a fake name for rightwing death squads that rampage all across Brazil.

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