A History of the FARC and Reviewing The FARC Revolutionist by Renate Vanegas

The FARC Revolutionist by Renate G. Vanegas

Xlibris, paperback: $19.95, hardback: $24.95 (264p)

ISBN13 (TP) 978-1-4415-0316-9

ISBN13 (HB) 978-1-4415-0317-6

Author website

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Both of Renate Vanegas's published books have dealt with fascism and war. The first, Hitler's Prisoners: Seven Cell Mates Tell Their Stories, which she co-authored with her late father, Erich Friedrich, who was one of the actual prisoners in the book, peels open the grim reality of repression and tyranny that German citizens themselves experienced during the Third Reich.

Brief History of the FARC

From TIME/CNN: Female Fighters It is estimated that women make up 30% of FARC's force. Photographer: Alvaro Ybarra Zavala (source)

Because legitimate political expression and the redress of grievances have been so repressed for the lower strata of Colombian society for decades, it was inevitable that more violent ideologies and movements would come to the forefront. Here is a decent account of this evolution posted on the website Third World Traveler entitled, "Colombia: Origins of the FARC" by Jan Bauman, MITF Report, April 4, 2001:

The 20th century began in violence as landless peasants, joined by their reformist allies, battled the landowning oligarchies who were backed by the conservative hierarchy of the Catholic Church. These early struggles form the backdrop to today's civil war in Colombia. The peasant struggles bore fruit when from 1930 to 1946 a series of Liberal Party administrations initiated land reform that triggered furious political opposition from the Conservatives. When the internally divided Liberal Party was defeated in 1946, the new Conservative government resorted to political violence to regain the lands of the oligarchy. In 1948 a charismatic progressive Liberal and land reform leader, Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, was gunned down in Bogota. His assassination set off a popular insurrection in the capital and in almost every city where the Liberals were strong. In response brutal gangs funded by leaders among the elitist wing of the Liberals and Conservatives roamed the countryside committing atrocities against civilians. During the decade La Violencia claimed the lives of between 200,000 to 300,000 Colombians.

La Violencia came to an official end in 1958 with a National Front that allowed the Liberal and Conservative elites to share public office and alternate the presidency. Nothing in the agreement addressed the plight of Colombia's landless peasantry. In 1964, the army unleashed a major land and air attack against Marquetalia, a rural resistance community that had been established as an independent republic during the violent decade. Under attack, 48 guerrillas fled to the mountains in the southwest state of Cauca where, later that year, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was founded. In the same period other guerrilla groups, the ELN (National Liberation Army) and the EPL (People's Liberation Army) were established. (source)

As was quite natural at this point in time, given the model and success of the fresh Cuban Revolution in overthrowing its own oligarchy, the FARC embraced the Colombian version of Marxist-Leninism, its principle intellectual leadership coming from the Colombian Communist Party, led by Manuel Marulanda, nicknamed Tirofijo or "Sureshot". He only just died of a heart attack in 2008 according to the FARC, still in charge to the end.

As social and economic realties continued to remain polarized in Colombia, the FARC gradually grew into a formidable guerrilla movement of perhaps as many as 18,000 fighters by the end of the 20th Century, while controlling as much as 20% of the country, The FARC was initially quite popular to a wide cross-section of Colombians because their manifesto demanded equal opportunities for all and a more equitable redistribution of land. But over time the FARC lost popularity within some sectors of Colombian society, which critics attribute to two key policy decisions: 1) to raise funds from coca production in Colombia and 2) to raise funds through kidnappings, particularly of wealthy ranchers. Jan Bauman also discusses the origins of both with the FARC in her article:

From TIME/CNN: Guerilla Portraits Matumba (left) and Patricia - Photographer: Alvaro Ybarra Zavala (source)

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http://plutonianmac.blogspot.com/

Student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind, not through force, but through self-realization and mutual respect. I have also just come out with my first (more...)
 

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