Language

Guerillas and Narcos

Submitted February 17, 2005 - 1:35 pm by Sean Donahue
I'm definitely no friend of the FARC. In fact I think that James Petras and Ramsey Clark and many other people I normally have a lot of respect for have mad real asses of themselves by expressing what comes across to me as a knee jerk solidarity with the FARC born of an ideological belief that Latin American insurgents are always right.  Their version of who the FARC is doesn't square with the stories of brutality that I've heard from campesions and indigeous people in rural Colombia, and from "reinsertados" who used to be mambers of the FARC.

That being said, I don't think the evidence really justifies putting the FARC or the ELN on par with the AUC in terms of terrorism and narcotrafficking.

Paul writes that:

"I agree that the AUC are involved with drugs too, but I do not agree that the FARC and ELN are only marginally involved. They are all up to their armpits in the stuff. "

I have never seen any claims, even from the US State Department, that would suggest any serious level of narcotrafficking on the part of the ELN.

I readilly admit my view of the ELN may be colored by second hand nostalgia for Camillo Torres.  And I have heard horror stories from ex-ELN members like the one Paul quotes.  But I have never heard anything that gives me the sense of systematic brutality on their part.

As for the FARC, Ricardo Vargas of Accion Andina, no supporter of the FARC by any stretch of the imagination, had written what I consider to be the definitive work on the issue. He and others have made the point that if the FARC were really involved in processing and exporting cocaine they wouldn't invest the energy and money in going into roadless areas to shake down poor campesinos for small percentages of their coca income.

As for their brutality, I think the FARC are often brutal and do unconscienable things to the people they claim to be fighting to defend and liberate.  But I have never seen evidence of the FARC systematically trying to wipe out their political opposition or depopulate entire regions -- both things we know the AUC actively engages in.

Anyway I must run for now, more later.

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

User login