Timoleon Jimenez, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced Thursday that the leftist guerrilla group has no plans of surrendering to the Colombian state any time soon. Although the FARC recently abandoned its long held practice of hostage taking, a 2 tonne cocaine seizure over the weekend shows the FARC has no interest in abandoning illicit activities in favor of legitimate political pursuits. While FARC intransigence in the face of waning popular support has left the group isolated, their leftist ideology continues to thrive among a class of self-described “New Bolivarians.”
The New Bolivarians
Inspired by the work of the 19th century revolutionary Simon Bolivar, a movement of “New Bolivarians” seeks to institute a broad array of economic policies, including the nationalization of critical natural resources, extending broad social benefits to economically marginalized groups and supporting pro-labor policies protecting workers rights.
Leading the movement is the often maligned Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. An outspoken critic of “Yankee imperialism” and neoliberal capitalism, Chavez has enjoyed popular support among the lower economic classes that favored his broad agrarian land reforms and collective management of resource wealth after first winning election in 1998.
Chavez’s election signaled what German-American political scientist Gregory Wilpert called, “a foreshadowing of the wave of left-leaning presidents to come throughout Latin America.” Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil all followed suit now claiming presidents associated with the burgeoning New Bolivarian movement.
FARC counter-insurgency
In the tradition of Che Guevara’s 1959 Cuban revolution, the FARC took up armed resistance against the Colombian state in 1964. The FARC, promoting an avowedly Marxist-Leninist platform oppose the monopolization of Colombian national resources by multinational corporations and seek to institute an array of anti-corporatist economic policies.
Drawing ranks mostly from Colombia’s landless poor, the FARC look to Colombia’s massive economic inequalities as the basis for their gripe with government policies. According to the CIA-approved Gini-index, which measures economic inequality and distribution of family income, Colombia is among the 11 most unequal countries in the world.
The FARC has long blamed Washington of meddling in Colombia’s social and economic affairs. Following Israel and Egypt, Colombia receives the third most military aid from the United States, almost $800 million annually. While much of this aid is earmarked for fighting drug cartels, rebel groups and other non-state actors, rights groups have criticized the unequivocal U.S. support for Colombian administrations that continue to be among the worst human rights violators in the region.
Rights group Amnesty International offers vociferous criticism of the Colombian military on their website stating, “the Colombian government routinely fails to bring to justice military officials who have collaborated with these illegal paramilitary groups as they carry out atrocities or even participate in civilian killings.” All belligerents, including the FARC, are named as culprits in a protracted war that has produced widespread human rights abuses, including the killing of innocent civilians.
The FARC is classified as a terrorist organization by Colombia, the United States, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the European Union. Conversely, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Nicaragua opt to classify the FARC as a “belligerent force” with countries calling for an end to hostilities and bilateral negotiations.
Although announcements in February by FARC leadership indicate the rebel group may abandon its long practice of hostage taking, drug trafficking continues as the group’s main source of income. The lucrative trade has financed much of the group’s activities and has entangled the group in the war on drugs.
Speaking on FARC narco-trafficking, former Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo says, “If not for drug trafficking, the FARC would not exist today.”
Although the massive seizure of cocaine over the weekend comes as a major setback to the FARC guerrilla group, the embattled FARC continues to carry on with their revolutionary struggle to implement radical social and economic reforms in Colombia.
The War on Drugs
The fight to end the bellicose FARC, it seems, is part of a broader battle to eradicate drug trafficking in Latin America.
The strongest push for drug interdiction came in 2000 when President Clinton pledged a $1.3 billion dollar aid package for the “Plan Colombia” mission. The mission aimed at ending rebel activities by removing their source of funding was aided by 500 U.S. military personnel sent as advisors.
Since then, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has worked in close consultation with Colombian authorities to curb drug exports to North America and Europe. While cocaine use has declined 37 percent in the United States between 2006 and 2010, the U.S. still remains the largest market for cocaine in the world, and illicit trade remains strong worldwide.
The failure to eradicate the flourishing drug trade was a topic of discussion earlier this month at the Summit of the Americas, held in Cartegena, Colombia. Thirty three countries attended the conference with most talks focused on economic cooperation and trade.
Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s President, encouraged countries in attendance to consider the legalization and regulation of drugs as a means to reducing the influence of cartels and guerrilla groups, like the FARC.
Echoing this sentiment was Guatemala’s President Otto Perez Molina, who has previously commented on the need to end the ineffective war against drugs. Writing on the issue in the British newspaper The Observer on April 7, President Molina opines, “We cannot eradicate global drug markets, but we can certainly regulate them as we have done with alcohol and tobacco markets.”
Michael Shifter, President of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, commented on the unprecedented push for broad decriminalization measures. “You haven’t had this pressure from the region before. I think the [Obama] administration is willing to entertain the discussion, but hoping it doesn’t turn into a critique of the U.S. and put the U.S. on the defensive.”
Although little progress was made toward legalization or decriminalization of certain drugs, policy makers in Latin America have begun to push this idea as a means to ending the violent insurgency of drug cartels and insurgent groups alike.
The end of the FARC?
Despite the apparent demise of the FARC, the populist-leftist platform they espouse still thrives throughout Latin America and across much of the developing world. Although violent insurgent groups like the FARC continue to diminish with increased military pressure, their ideas may be winning the battle for the hearts and minds of Latin America’s disenfranchised poor and middle classes.
Although the massive seizure of cocaine over the weekend comes as a major setback to the FARC guerrilla group, the embattled FARC continues to carry on with their revolutionary struggle to implement radical social and economic reforms in Colombia.
Constant incursions by the Colombian military and continued defections in the FARC ranks have some wondering if we are witnessing the demise of the once powerful rebel group. Over the past 10 years, the FARC has lost about half its fighting force, with an estimated 8,000 guerrilla fighters still dispersed throughout the jungles of Colombia.
In November 2011, Colombian forces assassinated long-time FARC leader Alfonso Cano. Setbacks on the battlefield continue as the Colombian public grows increasingly weary of the heavy-handed, violent FARC tactics.
Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups have criticized the numerous FARC civilian killings, including the massacre of 17 indigenous Awa tribesmen in February of 2009. The continued use of child soldiers has brought considerable condemnation from rights groups and the public as well. Thousands of children under the age of 18 have been recruited to fight for the FARC, with as many as 20 percent being forcefully conscripted according to some accounts.
Given the continued use of inhumane practices, it appears unlikely that the FARC can continue their decades old war for much longer. Increasingly isolated and castigated openly for their brutal tactics, it appears that the rebel insurgency may soon recede into the Colombian jungle. However, their ideological battle continues, in part, through the ballot box as growing numbers throughout Latin America advocate for progressive leftist governments.