1

MATERIAL FOR DISCUSSION AND POPULAR PEDAGOGY

about Latin American history and
contemporary social conflicts
Political course
MARULANDA AND THE FARC
FOR BEGINNERS
Script
Emilio Salgari
Illustrations
Dionissio, drawings
Isabelle - Domnico, ink
FARC-EP educational material
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MARULANDA AND THE FARC
FOR BEGINNERS
PROLOGUE
By Ivn Mrquez,
Secretariat Member of the FARC-EP
Marulanda and the FARC for beginners is a torch, illuminating with
its fames the dark night of manipulation and deceit. It questions the
lies spread to falsify the history of insurgent heroic deeds, inspired
by peoples desire, their dreams about justice and freedom for the
humble ones.

This work defends the validity and legitimacy of armed struggle as an
indisputable right of people to rebel against tyrannical and terrorist
regimes.

A regime, imposed by the dominant class as a violent expression of
power, only motivates those who see the motherland as humanity, to
bring it down through rebellion, together with the mobilization of other
nations. Fighting for dignity, for sovereignty, for a just and peaceful na-
tion, is not a crime; its a legitimate right.
Salgaris story is like the Atrato (Colombian river) with a profound po-
litical and ideological riverbed, which fows, overfowing its borders,
to give a context to a history of heroic resistance and also to join the
worldwide anti-capitalist struggle. Its a coming and going through his-
tory, looking for context and explications, and without losing direction,
it reveals the splendor and the legitimacy of a just struggle.

Its an extraordinary and didactical narration, to be read by experts and
beginners alike. Its not only a description; it also analyzes the causes
of things. Statements accompanied by passion; this work defends the
oppressed people and it rejects institutional violence, from the time of
the conquest, through historical events of the abuse of power, such
as the massacre of the banana-workers, the assassination of Gaitn,
the period of violence, with 300.000 Colombians killed, the military
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aggression against Marquetalia, the political genocide of the Patriotic
Union (UP) with more tan 5.000 people killed, Plan Colombia, State
paramilitarism, massacres, false positives* , mass graves, forced dis-
placements, criminalization of protests, tortures, disappeared people,
imprisonment and, last but not least, the deaf, killer violence called
neoliberal politics.
MARULANDA AND THE FARC FOR BEGINNERS pursues and de-
feats the ghosts and demons invented to frighten and discourage re-
sistance. In these pages, the terror about a supposed narco-guerrilla
and terrorism fades away, defeated by Salgaris overwhelming argu-
ments and the strokes of Dionissios paintbrush. These uncover the
perfdy and hypocrisy of the Washington and Bogot governments
and their vicious, manipulative media campaign. Salgari and Dionis-
sio confrm that the induced fear of communism is fading away on the
horizon of this new century, replaced by hope for humanity and a need
to save the world.
Dionissios paintings and Salgaris words complement each other.
Both show a deep knowledge of the FARC insurgency, its background
and rise, its development step-by-step as a peoples army, its tactics
and strategy, its military doctrine and rules. Both have undoubtedly
studied the teachings left by the nine National Guerrilla Conferences
of the FARC-EP.
This work measures the impact, inside the FARC, of the victories and
defeats of socialism in its confrontation not yet defned by its results-
with capitalism. The FARC did not yield to the siren songs announcing
the end of history and the defnitive triumph of capital. It resisted
and still resists against neoliberalism, postmodernism and other fash-
ionable ideas, sold by the imperialist think tanks. It participates in the
battle of the ideas, but with the conviction that ideas alone dont win
battles against barbarous enemies. In the decisive struggle against
bourgeois civilization, today weak and senile, ideas should always
travel escorted. You cant confront a dangerous enemy like a stag-
gering empire that uses weapons and technology, without protecting
yourself. People around the world will know how to use all the neces-
sary tools to knock down worldwide tyranny.
The FARC-EP, following their own ideas and concepts about war, and
supported by moral solidarity around the world, has resisted the great-
est offensive launched against any guerrilla force in this hemisphere.
Today, it has forced its adversaries to change their counterinsurgence
strategy. We could say that it has gone through a rough and stormy
sea, rowing with the strength of its political sovereignty. It has never
taken account of any Vatican, it only respond to its highest author-
ity: the Guerrilla Conference. Dignity and perseverance will always
triumph.
3
E. Salgari, analyzing the epic of the FARC resistance, reveals the
deep links between the FARC and other forces against oppression,
represented by Bolivar, Marx and Che. He magnifcently blends to-
gether indo-American socialist ideas and classical ideals of commu-
nism, which is an important issue for the revolution in Our America,
unifer of continental dreams and affnities, catalyzing agent of popular
mobilization for defnitive Independence.
In MARULANDA AND THE FARC FOR BEGINNERS, the protago-
nist, Manuel Marulanda Vlez, begins battling across the continent,
together with Bolvar, Marx and Che, and extending its libertarian ties
across the ocean.
This work is dedicated, with deep and revolutionary guerrilla affec-
tion, to all young people, with whom we share their historical rebellion
against injustice, their generosity toward the weak, their creative irrev-
erence. Only with united imagination and audacity, will we be able to
open new roads to the great nation and socialism.
In these times of the structural crisis of capitalism, decadence of the
bourgeois civilization - so violent in its agony - the strength and legiti-
macy of the armed struggle acquire new strength. We invite the youth
to take up the arms of rebellion in this prelude to the decisive battle for
humanity, like Marulanda and Che, like Bolvar, looking for the instal-
lation of a new social order in which justice will prevail.
Colombian jungle, October 2011.
* Civilians assassinated by the army, presented as guerrilla fghters
killed in combat
4
5
Theres no better way
to reach freedom than
fighting for it
6
Manuel Marulanda, an invincible rebel.
The power forces of Colombia
and the US gringos will nev-
er be able to defeat or buy
us, nor with money, nor with
arms, nor with media manipu-
lation.
7
Why does the FARC-EP fght?

T
he struggle of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
- Peoples Army (FARC-EP) is the struggle of the Colombian
and Latin-American people: its an answer from below to the
systematic and institutionalized violence practiced from above.
The FARC are looking for a democratic coexistence with social
justice and national sovereignty, as a result of a process of
massive citizen participation, which will lead Colombia to so-
cialism.

The reasons for the FARC-EP struggle are the same as they were
in 1964, when it was born. Violence from above hasnt disappea-
red, violence on behalf of the bourgeois-oligarchic State aga-
inst the poor, the workers, the peasants, the women, the indige-
nous, and the students, who dont have any opportunity to live
a dignified life. Their fundamental rights are only written
on paper and in some laws, but in real life nobody cares about
them. The FARC-EP fights for a new Colombia, for the Great Boli-
varian, Latin-American Nation and for socialism. Therefore, its
goal is to take power, together with all the Colombian people
and to establish social justice once and for all.
The guerrilla was born
and exists because of the vio-
lence of the State and the
power forces, not because we
wanted so.
8

The FARC-EP and the vanguard in Latin America.
A
fter the neoliberal flood, the capitalist storm and the post-
modern desert, the fire of rebellion keeps burning with dig-
nity and persistence. When a lot of people got tired of fighting,
the FARC-EP remains alive and kicking, with the vision of popu-
lar and revolutionary power as a strategic horizon. Without pa-
ying attention to the siren songs which invite it to surrender
and desband, the FARC is being part of the vanguard of Latin
America, together with diverse social and political movements
which dont resign themselves to a capitalism with a human
face, nor to submissively ask for breadcrumbs at the elites
banquets.
Alone, it has had to maintain this struggle against the grain
many times, faced with the most powerful empire in the world,
which makes use of the most crushing technological power since
the dark times of Hitler and Mussolini. Whereas the empire is
developing the biggest offensive ever known against any re-
volutionary movement (apart from Vietnam) against the FARC, it
has had to defend itself many times alone. Active solidarity
with the FARC-EP is on the agenda, from a nations kind of pers-
pective, beyond any state point- of- view, or circumstantial
diplomatic situation.
NEOLIBERALISM:
CONTEMPORARY DRACULA
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Drug-cartel or revolutionary movement?
T
he Colombian bourgeoisie and different North American ad-
ministrations (including the Pentagon and the CIA) insist
again and again: the FARC-EP is a gang of drug traffickers,
not a communist guerrilla. Is that so? What is the real genea-
logy of this false accusation aimed at discrediting the insur-
gency politically?
In November 1983, general Luis Eduardo Roca Maichel (a graduate
of the Yankee School of the Americas) orders to send a special
counter-guerrilla force Company (6 officers and 43 sub offi-
cers) to dismantle a cocaine laboratory and reinstall it on the
Colombian-Brazilian border. The operation lasts two months. It
is named Mision rompedor 83. The airplanes are sent from the
Apiay military base. In March 1984, an international scandal
breaks out. The laboratory is discovered and called Tranqui-
landia. The generals, who are caught red-handed, try to save
themselves, maintaining that the laboratory belonged to the
guerrilla, which is absurd. The Colombian magazine Semana
published an article stating that none of their journalists
could find anything at the laboratory that involved the gue-
rrilla.
They call us drug traffick-
ers, terrorists and bandits.
They insult us because we
are revolutionary people.
They insulted Bolivar, too.
The revolutionary people,
while fighting, are called
bandits, scoundrels, crimi-
nals. When they triumph,
they are called statesmen
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Origins of the narco-guerrilla story.
A
t that time, the U.S. ambassador in Bogota, Lewis Tambs (advi-
sor to Bush, Sr. and collaborator in the editing of the con-
servative Santa Fe documents), not only supported the account
of those Colombian generals, who obviously were narcos. He also
tried to fabricate and hide the obvious fact that, indeed, the
counterinsurgency war propelled by the US in the region, in Co-
lombia, but also in Nicaragua, through the Iran-Contra affair
(the illegal sale of weapons and drug deals to finance the an-
ti-Sandinista counterrevolution) was financed with drug money.
Those generals and that Yankee ambassador were the first to
use the term narco-guerrilla to refer to the FARC-EP (Revo-
lutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Li-
beration Army). Later on, the ideological brainchild would be
generalized. The US changed it into the new counterinsurgency
doctrine, recycling the old ghost of communism and the new
model of narco-terrorism.
THE NEW GHOST OF THE MISINFORMATION FACTORY
NARCO-GUERRILLA
TERRORIST
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Communist ideology or drugs?
I
t becomes clear how crazy and ridiculous it is to designate
narco to a political-military, communist, Bolivarian, Mar-
xist, Leninist and Guevarist organization, when you listen to
the words of a government representative of Colombia. In 1997,
when there were rumors of possible talks between the FARC and
the Samper administration, Daniel Garca Pea (director of an
exploratory commission to promote peace negotiations with the
guerrilla) declared: The rhetoric repeated thousands of ti-
mes about a guerrilla without ideals and turned into a mafia-
organization is false. Were talking about a political-military
organization that imposes revolutionary taxes on the harvest
(of coca) to sustain war, but it doesnt ever participate in
trafficking. If we were talking about a cartel, they wouldnt
take villages nor would they carry out military operations
Whoever said this, doesnt have any sympathy for Bolvar, Marx
or Marulanda.
On may 18th 2003, a United Nations special envoy, secretary-ge-
neral James Lemoyne, declared: The main support for the most
important guerrilla force in the country comes from people who
are ideologically committed.
Great ideological leaders
12
The FARC fnancing. Bandits or insurgents?
W
ith revolutionary taxes, which the FARC-EP imposes on the
Colombian bourgeoisie to maintain its belligerent force
the FARC buys weapons, munitions, radios for communication.
The revolutionary combatants live from their own work. They
produce, cultivate and harvest the majority of their own food,
they produce their own uniforms, wash their clothes, cook their
food, mend their clothes, construct (time and again) their mo-
bile camps, etc. The FARC-EP doesnt live off of the peasants.
Every time they take anything from any peasant or worker, they
pay for it promptly. That is why they have gained prestige and
respect among popular sectors, in contrast to the government
army, the police and the paramilitary forces.
How do the official Military Forces maintain themselves in the
war? How do they finance themselves? How do they buy their
weapons? There are two ways. Through direct North American
military investment or through taxes which all the Colombian
citizens have to pay, month-by-month, year-by-year. Those who
do not pay taxes, might lose his home, his property, or could
even go to jail. Thats normal for everybody. Doesnt anyone
wonder why they should pay taxes every month for the military
and the police keep on killing people?
This chicken is a narco-
guerrilla animal.
Its under arrest
13
Terrorists or revolutionaries?
T
he same Colombian bourgeoisie which sows the country with
more than 300.000 dead and disappeared peoplecalls the
popular sectors, rebels and the dissidents terrorists. Ac-
cording to their theorists and media experts, the systematic
violence from above, from the power and the State, is paci-
fication. The popular reaction from below is called terro-
rism. This strange judgment is derived from their propaganda
after September 11th 2001, the day on which, in a peculiar way,
two commercial airplanes, supposedly hijacked by terrorists,
crashed against the twin towers of the New Yorks World Trade
Center. On that same day, another airplane struck the Pentagon.
These events were the perfect pretext for the empire to declare
its global war on terror and to justify their intervention in
any place on the planet, as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq,
where they have committed the most horrendous crimes against
defenseless civilians.
This new imperial McCarthyism, which intends to put an end to
any popular protest and any radical dissidence, with the Nor-
th American rhetoric about the infinitive war against terro-
rism is disputed by Noam Chomsky (US investigator) in his book
Rogue States: The rule of force in world affairs (Cambridge,
South End Press, 2000). He compares the FARCs struggle with the
struggle of the Vietnamese guerrilla fighters. According to
Chomsky, the US said that the Vietnamese guerrilla didnt have
any popular supportRight now, we know the truth about that.
Exactly the same thing has happened to the FARC, according to
Rogue States.
Repeat
repeat
and repeat
Manipulated media
14
Fidel Castro is talking about Marulanda.
Marulanda was one of the most outstanding
Colombian and Latin American guerrilla fighters.
When the world will have forgotten the names
of a lot of mediocre politicians, Marulandas name
will be known as one of the most admirable
and firm fighters for the welfare of peasants,
workers and poor people in Latin America
15
Imperialism against Bolvar and the FARC-EP
S
ince its first call for Independence, 200 years ago, Colombia
has had to confront the U.S. Whereas Bolvars dream was the
construction of a big Latin-American nation, Monroes Project
was America for the (North) Americans. The Monroe doctri-
ne, summarized in this phrase, first had been invented by John
Quincy Adams and was promoted by James Monroe on the 2nd of
December 1823.
Two centuries later, in the Santa Fe IV document, the main theo-
rists of the political, financial and military elite of the US,
continue attacking Bolvar - as they attack the FARC-EP and
Venezuelan president Hugo Chvez-. They do this exactly in the
same way as they did at the beginning of the XIX century, when
they tried to get control of Colombia and to subordinate all of
Latin America, which, according to them, was their backyard.
Just imagine, Manuel
they say America is for
the Americans
They are just hallu-
cinating, Simon: this
land is ours, because
we were born on it
16
The cruel conquest of America and the resistance.
S
ince 1492, the Spanish and Portuguese conquest integrates
the continent of Our America with the worldwide capitalist
system, with its blood, mud, torture, crosses and death. Without
the conquest and looting of gold and silver from America, ca-
pitalism wouldnt have been able to exist, thats what Marx
teaches us in Capital. From the beginning, the first indigenous
resistance fought heroically against conquest.
Pioneers of the
heroic resistance
17
Dependent capitalism in the Colombian economic-so-
cial formation.
A
s part of Our America, Colombia is an economic-social for-
mation that from the beginning developed a type of capita-
lism connected with the world market in a deformed way for two
historical reasons. The first, is the system of land ownership,
which was structured from colonial times, when the Spanish em-
pire in Colombia distributed the land and mines through the
mita and the encomienda, exploiting the forces of produc-
tion of the original inhabitants and (black) slaves brought
from Africa using brute force. Thats how a dependent capita-
lism was created.
The second reason is the direct influence of the US empire which
managed to dominate the newborn republic economically, socia-
lly, politically, culturally, ideologically and militarily. This
was due to the complicity of the local oligarchic bourgeoisie,
which was docile, obedient, important, stunted, without an in-
dependent point-of-view, turning its back on Simon Bolvars
dreams of emancipation and liberation.
Unpunished looting
18
Independence, Simn Bolvar and the dream of the
Great Nation.
T
he FARC-EP defines itself as a Bolivarian organization. It
goes back to the ideas, the struggle and the strategy of Si-
mn Bolvar (1783-1830) liberator of Latin America. His project
of liberation and independence consisted of freeing -at least-
five countries, riding horses and mules. His major -and still
unfulfilled- dream was to create the Great Nation, that is to
say, the unity of indo-Latin America. His project was not only
about independence, but also, at the same time, about a great
nation of republics.
The FARC-EP sees the value in Bolvars ideas: the dedication
to an ideal without claiming anything personal; the awareness
that politics is not to be used for making money, but as a so-
cial service; honesty, sacrifice; the struggle for other people,
generosity; commitment; coherence between the things you say
and the things you do; the originality of the ideas. All these
were teachings from Bolvar and the FARC-EP confirms, in their
different study materials, programs and political manifestos,
that this scale of values -absolutely incompatible with capi-
talism and neoliberalism- is still in force.
I dont trust
the traitors
from Bogot
nor from
the South
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Simn Bolvar: Why the Great Nation?
T
he dream of a Great Nation, a big nation for the entire Latin
American continent, doesnt come from delusions of gran-
deur or the personal ambitions of a dictator, as written
thoughtlessly by some quibblers and mediocre academics, who
attack Bolvar only to get some useless titles or some millio-
naire scholarships from the bourgeoisie or the NGOs. On the
contrary, Bolvar, when he refers to international relations-
hips, states that you can only reach a certain equilibrium
in regard to the big, old European powers and the new north
American power if Our America can articulate itself as a new,
united, autonomous and sovereign power. Therefore, first of all,
we should unify our people and our cultures. The fragmentation
of the Great Nation into 20 little republics -heirs even to the
institutional and juridical architecture of the European colo-
nial administration- will only bring us submission, dependence
and neocolonialism.

United we will be strong and
we will gain respect; divi-
ded and isolated we will perish
20
Who benefitted from that fragmentation: narrow-minded natio-
nalism, absurd and ridiculous parochial rivalries, intellec-
tual and political provincialism? Why does imperialism promote
this kind of balkanization? There were two groups who bene-
fitted from this. In the first place, the local oligarchies and
creole bourgeoisies, who were petty and shortsighted and who
only sought to replace the old European dominant classes by a
new local ruling class, leaving intact the old social regime. A
smaller and more restricted new republic was easier to domina-
te. But those bourgeois oligarchies didnt see - they couldnt,
because their small-minded politics and their economic power-
lessness didnt allow them - that their little power conquered
this way liquidated, subordinated and, finally, disappeared be-
fore the big power of the northern boss. He incorporated, con-
trolled and conquered the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies
through a new colonialism (neocolonialism). Behind Bolvars
Great Nation, appears Monroes cruel and voracious shadow. The
dependent bourgeoisies are simple butlers, submitted to this
imperial and merciless boss who despises and humbles us, or-
ganizes military coups, disappears hundreds of thousands of
people and commits torture on a continental scale with its Na-
tional Security Doctrine (NSD).
Eat, eat, my
faithful doggy
21
Simn Bolvar, a continental project.
S
imn Bolvars ideals were the most advanced of his time.
He wanted to construct an inclusive social republic that
amalgamated moral and light (as his master Simn Rodrguez
(1771-1854) taught him). That is to say, dignifying public ad-
ministration, eliminating corruption and at the same time pro-
moting an educational system extended to all social sectors
(white creoles, indigenous people, afro-Colombians, mulattos,
etc.), not restricted to the learned minorities nor to the elites
who had their minds aligned in Europe or the USA.
To develop this political program, he decided to lead a libe-
ration war on a continental scale, coordinating his struggles
with other revolutionaries. Thats how he freed what is now
Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, stru-
ggling together with Jos de San Martn (1778-1850) in the
South, who developed the same project in what we consider Ar-
gentina, Chile and Peru today. In this way -what we would call
internationalism in todays language- Simn Bolvar led a
continental emancipation process. Therefore, his thought is im-
portant to the FARC-EPs ideas and political culture in the new
global circumstances of the XXI century.
A Colombia for everybody
22
Simn Bolvar and Karl Marx.
W
hile Bolvar was leading the continental liberation stru-
ggle in Latin America, European workers and other subjuga-
ted and exploited social classes engaged in multiple uprisings,
class struggles and revolutions. Their main ideologist was the
Jewish-German thinker Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), author
of Capital and founder of a political movement of international
significance, known as socialism and communism.
The only books I found in
Europe criticized Bolivar.
But he was a great revo-
lutionary and thats why I
honor him today
23
Marx never traveled to America. Nor did he know Bolvar perso-
nally. He had only read about him. But, because Marx was very
poor, during his exile in England he studied books in public
libraries. The best one at that time was the British Museum.
There, he read about Bolvar, but, that library had only books
written by European enemies of Bolvar. Thus, Marx wrote a
very unfortunate article, titled Bolvar and Ponte (1858),
in which he undertook a critique of the American liberator. Di-
fferent from the information he used in writing Capital (his
main work, a monument to human intelligence and a demolishing
critique of capitalism), the information he had about Bolvar
was too limited. However, his disciples and continuators, like
Che Guevara and others, even when they pointed out these mis-
takes of the master, have defined themselves as Marxists and
Bolivarians at the same time. Manuel Marulanda Vlez may be one
of the main Bolivarian Marxists of our times.
Manuel,
thanks to
the new Bolivarian
army youve created,
the definitive
independence will be
possible.

Liberator,at
your orders!
24
The oligarchy betrays Bolvar.
A
lthough Bolvars dreams set fire to the continent and li-
berated many countries, his emancipating ideas had a lot
of European, but also local enemies. For example, Francisco de
Paula Santander (1792-1840) is recalled by the official his-
tory of Colombia as the man of law. In reality, he tried,
together with the US government, to assassinate Simn Bolvar
many times. His aim? Apart of his rivalries, his miserable je-
alousy and political envy, he tried to tear apart Great Colom-
bia, consisting of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. He wanted
to guarantee his domination over little isolated and powerless
republics. After Bolvars death in 1830, the Colombian bourge-
ois oligarchy betrayed and turned its back on the emancipating
project and installed the Santanderist regime, sparking civil
wars and violence against the people (which still havent come
to an end).
The hero of the Colombian
oligarchy
25
The violence of the oligarchic regime inspired by Santander -
who was said to be a man of law only by word of mouth, over-
estimating the formal aspect without its social and progressive
content, constituted a violence from above against the lower
classes, against the people. After the culmination of the li-
beration and independence wars, the European colonists were
expelled, but depopulation, exploitation, exclusion and dis-
crimination continued. The Creole dominant class, which is de-
cadent and dependent, replaced the old European ruling class.
After Bolvars death, the whole nineteenth century - a forma-
lly republican era- was a century of violence. There were 23
civil wars in Colombia, with different fractions of the dominant
class fighting against each other, just to manage power in a
mean-spirited way. In the fictional novel One Hundred Years of
Solitude, Gabriel Garca Mrquez writes about his main charac-
ter, colonel Aureliano Buenda: He fought in 32 civil wars,
and lost all of them.
Santander didnt
have a face, he had
a mask
Bolvar wants to bring about a revolution
in which the ones who dont have anything
gain, and there are a lot of them, and in
which the ones who do have lose, and we
are a small group
26
United Fruit, the Gringos and the massacre of the ba-
nana-workers.
T
he oligarchic, repressive and dependent regime inspired by
Santander, continued during the twentieth century. In 1914,
at the Bolvar central square in Bogot, the liberal and socia-
list-orientated leader Rafael Uribe Uribe was murdered. Later,
on the 6th of December 1928, during the conservative adminis-
tration of Miguel Abada Mndez, the massacre of the banana-
workers took place. The North American United Fruit Company,
with its gloomy representation in Latin America, always pur-
suing profits through the ultra-exploitation of the workers,
was mainly responsible for a terrible massacre, which intended
to repress the newborn trade unions. In one night the military,
commanded by General Carlos Cortez Vargas, murdered 3000 stri-
kers. In 1928 the yellow bananas turn red.
The leaders Mara Cano and Ignacio Torres Giraldo of the Socia-
list Revolutionary Party were pursued systematically. With the
so-called heroic law, which made penal legislation more re-
pressive after 1928, thought-crime was established. Under this
law, the regime repressed union activities and outlawed the
Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR). Soon, on the 17th of July
1930, in the middle of repression, struggle and persecution, a
child was born on the Colombian countryside whose name would
be recalled by history.
Ignacio Torres Mara Cano
27
Pedro Antonio Marins family, a young man called Maru-
landa.
I
n this cruel world of violence and class confrontation, a
boy named Pedro Antonio Marn began to walk (Later, he would
adopt the name of Manuel Marulanda). He was born on the 13th
of May of 1930 in Gnova, Quindo, a little village surrounded
by hills on the banks of the San Juan River. His parents, Rosa
Delia Marn Gallego and Pedro Pablo Marn Quiceno, lived on a
farm in El Rosario, near Ceiln, in the department of El Valle.
Marulanda remembered that they had some 20 hectares with co-
ffee, yucca, and bananas. A warm climate, where you could grow
bananas for 10, 15 of 30 years. Banana land. Good yucca, good
beans too, coffee and sugar cane. Good land. Pedro Antonio
Marn was the oldest of five brothers.
Young Pedro had twelve uncles. One of them, ngel Marn, was an
enthusiastic follower of Jorge Elicer Gaitn. Another uncle,
Jos de Jess Marn, taught him fencing and self- defense. My
father was the poorest of the family, Marulanda recalled.
His uncles, on the other hand, had coffee farms of some 200 hec-
tares. His grandfather, ngel Marn, always told stories about
The War of a Thousand Days. His grandfather participated on the
liberal side, but he deserted and escaped to the jungle. Young
Manuel and his entire family were liberal; in those times, the
Liberal party in Colombia was associated with supporting the
people.
Manuel was born
28
His frst education and jobs
T
he child completed two years of primary school in Alto del
Rosario; he finished third, fourth and fifth grade in Ceiln,
at a school with teachers who taught me a lot and I was a quick
learner Marulanda recalled. I think these studies didnt
take three years altogether, because even to let me pass each
year, I had to help the teacher. When I finished my work, I had
to teach the boys of the second grade, then the boys of third,
fourth and fifth grade. Since they couldnt let me pass quic-
kly, I had to wait for the other children to reach my level
Those were times when your level of knowledge, when you finis-
hed primary school, equalled that of a holder of a bachelors
degree today.
In his free time, after his studies and the intense work of
weeding, coffee harvesting and pruning on the banana and yuc-
ca plantations, the boy liked to invent all sorts of guns and
rifles. He left home when he was 16 years old. He was already
self-employed. Now he was a farmer, then a woodcutter, a meat
distributor, a baker, a candy-vendor, an employee, a road ins-
pector, a butlers assistant and even a village supplier. At
night, he liked to play violin.
29
The social world of the young Manuel
T
he colonists of the beginning of the XXth century, old li-
beral combatants of The War of a Thousand Days, set their
weapons aside, founded villages and established coffee planta-
tions in the jungle of the Cordillera in Central Colombia. For
four decades they challenged merchants, lawyers, big farmers
and colonizing companies in legal disputes for the right oto
use uncultivated lands.
In his daily life, in spite of latent conflicts, the Colombian
countryside is socially quite calm. One would go to a conser-
vative house, remembered Marulanda, and that was exactly
the same as going to a liberal house or a relatives house. No
one was surprised, there were no differences. For example, ones
sister got married to a conservative, that was no news, you
didnt care about that. Or some conservative woman would get
married to someones brother and there wasnt any difference
between them, it didnt make any difference if you were liberal
or conservative. That difference came later on, as a landsli-
de
Brotherhood between
Liberals and Conservatives
30
The storm that breaks the quiet countryside.
T
he social and environmental peacefulness of the countryside
where the young Pedro Antonio Marn lived, was soon broken.
A radio in a pool room where the boy was playing billiards,
trembled with news that would change history. They killed
Gaitn! It was half past one in the afternoon. Bogot explo-
ded. The billiard players of the village were driven mad and
mobilized, they went out of the bar and in uncle ngel Marns
house they shouted: They killed Gaitn, Gaitn was killed.
Manuel remembered, years later: Our family was Gaitanista
The conservatives were declared guilty and condemned (in a li-
beral village) for a crime committed in the countrys capital.
The liberals occupied the mayors office; the legal authorities
were arrested and sent to jail. The liberals disarmed the poli-
ce; they appointed new authorities.
The official troops arrived quickly to Ceiln to bring order
to the situation. They found empty streets. Uncle ngel Marn,
who was identified as the main organizer, wouldt allow them
to arrest him. Two hundred arrested were put in the prison of
Tula (Valle del Cauca department). Young Pedro Antonio Marn
left Ceiln, worried and afraid of what he had seen on the 9th
of April. He left for the jungle.
Unpunished crime
31
Gaitn and his murder: The Bogotazo
W
hat happened in the capital? On the 9th of April, 1948, du-
ring the conservative government of Mariano Ospina Prez,
the liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitn was murdered. The re-
action was a popular rebellion known as the Bogotazo. The
enraged people attacked and set fire to the apostolic nuncia-
ture, the Palace of Justice, the attorney generals office, the
governors office, the Ministry of Education, the Presidential
Palace and the Capitol, where the Panamerican Conference was
taking place. The revolt grew and official sources reported
3000 deaths during the first three days. A long period of per-
secution and killings began.
These were the times of the cold war, a worldwide dispute bet-
ween the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Colombia
was part of the so-called backyard, that the North American
empire considered its territory since Monroe. Their interven-
tion, recurring and permanent, (and Gaitns murder was connec-
ted to it), tried to keep Bolvars homeland subordinate to the
Yankee flag and its companies. In the United States, the FBI,
the State Department and the CIA normally declassify their in-
formation after a certain period of time. However, in the case
of Colombia, the CIA hasnt revealed it until today (2011). Why
would that be?
Leaders of anti-communism
32
Oligarchic terrorism
A
fter the Bogotazo, the conservative repression was spread
over the whole country. Following May 1948, the conservati-
ve administration of Ospina Prez and the cruel Laureano Gmez
(an admirer of General Francisco Franco) started conversations
with the North American State Department, warning about the
communist threat. He bought weapons and equipment for the Co-
lombian army in the United States. During the Period of Violence
(between 1948 and 1957) approximately 300.000 dead bodies were
found on roads and in the countryside. The cruel war, untied by
the Colombian ruling class against the people, didnt respect
any international agreements or minimum legal standards.
Who committed those massive assassinations? Policemen, someti-
mes dressed in uniform, sometimes in civilian clothes. They were
known as chulavitas. There were also the famous mercenaries,
called pjaros [birds], which were supported by the police
and the government. They went from town to town, sowing terror,
kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering. They took preg-
nant women and tore their stomachs open to exterminate the
liberal or communist seed.
Yesterday pjaros
today paracos
33
The owners of power and their peace
T
he burning, the looting, the rapes and abuses became everyday
events. The pjaros or paramilitaries of that period, prac-
ticed the flannel slit, consisting of cutting the victims
head just over their necks. They also practiced the tie slit,
cutting the collar and pulling their tongues out of their co-
llars. In the rural regions, the impunity was greater. Thou-
sands and thousands of families ran away from this oligarchic
atrociousness and this bourgeois barbarism. They abandon ed
their land and depopulation became wide-spread.
A lot of families, who were displaced or hid in the jungle as
their only possible solution, chose armed resistance. Not as a
consequence of a theoretical program invented by three or four
university students sitting around a table in some bar, but as
an immediate need for survival. This is how the first peasants
self-defense guerrillas were born in Colombia. They were a
response from below to the cruel and inhuman violence exerci-
sed from above, from State institutions. In November 1949, the
Communist Party called for mass self-defense. The liberal gai-
tanists also began resistance. By that time, Manuel, of liberal
roots, was 19 years old.
The Communist Party calls for mass self-defense
34
Systematic violence from above
T
he violence from above ran like a thread throughout the
entire XXth century in Colombia. Its not a consequence of
craziness or individual sadism by an isolated fool or a schi-
zophrenic killer as in Hollywood movies. The violence was the
privileged means of an entire social class, in order to stay
in power and rule. This social class, which had been unable to
guarantee national sovereignty or to maintain a minimum par-
ticipative, democratic, pluralist and inclusive social order,
independent of North American penetration and tutelage.
Starting with the banana-workers massacre in 1928 and the bes-
tial crimes, which became generalized in 1948 following Gaitans
murder, new waves of violence were generated. One of them starts
in 1953 with the military coup of General Rojas Pinilla. Later
on, it began again in 1958 with the National Front (the two-
party system). Finally, it was taken up again in the middle of
the nineteensixties and it continues up to the present. The
killers always came from the same social layer: the dominant
class, the bourgeoisie and the oligarchy, the big companies,
the mafia, the armed forces and the police. The victims were the
people, without exception. First they called them strikers,
then bandits or liberals without respect for religion,
then unpatriotic communists, later terrorists and finally
narco-guerrillas. The demonizing insults change; the re-
pressive method is always the same.
They demonize to justify crime
35
Popular response to the oligarchic violence
A
t the beginning, Pedro Antonio Marin hid in the jungle. Then
he returned to Ceiln. An airplane dropped flyers, promi-
sing justice if they allowed the conservative killers to enter.
The naive people let the pjaros into their town, where they
immediately murdered 200 people. Young Pedro ran away to the
jungle again until he managed to contact his 14 nephews, one
night on the coffee-plantations of Gnova. They were also armed
and they all had the same last name: Marn. They appointed him
chief of the insurgents.
They managed to get some rifles, revolvers and old weapons
(from The War of a Thousand Days) from the liberals who sup-
ported them. They started target practice. They were already 25
insurgents. They started looking for the leaders of the pja-
ros. After executing them, they had a confrontation with po-
lice officers and they recovered their first four rifles. After
different skirmishes, Pedro Antonio Marn, always with raised
fists, went to the South of Tolima.
The young Manuel and his nephews get organized
36
First signs of resistance
I
n Gaitania, Pedro Antonio met his nephews Loaiza, who ahad
also risen up. Together, they attacked the pjaros. They
recovered their weapons, carbines, shotguns, revolvers and an
old Grass rifle. The bourgeois army managed to infiltrate a
group of 25 soldiers who introduced themselves as deserters,
willing to join the resistance. The Loaiza trusted them. They
were betrayed and a lot of them were shot.
Young Pedro Antonio Marn didnt trust them and thats why he
escaped from certain death, becoming familiar with the thousand
tricks which the oligarchy and their Armed Forces have tried to
apply up until today to crush popular resistance in Colombia,
like dishonest peace promises, calls for dialogue and other
ploys used to surprise the popular resistance.
Marulanda and
Gerardo Loaiza
Thats how the
pjaros fall
37
The frst communist guerrillas
I
n this context - many years before the Cuban revolution- in-
surrectionary groups and guerrillas proliferated in Colombia.
These were both the liberal self-defense (headed by the Loaiza,
who traveled to a region called Davis), and the communists (nine
groups who had been fighting since 1949 in Chaparral, Chical,
La Marina, Irco and Horizonte). There were many attempts to get
together under a unified command during 1950 in the South of
Tolima, but the differences were great because of the undis-
ciplined behaviour with which the liberals assumed the armed
struggle.

Gerardo Loaiza, who was arguing with the communist guerrillas,
started to call his group clean liberals, meaning clean of
foreign, Soviet ideologies, according to him. Meanwhile, the
communists called themselves the National Revolutionary Libe-
ration Army. There were even battles between communists, clean
liberals and young Pedro Antonio Marns group. Jacobo Pras
Alape (known as Charro Negro) sided with Pedro Antonio Marn,
who quickly differentiated himself from the clean liberals
and joined the communists.
Manuel and Charro become communists
38
Pedro Antonio Marn becomes Manuel Marulanda Vlez

W
orking together with the communists, following a Marxist
philosophy and economics course in El Davis, Pedro Antonio
Marn decided to call himself Manuel Marulanda Vlez, the name
that would become known to the entire world.
He took this name in honor of a communist trade union leader,
who was killed following a cruel beating by wooden and iron
sticks in December 1950 in the dungeons of the Colombian in-
telligence Service (SIC). The trade union leader was opposed
to the participation of Colombian soldiers -used as cannon
fodder- in the US imperialist war against Korea. Real revolu-
tionaries never die. So the new Manuel Marulanda was reborn,
re-taking the example and the name of his predecessor, at the
commander school of the communist guerrilla of El Davis.
Manuel Marulanda,
tortured to death
39
Marulanda and the Communist Party
S
ince his organic integration to communism, Manuel Marulanda
Vlez indisputably became a leader. As a communist, he led
the armed struggle for six decades in Colombia in one of the
oldest political-military organizations of the continent (that
formally would be called FARC-EP later on).
Marulanda, as a communist leader, would have his own point of
view from the beginning, but he also respected the Communist
Party. By then, he had some disagreements with some of the po-
litical leaders of the CP which was a legal organization. They
raised the issue of a retreat and wanted to join the proposal
for demobilization launched by the government, because they
wanted to avoid bloodshed in the conflict with the liberals.
Jacobo Pras, who knew very well about the betrayals of the
government against personalities of the agrarian struggle in
the fifties, who had believed their promises, such as Guadalupe
Salcedo, also warned the combatants about the traps and dan-
gers implied in demobilization, adding that in stormy periods
the only thing you can be sure of is your rifle.
Indisputable leader
40
Relationship with the Communist Party
A
ccording to Jacobo Pras and Manuel Marulanda, they shouldnt
surrender weapons or guerrilla fighters. While the politi-
cal leadership of the CP (headed at that time by Pedro Vz-
quez, Martn Camargo and Olimpo, of the Central Committee)
were inclined to make a pact with the liberals, the politi-
cal-military communist forces led by Marulanda warned against
the intentions of the government to crush the revolutionaries.
This tension between the political leadership of the CP (almost
always living in the cities, alternating between legal struggle
and clandestine struggle) and the political-military communist
leadership of Pras and Marulanda (always in resistance, li-
ving in the jungle and the mountains) would be repeated in the
history of Colombia for decades.
The FARC doesnt fight
for breadcrumbs or
for alms, we fight for
power
41
The political leadership of the CP often changed its position
on the role of the armed struggle according to the situation.
At moments of crude repression, they would advocate a policy of
armed self-defense. But they also proposed, at relatively pea-
ceful moments, a pacifistic self-defense, that is to say, disar-
mament. That ocurred during the demobilization of El Davis in
1953 and in December 1957 before the foundation of the National
Front. Along history, this back-and-forth process focused on
legal struggle allowed the public leaders of the CP to main-
tain acertain political flexibility, such as participating in
elections, but at the expense of dissolving or postponing their
project of taking power. On the other hand, in the case of the
political-military leadership embodied by Marulanda and the
FARC-EP, their permanent strategic objective was to take power.
In the nineteen-nineties, trying to resolve these differences
with the leaders of the legal CP, Marulanda proposed that the
party hold its congress in the jungleThe party didnt agree.
Manuel had always greatly respected Gilberto Vieira, General Sec-
retary of the CPC, who reaffirmed the combination of all methods
of struggle
42
The violence of the two-party system: Liberals and Con-
servatives
I
n June 1953, welcomed by liberals and conservatives, Gustavo
Rojas Pinilla took over power by force. His discourse of no
more blood, no more depredations in the name of any political
party, no more fighting between sons of the same immortal Co-
lombia., was only demagoguery to keep control over power in
the hands of the oligarchy. The deceit soon became clear when
the dictator started to refer to popular protests as a plot of
international communism. In June 1954, the dictator carried out
a student massacre and on the Colombian countryside he unleas-
hed military repression against Villarrica and Sumapaz, places
where he met a heroic resistance from the communist agrarian
movement, up in arms again. In 1957, Conservatives and Liberals
came to an agreement: they would alternate power, within a ca-
pitalist, dependent framework, which was assumed to be eternal.
The National Front was born, and with it, political exclusion
and massacres increased. State corruption, where jobs were gi-
ven away like candy between the two traditional parties became
rampant. This process was is completed with persecution of the
popular movements.

The first National Front administration was led by the Liberal
Alberto Lleras Camargo, who proposed the pacification of the
South of Tolima. Conversations started between the government
and the guerrilla. The insurgents agreed to demobilize and dis-
tribute their properties among the combatants, but the weapons
would be kept by the organization.
ATTACK!
Rojas Pinilla
against
SUMAPAZ
43
Manuel road-inspector
D
uring the period in which the communist armed movement
(between December 1957 and beginning of 1960), through agre-
ements with the government, put an end to their military acti-
vities, Manuel worked as a road inspector.
The Liberal and Conservative politicians at that time, like Da-
ro Echanda and lvaro Gmez Hurtado, were visceral anti-com-
munists. Marulanda, alarmed by the hostilities of the traditio-
nal two-party system, quit his job and returned to his people,
presaging new repressions.
Neither salt nor water
for the communists, as my
father Laureano Gmez
said
lvaro Gmez
44
Assassination of Jacobo Pras Alape (Charro Negro)
D
uring the last days of his life, Jacobo Pras Alape (Charro
Negro) became the political educator inside the communist
guerrilla force, while Marulanda assumed his role as main mi-
litary instructor and commander of the insurgency. A similar
relationship would exist later between Jacobo Arenas and Ma-
rulanda. Charro Negro was a member of the Central Committee of
the CP. He was a leader who was deeply loved and respected by
the popular masses. In 1960 he worked as chief of the communist
agrarian movement, by that time in peace.
In Gaitania, Charro Negro was shot in the back on the 11th
of January 1960 in the main square of his town. The crime was
carried out by the paramilitary police of Jos Mara Oviedo,
known as Mariachi, a killer and the leader of the clean libe-
rals in collaboration with the government. The Marquetalian
revolutionaries waited a long time for bourgeois justice to pu-
nish the murderers. But the judges and tribunals only pursued
communists so thats when Marulanda organized La Mvil,
a special force consisting of 30 combatants, who together with
the self-defense forces would have the mission of participating
in the resistance in Marquetalia.
45
Marulandathe fearful communist
T
he Colombian two-party oligarchys administrations, trying
to be forward-looking, started to stir the ghost, appealed
to popular fear and presented Marulanda as a fearful commu-
nist.
.
In these years the National Security Doctrine (NSD, grandmother
of the recent democratic security) started to take shape on
a continental scale. The enemy was not outside the borders an-
ymore, but inside the country. They were the people. Communism
was being transformed into the monster. Some kind of middle-
aged demon, a slippery and gothic figure that had to be pur-
sued anywhere like the witches of Salem. In the imaginary world
of the Colombian bourgeoisie and oligarchy, who are brutally
McCarthyist and repressive, Marulanda symbolizes everything
the capitalist system detests, despises, hates and, last but not
least, fears: ordinary people, the poor, humble workers, rebel,
indocile, indomitable, impossible to coopt or buy out, arms rai-
sed against power.
This is Tirofijo
Dirty demonization
46
Counter-insurgency and the National Security Doctrine
(NSD)
I
n 1962, the first failed government attack with 5000 mili-
tary soldiers against the peasant movement (under communist
hegemony) of Marquetalia took place. Marulanda organized the
defense with a deployment of fighters, among which was the re-
markable Rigoberto Lozada (Joselo). To crush Marquetalia, the
Colombian military prepared themselves at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, and in the Yankee counter-insurgency schools in the
Panam canal zone, where the National Security Doctrine was
being taught. The United States donated 30 million dollars to
the Colombian army to be used against the guerrilla, in addi-
tion to weapons and advisors.
The NSD, according to which paramilitarism is used as a states
weapon in the dirty war (counter-revolutionary war against an
internal enemy), is the daughter of a large series of colonia-
list and terrorist experiments of the extreme right. It had been
developed by the British in the Kenyan and Malaysian wars, by
the French in Algeria, by the North Americans in Vietnam (an
experience which they immediately tried to systemize and ge-
neralize through the School of the Americas) and also by the
Nazi-specialists who escaped to South America (like Klaus Bar-
bie, a German Nazi official who lived as a refugee in Bolivia,
was also a CIA agent and advisor to the Bolivian Armed Forces).
In the South, two of the main Latin American predicators of the
National Security Doctrine are generals Golberty do Couto e
Silva from Brazil and Osiris G. Villegas from Argentina, both
of them theorists and perpetrators of state-terrorism in their
countries.
30 millions of dollars
to defeat the guerrilla
47
From national security to democratic security
I
f historically the Colombian military commanders were doci-
le spokespersons and ventriloquists of the National Security
Doctrine, in the past few years they replaced that theory with
a new and better presented Democratic Security Doctrine,
but the terrorist and counter-insurgency essence remains the
same.
The goal was still the same: repress the people, maintain a hy-
pothesis of a conflict in which the internal popular sectors
-urban workers, poor peasants, students, sympathizing priests,
class trade unions, independent journalists, afro-Colombian
leaders, feminist militants- are the enemy. A clear strate-
gy of counter-insurgency in defense of the big monopolies, the
big companies, the big landowners and a blind obedience to the
Pentagon and Washington policies.
Monopolies and
landowners
Democratic
Security
God bless you and
good marksmanship
48
Yankee intervention in Marquetalia
T
he US Pentagon, applying and carrying out the National Secu-
rity Doctrine, elaborated several counter-insurgency plans
in Colombia (and in the rest of Latin America). One of them wass
Plan LASO (Latin American Security Operation), destined to the
poor peasant communities and the agrarian movement of Mar-
quetalia, which by then were called independent republics
to give them a dubious aura and be better able to crush them.
Conservative senator lvaro Gmez Hurtado was responsible for
this McCarthyist concept. At the same time, the United States
intervened in different countries of the continent, for exam-
ple, the Playa Girn invasion of Cuba (1961) or the Dominican
Republic (1965).
After Plan LASO, frustrated thanks to popular and guerrilla
resistance, the Yankees and the Colombian army continued with
other, similar plans: The Sonora Operation (in the Central Mou-
ntain range), the Casa Verde Operation, the Destructor I and
Destructor II Operations, Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota. The-
se last ones, in operation today, are just the continuation of
the old (and frustrated) counter-insurgency plans. The old and
disastrous National Security Doctrine, now called Democratic
is still in force.
I hope this
plans not going
to fail
as the other
ones
did
49
The close friendship between Manuel and Jacobo Are-
nas
I
n 1964, some time before the cruel repression in Marquetalia
started, Marulanda welcomed Jacobo Arenas and Hernando Gon-
zlez Acosta with open arms. Both of them were sent from Bogot
by the Communist Party to join the guerrilla. They brought a
report of the Central Committee of the CP in which they annou-
nced that the armys attack would start precisely in Marque-
talia. Marulanda received them with these famous words: With
your company, war wont be that tough anymore. Jacobo Arenas
would be the great communist political leader until his death.
He strengthened even more the political and ideological guide-
lines of the insurgency, under Marulandas political-military
communist leadership. Its no coincidence that different gover-
nmental administrations have offered large amounts of money
for the heads of these popular leaders.
Recalling, Jacobo Arenas said: Guillermo Len Valencia ini-
tiated the war against the peasants of Marquetalia, I was cho-
sen, from a political point-of-view, to lead this movement which
was going to resist the military aggression. Later on, he wrote
his stories down in his Chronicle of Marquetalias Resistance.
From that moment on, Jacobo Arenas would be Marulandas best
companion. They fought together for 25 years. Marulanda had a
silent, observant and introverted character; by contrast, Jaco-
bo was a more extroverted person. Like Zapata and Villa in the
Mexican Revolution, or Fidel and Che in the Cuban revolution,
Marulanda and Jacobo became two of the most important leaders
of the Colombian revolution.
Jacobo Arenas
50
Jacobo Arenas personality
C
omandante Jacobo Arenas real name was Luis Alberto Moran-
tes Jaimes. He was born in Bucaramanga in January 1924 (he
was older than Marulanda) and he died in La Uribe on the 10th
of August 1990. He had eight brothers. His parents were Basilio
Morantes Oviedo and Mara Ana Rosa Jaimes Zabala. His father
had some properties in the countryside and some cattle, without
being a real cattle breeder. Young Jacobo Arenas, since chil-
dhood, was used to a workers life, taking care of his sisters
and helping his father. But later he admitted: I am from the
city, violence made me move to the countryside, contrary to what
happened to the majority of Colombian peasants.
Before joining the guerrilla, he worked as a communist leader
of the legal party in the cities, particularly in Bogot. His
political roots were liberal: he became president of the Libe-
ral Youth Federation of Santander. Then, he became a communist
leader and joined the Central Committee of the CP. Young Jaco-
bo also worked as a factory worker in Gavassa, Santander and
participated in organizing petroleum workers at the time of
the Bogotazo. He studied until fifth grade and then he studied
journalism. For some years he was an editor of the communist
newspaper Voz Proletaria. He traveled to the Soviet Union,
Czechoslovakia, Cuba and Argentina. In an self-taught way, he
became a Marxist revolutionary leader and thinker.
Morantes father
Boy, today
you have to
close in the
calves
51
Jacobothe FARC-EPs ideological leader
O
nce in the guerrilla, Jacobo Arenas worked on the consoli-
dation of the revolutionary organization led by Marulanda.
As a co-founder of the FARC, he gave political-military classes
in Marxist philosophy, the history of capitalism, revolutionary
theory and Colombian history. He wrote the historical Agra-
rian Program of the guerrilla fighters, proclaimed on the 20th
of July 1964.

If the agrarian program of 1964 was addressed to the peasants in
particular, who are the majority in the guerrilla, in May 1982,
the development of the insurgency allowed the Seventh Natio-
nal Guerrilla Conference to outline the Strategic Plan, which
projected a political-military advance of the FARC-EP towards
the big cities where 70% of the Colombian population lives. To
spread knowledge about the dynamics of this movement, Jacobo
Arenas wrote books like Cese el fuego(Ceasefire) , Vicisitu-
des del proceso de paz (Peace Process Vicissitudes) , Corres-
pondencia secreta del proceso de paz (Secret Correspondence
of the Peace Process) , Paz amigos y enemigos(Friends and
Enemies of Peace).
A
G
R
A
R
I
A
N
P
R
O
G
R
A
M

O
F

T
H
E

G
U
E
R
R
I
L
L
A

F
I
G
H
T
E
R
S

2
0
t
h

O
F

J
U
L
Y

1
9
6
4
Morantes father
52
Marquetalia: David versus Goliath
T
he armed resistance and its self-defense exercised popular
sovereignty in different rural areas such as Riochiquito,
El Pato, Guayabero, Sumapaz and Marquetalia. The government
and the North Americans refered to these agrarian settlements
as independent communist republics, which would be dividing
the country; only to justify their repression and the annihila-
tion of the peasants. In 1962, Conservative president Guillermo
Len Valencia launched a 5000 men military operation against
Marquetalia. It was a fiasco.
The Central Command of the guerrilla force that confronted
the Colombian armys offensive (advised and armed by the US)
consisted of Marulanda, Isaas Pardo, Tula Pardo, Daro Loza-
no, Jaime Guaracas, Joselo, Eduardo, Lozada, Chucho Nazareno y
Rogelio Daz. The resistance replied immediately. On the 17th
of April 1964, a new and even bigger military attack on Mar-
quetalia began. The first battle was on the 27th of May 1964 in
Floresta near a river called At. It was carried out by a gue-
rrilla led by Joselo. The second battle took place on Saturday
the 30th of May 1964 in La Suiza, carried out by a guerrilla
led by Isaas Pardo. While the army conducted an official ce-
remony on the 18th of June for president Len Valencia, where
they pompously declared Marquetalia to be free of bandits.
Isaas Pardo commanded an ambush in which 25 soldiers died and
the guerrilla recovered a M-3 machinegun and a .30.
David versus Goliath
Marquetalia 1962
53
Marquetalia in Latin American history
W
hile the government employed 16,000 soldiers in the offen-
sive, Marulanda resisted with only 48 guerrilla -men and
-women, escaping without any problems. Thats how he marked
a new milestone in the history of Latin American revolution.
Marulandas heroic resistance in Marquetalia paralels the San-
dinista guerrilla experience against the Yankees, the Salvado-
ran insurrection led by Farabundo Mart, the rebellion led By
Luis Carlos Prestes in Brazil and Fidel Castros assault on the
Moncada Barracks.
The Marquetalian resistance marked a turning point in Colombias
history and opened a new period of war.
Heroic Resistance
54
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir about Marqu-
etalia
T
he public accusations made by the peasants of Marquetalia
had a broad international and national impact. It confirmed
the governments attempts at annihilation. The impact was so
powerful that a group of French intellectuals, among them Jean
Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Jacques Duelosen wrote an
open letter to the Colombian government, expressing their so-
lidarity with the resistance. They protested against the domi-
nant classes of the country and called for an immediate end to
aggressions.
Regarding the situation, Marulanda made clear in his book
Cuadernos de Campaa (Campaign Notebooks): We have received
great solidarity from different tendencies in the revolutio-
nary movement. Solidarity, sometimes expressed in a material
way, in the same mass struggle everywhere and on different le-
vels; morally, because many men, women and organizations share
the ideals defended by the guerrilla fighters; economically, in
the concrete help of the masses to the armed fighters struggle.
Our struggle is just, first, because our guerrilla emerged as
an answer to the aggression against the peasants and secondly,
because the cause we defend is the cause of the exploited.
The Marquetalia repression is
monstrous. All our solidarity for
the rebels!
55
Marquetalia polarizes social contradictions
I
n the name of institutions, colonel Currea Cubides said that
the Marquetalian peasants have to be crushed and the law
will judge them. He added, in a threatening way, that the
ones who defend, organize and sustain the self-defense orga-
nizations are defending and sustaining organizations against
progress, peace, the legitimate authorities and constitutio-
nal order. However, the voices against the aggression were
growing stronger.
A group of priests, university professors and liberal politi-
cians, in an open letter to the Minister of War, General Ruiz
Novoa, set forth the necessity for dialogue with the peasants,
instead of undertaking military attacks against them. Besi-
des, they proposed organizing a commission to be present in the
areas of conflict which could evaluate the needs of the popula-
tion and propose solutions to their social problems. Among the-
se people were: Presbyter Gustavo Prez Ramrez, Gerardo Moli-
na, Presbyter Camilo Torres Restrepo, Monsignor Germn Guzmn
Campos, Orlando Fals Borda, Hernando Garavito Muoz, Eduardo
Umaa Luna.
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56
Historian Eric Hobsbawm on the FARC
W
illing to investigate different types of rural rebellions,
the famous British communist historian Hobsbawm visited
Colombia in the sixties, in the period of the repression against
Marquetalia. For the record, he wrote his analysis about Co-
lombia in different books which are classics in history today.
In Colombia, the biggest peasant
mobilization of the whole occidental
hemisphere is taking place
Eric Hobsbawm
57
The FARCs roots
O
n the 27th of May 1964, within the context of the governmen-
tal military operation against Marquetalia, the first battle
on land was carried out. This symbolized the FARCs foundation.
During battles in the San Miguel canyon, Isaas Pardo was ki-
lled. After his death, the Central Command, which was settled in
Riochiquito, evaluated the situation and prepared the South-
Block Conference, an organic antecedent of what later would be
the FARC. Years later, in memory of that brave guerrilla, the
order of Isaas Pardo would be created, in honor of his courage
in combat.

On the 20th of July 1964, the assembly of the newborn guerrilla
movement analyzed the attack on Marquetalia and planned the
struggles future in the historical Agrarian Program of the
guerrilla fighters. At the end of the next year, 1965, the first
Conference of the South Block took place in Riochiquito, with
100 combatants. The general orientation by Marulanda pointed to
a big unification of the Central Commands so that the guerri-
lla could cover more than the initial core which had fought in
Marquetalia. The 23rd of September of that same year, Hernando
Gonzlez Acosta, a student of the Free University and member of
the Communist Youth, died in combat in Riochiquito. Marulanda
honored this commander, naming the most important school for
commanders of the FARC-EP after him, as he would also designa-
te Isaas Pardos name to his column. The FARC always renders
tribute to those fallen in combat.
Ciro and Hernando Gonzlez
58
Agrarian Program of the guerrilla-fghters
T
he Agrarian Program, written in the heat of battle, formu-
lated a series of measures aimed at attacking the structural
bases of violence in Colombia; that is to say, the concentration
of land in hands of the oligarchy and the repression unleashed
by them to maintain their privileges.
The insurgency speaks to the peasants, workers, and different
social sectors, including sections of the national bourgeoisie
who are willing to fight against imperialism, to invite them
to start a revolutionary and patriotic struggle to establish a
democratic government of national liberation.
Land owners
59
The Communist Party and the problem of power
I
n the previous writings for the Tenth Congress of the PC, the-
re was a debate about power. Jacobo Arenas intervened. In his
theses, he defended the guerrillas points of view and he made
clear that the insurgency was not an instrument of pressure to
negotiate with the existing political power but for the seizure
of power.
The political guidelines of the Tenth Congress of the Communist
Party made clear that guerrilla warfare is one of the most
sublime methods of mass struggle.
60
The FARC is born
B
y the end of 1965, the first Guerrilla Conference took pla-
ce, with guerrilla fighters from Marquetalia, Riochiquito,
El Pato, Guayabero and 26 de Septiembre. The movement was ca-
lled Bloque Sur (South Block), referring to its geographical
location in the South of Tolima and between the borders of the
Huila, Cauca and Valle. At the end of 1966, the Second Conferen-
ce took place, with the participation of 250 combatants in the
area of Duda. This was the so-called constituent conference,
because the movements name was now changed into FARC. Jacobo
Arenas explained that for the first time, the guerrilla move-
ment was undertaking a long-term struggle for taking power,
together with the working class and all the working people.
Considering the situation in his Campaign Notebooks, Marulan-
da insisted on the fact that our decision to take up weapons
was just. First, because our guerrillas emerged as a response
to aggression against the peasants and, further, because the
causes we defend are the causes of the exploited. Our objectives
were always based on the fundamental needs of the peasants and
workers. We are part of the national liberation of our home-
land. We are guided by a revolutionary ideology and our poli-
tical beacon is the theory of scientific socialism and practical
communist activity.
Answer to the aggression
61
FARC: the organization of a national insurgency
W
hen the FARC was created, it approved some internal regu-
lations. The artisanal period of the FARC was past, in
which the guerrilla responded with arms to the aggression of
the oligarchy targeting the peasants in specific areas. Then it
became an organization prepared for a long-term confrontation
with national impact aimed at the taking of power.
The insurgency then acquired an organic structure. It formula-
ted its political-military line in a much clearer way. It plan-
ned the takeover of new areas until covering the entire nation.
This new organization allowed the insurgency to set limits on
and to plan every territorial area for each detachment. Ope-
rational plans were being carried out. It was not only about
fighting in self-defense, it was also about taking the offen-
sive. The plans allowed for taking the initiative, planning en-
counters, proposing the seizure of power (thats what the stra-
tegy is all about) and forcing the army to engage in combat in
areas chosen by the guerrilla.
Setting out the route
62
A new period opened by the Cuban revolution
W
ith the triumph of the Cuban revolution, the first socia-
list revolution of national liberation to triumph in the
West, a new historical period began. Although the Colombian
insurgency was born more than a decade before the Cuban re-
volution, the triumphal entry of the rebel army in Havana had
a transcendent impact. It showed the popular movements of the
continent (and the US empire) that repressive apparatuses were
not invincible, that people in suitable circumstances could
take power if they were willing to fight and have a clear stra-
tegy and organization. The consequences of the Cuban revolu-
tion spread over the entire continent, including Colombia and
the United States (where political-military insurgencies arose,
like the Black Panther Party or the armed group the Weather
Underground, which derived from the student movement against
the Vietnam war).
En his Message to the people of the world through the Tri-
continental Che Guevara, one of the two main leaders of the
Cuban revolution, described the continental viewpoint of the
insurgent struggle. He mentioned Marulanda explicitly. Maru-
landa, when asked whom he admired, said: Nobody, but if I had
to choose Id say Fidel. Jacobo Arenas, to defend himself from
press attacks, declared: We are in different situations, but I
say, as Fidel did: History will absolve me. Both revolutions,
the Cuban and the Colombian, have pursued and still pursue the
same goals: liberation and socialism.
We have to turn
it off! It illuminates
Latin America!
63
Other guerrilla-movements are born
W
ith the worsening of the social contradictions and under
the influence of the Cuban revolution, other guerrilla or-
ganizations started to proliferate in Colombia, together with
the insurgency led by Manuel Marulanda Vlez. Among the most
important was the National Liberation Army, which was born in
1964, originally of Marxist-Leninist inspiration and affinity
with the Cuban revolution, such as the Peasant Student Worker
Movement (MOEC, in Spanish). In 1967, the Popular Liberation
Army (EPL in Spanish) was born, with its strategy of long-
term peoples war and of Maoist influence. Later on, the 19th
of April Movement (M-19) was born, principally of a populist
orientation and centered on big actions with great media im-
pact. There were also the PRT, the Quintn Lame and the Autode-
fensa Obrera (Workers Self-defense).
The Colombian state, directed by the Pentagon, has used an am-
biguous policy against the different insurgent groups: sava-
ge, genocide and terrorist repression on the one hand and the
attempt to cooptation, demobilization and obtain surrender on
the other. Carrot-and-stick policies. The states objective, in-
dependent of the different administrations or situations, has
always been to get back to a normal political life, that is
to say, to exploitation without ups and downs, without rebe-
lliousness, with quiet, docile and obedient people. Inspired by
Marulandas teachings, the FARC-EP rejected the states goals;
they didnt accept the deceitful carrot. They refused to demo-
bilize, surrender or give up arms in exchange for some insti-
tutional jobs.
Carrot-and-stick reforms, oligarchic policy against the people.
64
The Sino-Soviet confict: the family is being divided
During the nineteen-sixties, when anti-imperialist struggle
became wide-spread, the two main powers who were trying to
construct socialism began a ferocious, fratricidal dispute. The
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Ze-
dong, broke off relations with the leadership of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), by than under the leadership
of Nikita Khrushchev. This political-ideological rupture en-
compossed the entire socialist and communist world, dividing
many revolutionary parties.
Although during this controversy, the Colombian Communist Par-
ty felt some sympathy for the Soviet position, the FARC had an
independent point of view and respected every revolutionary
process. During those years, the CPSU and its followers all over
the world advocated pacific coexistence with imperialism
and the possibility of achieving socialism without civil war,
without the seizure of power and through a so-called peace-
ful transition (the experiment Salvador Allende attempted in
Chile with the Chilean road to socialism, which didnt work
out). In those times.the FARC continued to fight.
The China - USSR rupture
65
Vietnam and Algeria: the Third World plays its role
I
n the nineteen-sixties, the insurgent struggle wasnt limi-
ted to Colombia, Cuba, and Latin America. In Africa and Asia,
the popular insurgent, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist
resistance grew stronger as well. The revolution led by the
National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria triumphed in 1962.
The savage French colonial military, which applied a regime of
terror, rape and massive torture, was defeated. Meanwhile, in
Asia, the Vietnamese revolution advanced, defeating first Ja-
panese imperialism, then French imperialism and finally North
American genocidal imperialism (which massacred four million
Vietnamese people).
The Colombian revolution was a fundamental and central piece
of this self-sacrificing and heroic struggle of the Third World
to reach a common destiny, without exploitation or humiliation,
without colonialism or dependency, but with national sovereig-
nty, a decent life and a new socialist society.
Colonialism defeated
66
Camilo Torres and revolutionary Christianity
A
s part of the wide-spread rebellion in Colombia, a political
figure appeared and soon became an international inspira-
tion: Camilo Torres Restrepo, Catholic priest and sociologist.
Camilo called for Colombian revolutionary unity. He practiced
Christianity from a popular and revolutionary point of view,
disobeying the conservative hierarchy of the Vatican. He won
a lot of sympathy throughout the continent. On July 27, 1965,
the priest said his last mass and joined the armed struggle. He
died in combat as a guerrilla priest of the ELN on the 15th of
February 1966.
In the FARC, there are many Christian combatants. Liberation
Theology is actually being spread throughout the continent.
The US, in its Santa Fe documents, classify that theology as a
subversive enemy, together with the FARC-EP, Antonio Gram-
sci, Simn Bolvar and the different social rebel movements.
Camilo Torres
67
Religion in the FARC
T
he FARC-EP, as a political-military revolutionary organiza-
tion inspired by Marx and Lenin, share a vision of the world
and of life which is supported by the materialist conception of
history and the philosophy of praxis. From this point of view,
it analyzes Colombian society, its project of a new society, a
new subjectivity and daily life. Hence the organization is ba-
sed on Marxism, not on religion. However, this doesnt mean that
theres no room for Christian militants (or other religions) in
the FARC-EP. The symbol of Camilo Torres Restrepo today permea-
tes the message of revolutionary Christianity in Latin America.
For example, one of the FARC-EP comandantes, also named Camilo,
had spent his entire life as a priest.
FARC Comandante Camilo remembered: I was an ordered priest
and I started to work with the poor. So, here in Colombia, when
you organize the people socially, politically, economically or
culturally and try to help the peopleyou have to run away.
That happened with me. Repression is coming! So thats when I
understood the message sent to me by the FARC: - You are wor-
thmore alive, than dead. Thats to say, - You can get out of
the jungle, but from your tomb youll never leave! When I join
the guerrilla, I take my bible and all this priestly stuff with
me, I say mass and I say that the Bible smells like gunpowder.
Yes, because the Bible has a revolutionary point of view, too!
I remember the prophet Ezequiel who says: - Theres going to be
a moment when the peasants will have to change their pruning
hooks into swords to get rid of injustice-.
Conspiring against the people
68
1967, Che Guevara murdered in Bolivia
Manuel, I hope you wont
forget about my struggle
and my communist ideas. I
wouldnt like to be changed
into a poster
Dont worry, Ernesto, the
FARC will keep on fighting
for your ideals. Every 8th
of October, our guerrilla
will remember you as one of
us. We wont forget your
strategy of creating two,
three, many Vietnams
69
A severe blow to Ciro Trujillo
I
n spite of the improved operational organization of the FARC,
in the late nineteen-sixties it suffered a big loss. Ciro Tru-
jillo, (the second leader of the FARC after Marulanda), disobe-
ying the plans for operating in mobile detachments, concentra-
ted hundreds of combatants in Quindo.
The army detected the concentration (which was unnecessary
and unjustified) of the guerrilla fighters and attacked. The
insurgents retreated in a disorganized way, without previous
planning, provoking an important loss of combatants and 70%
of their weapons. Ciro Trujillo was a good leader and a cou-
rageous and brave man, but he didnt have a clear idea about
mobile guerrilla tactics, underlined Jacobo Arenas.
Its a big
mistake to
operate alone,
in every sense
70
The FARC conferences and Marulandas strategy
M
arulanda tried to rebuild the insurgency from the loss of
Ciros forces. To do so, Marulanda organized the Third FARC
Conference in the Guayabero area in 1968. Mistakes like the
ones made by Ciro Trujillo in Quindo were, according to Maru-
landa, the practice of a guerrilla that has become too libe-
ralthat doesnt satisfy the guidelines of a mobile and very
clandestine guerrilla.

The Conference was trying to find solutions. Therefore, Maru-
landa insisted on the need to build and apply a strategy (a
strategic plan) and to combine specific tactics according to
this plan. The strategy is a long-term perspective, while the
tactics have to do with short-term goals. Strategy outlines the
general guidelines of the road we have to take, tactics are the
circumstantial changes that correspond to every specific mo-
ment, to every particular situation.
If we dont analyze
the steps we have
to take, we act
blindly
71
Clausewitz and Lenin: What is a strategy about?
C
arl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prus-
sian military figure who wrote a famous book On war. In
this book he analyzed armed conflict from a theoretical point
of view, combining tactics, strategy and philosophy. Clausewitz
came to two main conclusions: 1. War is the continuation and
prolongation of politics by other violent means. Politics should
guide war, not the other way around. 2. Strategy is the distri-
bution of confrontations in time and space. It is not convenient
to fight at any time or place. To have and to keep on having a
successful strategy implies fighting at the right moment and
place to be able to defeat the enemy.
Although Clausewitz was neither a revolutionary nor a socia-
list, the teachings of his book On war have been very useful
to the worldwide revolutionary movement. Lenin (pseudonym of
Vladimir Illich Ulianov, 1870-1924), for example, studied in
detail every work of Clausewitz in 1915, during the First World
War. Thats how he learned about the need to have a correct
strategy, to be able to triumph in the revolutionary struggle.
If there exists a strategy, you dont fight because of anger
or on impulse (for example, as a reaction to a murder), but you
struggle according to a plan.
72
Lenin about guerrilla warfare
I
n his multiple writings, Lenin taught how to organize the re-
volutionary struggle. His work consisted of dozens of books.
Among these, one is specifically about guerrilla warfare stra-
tegy. He wrote it in 1906.
There, Lenin dealt with different problems and formulated a se-
ries of theses: 1. When there is social conflict, class struggle
and violent social confrontations between the millionaire ex-
ploiters and the exploited workers (civil war), the revolutio-
naries who have been organized in a political party shouldnt
condemn rebelliousness and the peoples violence. They have to
lead this rebelliousness and transform their political party
into a combative party; 2. The revolutionaries should have a
strategy which combines all methods of struggle; the guerrilla
is one of the most important; 3. Armed struggle is the continua-
tion of a political project by other means; 4. Without strategy
you cant win; 5. In a political atmosphere of repression by the
dominant class, to be limited only to legal struggle is to com-
mit suicide.
Lenin:
guide of Revolutionary people
73
Manuel, the strategist
O
ne of the main contributions left by Manuel Marulanda to
Colombian and Latin American popular movements is having
emphasized the problem of strategy so strongly. Marulanda was
not only the maximum leader and symbol of the Colombian revo-
lution; he was also its maximum strategist.
His strategy, which guides the political and military activi-
ty of the FARC, consists in combining all methods of struggle,
from legal to clandestine work, from demanding struggle to the
construction of the revolutionary army of the people. Combining
the urban insurrection and the popular uprising in the big ci-
ties with the armed insurgent action in the countryside and the
rural areas. In the specific case of the rural guerrilla force,
and considering experiences such as the blow against Ciro Tru-
jillo, Manuel insisted on the need to be guided by the tactic of
mobile guerrilla warfare.
Outstanding disciple of Lenin
74
Manuel and the struggle for hegemony
A
ccording to Marulandas political strategy, it is fundamen-
tal to break the insurgencys isolation, to divide the enemy
and to construct its own alliances (in and outside of Colombia)
to be most efficient.
To explain this concept, Marulanda affirmed: We have been
fighting for a lot of years. Weve had to run away many times.
I wont mention the problems. Men were made to face problems.
Well, weve taken a lot of blows, but we have also had a lot of
victories. But I think weve had one enemy, the worst of all
enemies. You know which one? Im not talking about the army,
Im not talking about the pjaros, or the clean liberals. Im
talking about the isolation of our struggle, which is worse
than being hungry for an entire week.
The worst of all things is political isolation (Manuel M.)
75
1968, the year of worldwide rebellion
I
n 1968, while the FARC tried to get over the blow against Co-
mandante Ciro Trujillo, consolidating, growing and developing
a mobile guerrilla warfare tactic, the world was going through
a large-scale series of convulsions. In Mexico, the government
massacred the student movement; in only one night they killed
between 400 and 500 students in the Tlatelolco Square. In Eu-
rope, youth indiscipline and protests against capitalism were
also generalized. The student uprising in Paris in May 1968 had
an international resonance and impact, as did the actions of
the most radical wing of this movement in West Germany where
seeds of political-military organizations appeared, attacking
North American military bases. Something similar occured in
Italy, Japan and even in the United States. The Basque indepen-
dence movement also played an important role, especially the
libertarian struggle of the ETA armed movement, which emerged
during Francos dictatorship. In all those developed, capita-
list countries there appeared insurgent guerrilla nuclei (ba-
sically urban).

Meanwhile, in Colombia, the Third FARC Conference was taking
place in Guayabero. The insurgency created the school of ideo-
logical education and underlined the importance of studying
preventive war and prolonged war. In the area of Magda-
lena Medio, the seed of the FARCs Fourth Front grew stronger.
The guerrilla was consolidating its positions.
PREVENTIVE WAR
Im
HUNGRY
Kill him
before he
grows up
76
The FARC as a guerrilla of national impact
I
n 1970 the FARCs Fourth Conference took place. The politi-
cal-military force was then structured into guerrilla Fronts,
which grew steadily until they covered the whole national te-
rritory.
Those were times when the guerrilla limited itself to self-
defense in peasant areas. Marulandas strategy -a long-term
plan- was about engaging the bourgeois state, the oligarchy
and the big foreign corporations which acted on the idea of
not allowing another Cuba to rise on the continent. The in-
surgency confronted when they had to, but they avoided the con-
flict when the correlation of forces was not favorable for them.
Arrest
them!
77
The guerrilla grows in the middle of a worldwide crisis
D
uring the nineteen-seventies, as a product of social de-
cay and the rebellions of the sixties, capitalism was going
through a worldwide crisis of great proportions. Petroleum pri-
ces were rising, inflation became widespread and the model of
social order imposed by the West after the Second World War
was entering into crisis as well. The worlds big capitalists
responded to this crisis and this social breakdown by attacking
the workers (for example reducing health and education ex-
penditure and ignoring labor rights) and also striking at the
Third Worlds national liberation movements.
In this atmosphere of economic crisis and the worldwide capita-
list reaction to it, in 1974 the FARC organized its Fifth Confe-
rence. It took place in Meta. Marulanda came to the conclusion
that, at that moment, the insurgency had already recovered from
the big blow against the troops of Comandante Ciro Trujillo in
1966. This evaluation reviewed the fruits of the guerrillas
work, trying to construct and strengthen the Fronts. By then,
the conditions to create the Fifth Front were ready. The Fourth
Front was already operating in Magdalena Medio. In Cauca and
Valle, Comandante Manuel, by 1973, had succeeded in evading an
attempt at annihilation called Operation Sonora. Therefore,
he strictly applied the principles of mobile guerrilla warfare.
Afterwards, he and his combatants immediately went to the Cen-
tral Mountain range to sow the seeds of the Sixth Front.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
78
Crisis of capitalism, neoliberalism and global counter-
insurgency

I
n this international context of economic crisis, inflation and
the reaction of the big multinationals, the IMF and the World
Bank to it, neoliberalism was born as an answer and as a stra-
tegic project of the capitalists against the peoples of the
world. The first neoliberal experiment in the world was applied
in Chile, on the 11th of September 1973, with the bloody mili-
tary coup by General Augusto Pinochet and the economic recipes
of Milton Friedman (Professor at the University of Chicago, the
father of neoliberalism).
From that moment on, military coups became widespread all over
the continent. They werent the consequence of three drunken,
crazy and authoritarian generals. They were part of a global
strategy -very carefully thought and planned- of big capital
which tried to overcome the crisis rising its iron fist against
the people. Their main instruments were the US military indus-
try, the Pentagon, the CIA, the School of the Americas and a
series of torturers who applied the National Security Doctrine
(NSD) to impose neo-liberal economic recipes. In Colombia, the
insurgency, in particular the FARC, resisted this global im-
perialist project. It understood perfectly well that without
having the weapons in its own hands, any attempt to establish
social justice would be in vain.
Milton Friedman, a metaphysical murderer of people
79
Chiles teachings
Manuel, our experience in
Chile shows that you cant
trust either the bourgeoi-
sie or imperialism. When
they talk about peace
they are preparing them-
selves for making war! To
become president is not
the same as the taking of
power
Salvador, my brother, in Colombia
they have told us so many times to
abandon the armed struggle and to
limit ourselves to the electoral, con-
stitutional and legal way
80
Vietnam and other resistance to capitalism
I
mperialism managed to generalize its counterinsurgency doc-
trine through blood, torture and death to impose the priva-
tizing recipes of neo-liberalism (whose main dogma consists
of reducing the workers salaries to reduce inflation). In
spite of this fact, the peoples resistance continued. And not
only in Colombia.
While the FARC insurgency was expanding all over Colombia,
gaining more and more areas of influence and creating civil
support bases through its political work with different social
sectors, in other parts of the world, the struggle continued. In
Asia, for example, in 1975, the Vietnamese insurgency led by the
National Liberation Front of the South, together with the lea-
dership of Ho Chi Minh in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,
managed to win the war and to expell the North Americans (who
left behind 4 million massacred Vietnamese). In Africa, the Po-
pular Liberation Movement of Angola triumphed over the Portu-
guese colonialist troops. In Portugal, the fascist dictatorship
was defeated through the Carnation Revolution in 1974. In
1975, Dictator Francisco Franco died in Spain, while the insur-
gency of the Basque people continued its struggle for freedom.
Yankees defeat in Vietnam
81
The Sixth Conference in 1978
I
n spite of the neo-liberal climate on a continental and world-
wide scale, the social force and the political prestige of Ma-
nuel Marulanda continued growing. When the Sixth Conference
was taking place, the FARC already had 1000 combatants and 120
comandantes. The Fronts High Commands were created as was the
Secretariat (a collective leadership which gives political and
military guidelines to the Central High Command, between Con-
ferences).
In the Sixth Conference the internal life of the FARC was being
regulated. They created a) organizational statutes, b) a disci-
plinary regime and c) the internal norms of command. All these
measures resulted in a better organic life for this political-
military force. Only if you totally ignore all these organi-
zational components, -largely discussed in every Conference,
which is kind of a Party Congress- could anyone call this re-
volutionary army a band of robbers or a gang of bandits.
What kind of criminal band would organize periodic congresses
to debate and Conferences to discuss its political guidelines?
The FARC- Secretariat
82
In the middle of the storm, the Sandinista revolution
triumphs
I
n an overall context of counterrevolution, with the establis-
hment of neo-liberalism in England (under Margaret Thatcher)
and soon in the US (under Ronald Reagan), with military dicta-
torships, forced disappearances of people and military coups
in Nicaragua, the Sandinista guerrilla triumphed. After a pro-
longed guerrilla war, the three tendencies which had led the
process, unified into the Sandinista National Liberation Front
(FSLN), and were able to defeat the cruel dictatorship of Anas-
tasio Somoza. Their insurgent troops triumphantly entered Ma-
nagua on the 19th of July of 1979.
Immediately the North Americans organized counterrevolution
from Honduras. Toward that objective, they used money from the
illegal sale of weapons and, above all, from drug trafficking
(yes, from drug traffickingthe same ones who later on would
accuse the FARC, isnt that cynical?) Some Argentinean milita-
rists, specialists in torture and counter-insurgency, helped
the Yankees in their fight against the Sandinistas. (The Ar-
gentinean militarists worked with the CIA until 1982 when the
Malvinas Islands war [Falklands] between England and Argen-
tina. As the US supported England, the Argentinean torturers
took their hands off the dirty work in Honduras against the
Sandinistas).
Gringo Narco-Terrorist
83
Civil war and revolution in El Salvador
E
ncouraged by the Sandinista triumph, the Salvadoran revolu-
tionaries advanced in their struggle for revolution in this
little country, a neighbor of Nicaragua. Five Parties and re-
volutionary organizations joined together and adopted the name
Farabundo Mart National Liberation Front (FMLN). The Colom-
bian FARC felt deep sympathy for those revolutionaries.
As in Nicaragua, the North Americans tried to stop and crush
the Salvadoran revolution in a thousand ways. As a consequen-
ce, they left a big mountain of disappeared, tortured, kidnap-
ped and murdered people along the way. Of course, always in the
name of freedom, democracy and pluralism. Finally they
succeeded in preventing the FMLNs triumph.
Sandino Farabundo Mart
84
The external debt crisis
B
y the beginning of the nineteen-eighties, the internatio-
nal foreign debt crisis erupted in Latin America. All the
remaining capital obtained by the petroleum-producing cou-
ntries after the per-barrel price increase in the nineteen-
seventies, were deposited in US banks. There was a lot of money
left in the market. Where to put it? They lent it to Latin
American countries at high interest rates (which were impossi-
ble to pay), and decapitalized them. Why did these Latin Ame-
rican countries contract those irrational debts? Because the
majority of them were governed by military dictatorships subor-
dinate to Washington with neo-liberal economics ministers edu-
cated in the Chicago school. As the debts were impossible to pay
(and uncollectible), the US, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World bank (WB) began to demand national compa-
nies and natural resources from the underdeveloped countries
in exchange for these fraudulent loans.
In the middle of this economic and political crisis, which made
the entire Latin American region stagger, the Colombian economy
and state became strongly impregnated by drug-trafficking-
capital and other black market sectors. Confronting this mafia
state, the FARC, as always, kept on working on its long-term
strategic plan. From the 4th to the 14th of May 1982 it orga-
nized its Seventh Conference in Guayabero. Thats where ites-
tablished its Strategic Plan for the seizure of power and the
Colombian revolution.
Accomplice of crime
85
Strategic plan of the FARC
W
hen they elaborated, discussed and approved the strategic
plan for the Colombian revolution, Manuel Marulanda and
the FARC clearly specified that the insurgencys main objective
was the seizure of power. It was not about the defense of some
rural areas, or about using the confrontation as some kind of
pressure vehicle to negotiate and obtain any electoral po-
sitions, it was about the seizure of power.

How did Marulanda and his comrades imagine and plan the sei-
zure of power? Through two possible ways which dont have to be
necessarily separated. a) Through the armed way and the armed
struggle, or b) Through the vehicle of political alliances. This
is the combination of the two paths outlined by the Conference
and the Strategic Plan which the Central High Commands mee-
ting of 1989 would call the Bolivarian Campaign for the New
Colombia.
For a new Colombia
86
Power: Tension and nuances between the FARC and the
legal Communist Party (PC)
F
rom the beginning, the FARC was born with an historical
linkage to the Communist Party, in ideological, political and
organic terms. The Colombian Communist Party has always been
heroic, pursued, very selfless and closely bonded with social
struggles. However, they havent always been very clear about
the issue of power. Many times they preferred electoral-par-
liamentary participation and they perceived the FARC insur-
gency, explicitly or implicitly, as a political pressure ins-
trument to obtain more political and electoral breathing space
from the Colombian oligarchy.

Manuel Marulanda Vlez, together with Jacobo Arenas and other
communist leaders, was always convinced of communism as a po-
litical guideline to follow, being one of its main leaders and
active promoters. But, according to his political analysis of
the Colombian situation, the insurgency and the armed struggle
werent conceived as external pressure instruments to expand
the electoral system, but as a central element of a strategic
project for the seizure of power (of course, without abandoning
the possibility of electoral participation in certain circum-
stances).
87
The denomination FARC-EP (Army of the People)
W
ith the Strategic Plan, Marulanda promoted a New Operative
Mode as part of the development of the armed struggle. Ja-
cobo Arenas explained: We are an ideological guerrilla force.
We are waging an irregular war and the bigger the guerrilla
and the FARC grow, the more irregular we will be. This New Ope-
rative Mode, that applies the mobile guerrilla warfare princi-
ples, emphasizes more the offensive practice than the defensive
one, through the application of harassment, assault and defeat
of the enemy troops, emphasizing intelligence and planning.
The FARC sees itself as the army of all the people, and from the
perspective of political and military development, it added the
acronym EP (Army of the People) to its name. In this way, they
underlined the fact that the guerrilla was not a self-defense
force anymore (as it originally had been), but a revolutionary,
patriotic and Bolivarian army, with national impact and with
aspirations to power.
With aspirations to power
88
The FARC-EP hymn
For justice and truth
together with the people
On the frst dawn came up
this little song
Which was born in our guerrilla voices
of struggle and future
With Bolvar, Galn
is riding horse again
No more crying, no more pain for our nation
We are people who go
after freedom
Constructing the path of peace
Guerrilla fghters of the FARC
to triumph with the people
For the nation, land and bread
Guerrilla fghters of the FARC
with your voices united
You will reach freedom!
Secular oppression
still wants to silence
the feelings of the workers
Compaeros raise
the peace banner
and the holy rights of the people
You can already feel
the end of the empire
with the embrace of the entire America
Peace and happiness for the people
the future will be socialist
Guerrilla fghters of the FARC
to triumph with the people
For the nation, land and bread
Guerrilla fghters of the FARC
with your voices united
You will reach freedom!
89
FARC-EP: a communist guerrilla
C
olombian military intelligence, and their advisors from the
CIA and the Israeli Mossad, try to present the FARC as social
scum, a mafia band of gangsters and drug traffickers. They are
no band of outlaws and delinquents, without ideology or prin-
ciples; neither are they an irrational armed group, guided by
the desire for gunpowder and adrenaline (as in a Hollywood mo-
vie). Contrary to all these slanders, the statutes of the FARC
-which are compulsory for any combatant, risking punishment if
you dont obey them- define precisely correct behavior in war.
When the FARC-EP discussed and finally approved its statutes,
it proposed not only a quantitative, but also and mainly a qua-
litative consolidation of the revolutionary organization. In
the statutes, they formulate the profound ideological founda-
tion which guides the political-military struggle in Colombia.
Together with the ideological guidelines which are inspired
by Bolvar and Marulanda, Marx and Lenin, the insurgencys
statutes also define the organizations structure, its inter-
nal functioning through political cells (the FARC as an armed
communist political party), and also the combatants rights and
duties so that any abuses or acts of indiscipline can be avoi-
ded.
Colombian Military
Intelligence 4
You are
our
outstanding
disciples
90
Rules of the FARC: a general norm for the insurgency
I
n different historical experiences, the worldwide revolutio-
nary camp has discussed the way to develop revolutionary war.
For example, in Europe, in the thirties, during the Spanish Ci-
vil War, there was a lot of discussion by the Republicans over
whether or not the military guerrilla forces should follow dis-
cipline and point toward the construction of a revolutionary
army or, if they should operate in a decentralized and hori-
zontal manner. A lot of other social processes argue about this
problem repeatedly. In the Colombian case, the FARC thinks that
the long-term war-strategy that combines all ways of struggle,
should have an order. This order, far of being authorita-
rian is democratic in its deepest sense, because on one hand,
it doesnt allow arbitrariness and on the other hand, it allows
other popular rebellions with the same political-military li-
bertarian project on a national level, to express themselves.
Without an order, in the middle of a war, the only thing you
can expect is the popular defeat and its subordination to the
bourgeoisies despotism.
91
How to guarantee this order throughout time without depending
on the changing opinions of one or another comandante? With
some general rules that the whole insurgency has to discuss,
study, accept and apply. These rules are called the Discipli-
narian Regime. They classify and establish rules about allowed
and forbidden conduct, faults, punishments and attributions of
the different ranks of comandantes. The Internal Commanding
Norms refer to the military life of FARC-EP units: in quarters,
camps and marches. In this way, they the unify criteria about
discipline in any guerrilla command and any possible arbitra-
riness is avoided.

The guerrilla fighters will have prob-
lems in understanding the inter-
nal regime if they dont know the
FARC Statutes, the Disciplinarian
Regime and the Internal Command-
ing Norms.
Thats why one of the daily tasks of
a comandante whos leading troops
in the FARC is to teach these fun-
damental documents about the pro-
letarian military discipline of the
FARC combatants meticulously.
92
The Patriotic Union gives birth to hope
I
n May 1984, in the middle of a dialogue with President Belisa-
rio Betancourt, the FARC announced the launching of a natio-
nal political movement, the Patriotic Union (UP in Spanish). The
initiative immediately gained popular support. In spite of all
the accusations they normally received because of their alle-
ged cult of secrecy and weapons, the FARC-EP tried to engage
in politics openly.
The left-wing parties normally received some 70,000 votes,
but the Patriotic Union jumped to 320,000 votes. Thats how
they elected 17 members to Congress and a still larger num-
ber of departmental deputies and city council members. The UP
was a clear and transparent proof -curiously forgotten- of
the insurgencys political willingness to participate in the
countrys civil and political life. But the Colombian bourge-
oisie and the rest of the dominant classes didnt allow them.
Neither did North American imperialism. The experience was
aborted with great violence, using gangster and mafia methods,
classically like the paramilitarism used by Italian fascism,
Francos dictatorship in Spain and German Nazism.
93
The Patriotic Union is violently massacred
T
he first murders against the Patriotic Union were of two le-
gislators: Leonardo Posada and Pedro Nel Jimnez, on the 30th
of August and the 1st of September, 1986. Senator Pedro Luis
Valencia Giraldo was murdered on the 14th of August 1987. On
the 11th of October 1987 it was Jaime Pardo Leals turn to be
assassinated. He was a president candidate. Then, on the 22nd
of March 1990, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, the new candidate for
president, was killed. On the 9th of August 1994 Manuel Cepe-
da Vargas, the elected senator, was assassinated. And popular
blood kept on flowing. However, the FARC continued calling
for peace with social justice in the public squares of the cou-
ntry. The UP managed to gain, in the electoral contest of 1986,
17 members of congress, 23 deputies and 11 departmental assem-
bly seats and 350 city council members and 187 councils. But
since its birth and throughout the years, the dirty war unleas-
hed against this political organization with operations like
El Baile Rojo (The Red Dance), among others, took the lives of
thousands of its leaders, militants and sympathizers. (This was
a cruel political genocide which produced approximately 5000
dead and hundreds of wounded, disappeared and pursued people).
The big businessmen and their traditional political parties
prevailed over the Patriotic Union, not with arguments, deba-
tes, polemics and good reasoningbut with copper, blood and
fire. That is the so-called Colombian democracy. A counte-
rinsurgent democracy made at Washingtons behest.
94
In only four years 5000 militants of this public political,
open, legal and peaceful movement were killed. In this period
four presidential candidates were killed: Jaime Pardo Leal of
the UP (1987), Luis Carlos Galn, liberal (1989), Carlos Pizarro
of the M-19 and Bernardo Jaramillo of the UP (1990). Those ma-
levolent opinion-makers (paid by the powerful) who frivolously
blamed the guerrilla for not being willing to participate in
civic life Did they just forget about those 5000 murders?
What a strange and unexplainable disregard.
Jaime Pardo Leal, presidential candidate of the
UP. Assassinated by state terrorism.
95
The savage killing of all dissidence

T
he new assassinations were not claimed by the MAS (Death To
Kidnappers, paramilitary group), but by the MRN (Death to
the Northeastern Revolutionaries). In reality, all these logos
and acronyms are simply interchangeable names for a violent,
intolerant, fascist state apparatus, which is being recycled
every now and then, always with the same objective. Crush all
dissidence. Keep all popular sectors at bay. Prevent them from
participating, debating or taking part in politics. Prevent any
genuine expression by the people which could bother the big
interests, the big companies, the big moneymakers and capital.
They did this to the Patriotic Union and they will keep on doing
it until the people defeats them.

Its not by accident that in November 1987 the official Armed
Forces of Colombia approved the Counter-guerrilla Combat Re-
gulation, which characterized the enemy as insurgent civil
population or armed group. The official Armed Forces of the
State and its paramilitaries identify their enemy as the civil
population.
The army discharged a drug
terrorist, he had 100 kilos
of coca in a can
96
The Patriotic Union and State terrorism
W
ithin the concept of State terrorism and its National Se-
curity Doctrine (NSD) or Democratic Security Doctrine (DSD)
anyone who dares to claim his or her rights is an enemy. He
or she is automatically considered a communist or revolutionary
ally. The traditional and retarded Colombian political class
has changed the Colombian regime into one of the biggest Human
Rights violators in the world.

This restricted notion of democracy (allowing only ideas that
dont bother or discomfort the big interests) has allowed the
assassination of the left, not only the communists or the people
from the Patriotic Union, but also a lot of trade union lea-
ders, university professors, teachers, indigenous people, Afro-
Colombian leaders, communal leaders, the unemployed and humble
peasants who demand land to work.
Im allergic to
this ugly bird
97
West-Europe and the so-called Theoretical crisis of
Marxism
I
n those years, during the nineteen-eighties, while the Latin
American insurgency resisted in Colombia, in El Salvador, in
Chile, in Peru, in Guatemala and in other countries the neo-
liberal pounding and the bloody counter-insurgency war pro-
moted by the Pentagon, in Western Europe, the big intellectual
factories declared that the political and cultural project of
communism had died. So, they decreed the so-called crisis of
Marxism. Big communication monopolies, ex-Marxist intellec-
tuals and ex-communists, by then full of regret, together with
lots of different social-democrats, considered the revolutio-
nary project for the seizure of power and the transition to so-
cialism part of the past.
This so-called theoretical crisis of Marxism has different
sources: (1) The defeat and posterior institutionalization of
the rebellious youth movement in Europe that started in 1968;
(2) The electoral crisis of the euro-communist parties (Ita-
lian, French and Spanish CPs, who renounced revolution and
the taking of power, seduced by social democracy; (3) The growth
of postmodern philosophy which proclaimed the end of ideolo-
gies, the fatigue of politics, The big stories and narra-
tives twilight, The death of subject, the disappearance of
labor and nothing more, nothing less than the end of his-
tory; (4) Neo-liberal hegemony and (5) The growing loss of re-
putation by the Soviet Union after years of stagnation.
I notify that
Marx died
98
USSR: Perestroika appears
I
n spite of the fact that the Soviet Union had been first to
send space exploration missions, a few years later, stagnation
began. The bureaucratization of the political order, the loss of
popular legitimacy, the growing gap between the governmental
party and the popular workers world caused great discontent in
the USSR but also in its allied countries of Eastern Europe (Ro-
mania, Czechoslovakia, etc.). Of all these countries, the crisis
first grew worst in Poland, where the military directly called
for a military coup to call a halt to discontent and social di-
sobedience. Within this general context of loss of reputation,
the leading committee of the Soviet Union, led by Mikhail Gorba-
chev, started a reform process called Perestroika and Glas-
nost. From the very beginning of this process, Jacobo Arenas
warned from the Colombian jungle against this, which wasnt a
rectification but a betrayal of the socialist cause.
Comrade, a popular
delegation would
like to speak with
you
Tell them that Im too
busy now
PCUS BUREAUCRACY
99
These reforms consisted basically of economic, political and
informational changes. In spite of a propaganda oratory, based
supposedly on more democracy and more informational trans-
parency, Perestroika ended up accelerating in a dizzying way
the deepening marketization and the transformation of the for-
mer bureaucracy into a mafia and a new lumpen bourgeoisie who
seized the socially-owned enterprises. On the 26th of December
1991, the Congress of Peoples Deputies voted the dissolution of
the USSR. In geo-strategic terms, they had already brought an
end to their support for revolutions in the rest of the world
and they were promoting an undisguised approach to the deve-
loped capitalist powers, including hegemonic North American
imperialism in Colombia.

Thanks to the
fall of the
socialist camp I
can trample on the
world more
easily
100
Fall of the Berlin Wall and of the USSR
Instead of more democracy and more socialism (the slogan with
which Gorbachev defended Perestroika), the world ruled by the
Soviet Union fell into pieces almost unnoticeably. From the be-
ginning of the nineteen-eighties in Poland, with the Catholic
Churchs political intervention led by John Paul II, a trade
union federation was created to force a supposed transition to
democracy in that country, which by 1989 resulted in the re-
turn to capitalism. In that same year, the Berlin wall fell in
Germany and after a series of peaceful mobilizations, in a few
months, all the political regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed.
The Soviet Union disappeared in 1991. The proletarian revolu-
tion started by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, supported abundantly
by the peasantry which had installed workers power and socia-
list democracy in October 1917, didnt have enough mass support
to survive. Decades of bureaucratization and huge privileges
for the elite had created a lot of discontent among the popu-
lation and a loss of reputation for what was considered real
socialism.
Who said communism died?
This is the
right moment
101
In political terms, the fall of the USSR and its allied cou-
ntries modified the worlds geo-strategy. The planet became
unipolar in military terms. The liberation movements of the
Third World, allied or not with the USSR, became weaker in this
new situation, because they could no longer count on a support
which would allow them to confront the US. The Reagan admi-
nistration intervened shamelessly in the internal affairs of
Central- and South Americas countries, supporting tyrannical
regimes and worsening Human Rights violations in El Salvador
and Honduras, just for example, supporting the counterrevolu-
tion in Nicaragua, and also invading the island of Grenada and
defeating its legitimate government in 1983, etc. Meanwhile,
without any dependence on those countries which had collapsed
(as they had been accused of so many times) the FARC.continued
fighting in Colombia.
102
Lenin and Marulanda
Comrade Manuel,
was the October
revolution a waste
of time? All the effort,
all the rebellion just
will be forgotten?
No way, master! People
wont forget about it. All
those experiences will be
guiding us. We will con-
tinue your ideas in Latin
America.
103
The collapse of the Sandinistas
A
fter their triumph in 1979, the Sandinistas suffered the
permanent siege of the North Americans who - in the name
of democracy and freedom- armed counter-insurgent para-
military groups on the border with Honduras. Yankee advisors
financed the creation of the Contra (thats how they were ca-
lled internationally) with drug-trafficking and illegal wea-
pons trade. Because of this harassment, the Sandinistas were
forced to fight a war of attrition.
The continuous devastating war by the US Ronald Reagan admi-
nistration and the Contra, the implementation of compulsory
military service in Nicaragua, to be able to face this war im-
posed by the Pentagon, plus some serious internal problems of
bureaucratism and corruption by some leaders who discredited
the revolution, invasions of innocent NGOs, etc. provoked
the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990. This was a po-
litical reversal, not only for the Nicaraguan people, but for
the whole of Central America and for the rest of the popular
rebels of the continent, including the Colombian people.
Support the
Contras
Use coke
104
Unexpected and treacherous attack to Casa Verde (the
Green House)
I
n Colombia, with this background of the worldwide progress of
the right, on the 9th of December 1990, while the country was
voting to choose the National Constituent Assembly, the Cesar
Gaviria Trujillos administration tried to seduce the FARC to
demobilize in the name of peace. The high commanders of the
Colombian Armed Forces, showing that they would do away with
any voice against neoliberal policies, suddenly bombed Casa
Verde, where they supposed the FARCs secretary was gathered
for a meeting. They did so while they were talking about pea-
ce in the media. The military launched 10.000 kilos of bombs
from 46 aircrafts. However, the operative ended up in a fiasco:
120 casulties of army soldiers and nine helicopters out of
service, according to the National Armys commander.

Beyond the escandalous ridicule, which the official militaries
had to withstand - normally triumphant, arrogant and brag-
garts- this unexpected attack really expressed what the per-
manent action of the Colombian State had been during all these
decades. The hypocrisy of talking about peace while they
bomb and kill without mercy.
At close range
Green House
105
The insurgency insists on peace
W
hile they were repelling Casa Verdes attack, the Guerrilla
Coordinating Committee Simn Bolvar (CGSB in Spanish)
untied a military campaign called: Comandante Jacobo Arenas,
we are carrying out your orders. This strong answer forced the
government to start a dialogue proposed by the insurgency. The
first contact between the CGSB and the government was imposed
by the guerrilla with the peaceful takeover of the Venezuelan
embassy in Colombia by some representatives who later moved to
Cravo Norte, a municipality in Arauca. There, they agreed to
have direct conversations, initially in Caracas, with repre-
sentatives at the highest decision-making level, to seek a ne-
gotiated solution to the social and armed conflict.
His plan didnt work out
I dreamed
about seeing
the FARC this
way
106
The dialogue in Caracas started on June 3, 1991 and was ca-
rried out in two rounds. The second round began on the 4th of
September. By then, comandante Alfonso Cano, one of the FARCs
spokespeople, declared: This dialogue and the agreements we
could come to, necessarily will have to lead to a peaceful coe-
xistence for all of us...To be able to advance on this issue, its
urgent to revise the strategy and the doctrine that govern the
activities carried out by the military forces and the States
security apparatus. Theyll have to put an end to their concept
of an internal enemy and introduce a strategy based on de-
mocracy and defense of our national sovereignty. The govern-
ment unilaterally interrupted the peace dialogues, but renewed
them on March, 10, 1992 in Tlaxcala (Mexico). They formulated an
agenda called twelve points to construct a peace-strategy,
including issues such as economic opening and its social conse-
quences, administrative corruption, human rights, paramilitary
forces, aspects of the conflict that affect the civilian popu-
lation (such as kidnapping, forced disappearances, arbitrary
retentions, among others), State, democracy, a new Constitution
and political system. Finally, the narrow-minded government,
bothered because the guerrilla force didnt demobilize quickly
enough, suspended the conversations officially on the 13th of
March. Gavirias promises to renew the process on October 31,
1992, were not realized. On the contrary, he announced a com-
prehensive war against the subversives.
The peace dialogue in Caracas
107
Global neoliberalismthe end of history?
T
he bureaucrats in the White House gave in to triumphalism
with the fall of the Berlin wall, the many disappointed aca-
demic intellectuals who abandoned Marxism, the giving up on
revolution by former communist parties, the systematic propa-
ganda by the big media monopolies and the momentary triumph
of liberalism. They decreed, exactly as Adolf Hitler did in his
time, a thousand-year-reign.
By that time, Francis Fukuyama, the philosopher and functio-
nary of the north American State Department, published an in-
famous article called The end of history. In his article, this
intellectual apprentice, who even confused the names of Hegels
books (German philosopher who elaborated the dialectic method),
prophesied the definitive triumph of capitalism and neo-libe-
ralism over all its opponents. The communist insurgency (such
as the FARC) wouldnt make sense anymorePoor Fukuyama, his
excitement would not even last a decade.
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
clown of the empire, who could
not consolidate the illusion of the
capitals definitive triumph.
108
Letter of the Latin American Communist Parties.
T
his defeatist atmosphere, where the ideas of the left were so
despised, received an ideological reply with the Open Let-
ter to the Communist and Revolutionary Parties of Latin America
and the Caribbean, a kind of public manifesto of five Latin
American communist parties, which circulated in 1990.
This letter emphasized that the hope for revolution lies in
Latin America; Its not in Europe, which is dominated by social
democracy, or on the territory of the ex-socialist countries,
but in Latin America. The letter was signed by Shafick Jorge
Handal (Communist Party of El Salvador) and Narciso Isa Conde
(Communist Party of the Dominican Republic), among others.
L
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109
The FARC-EPs Eighth Conference
I
n April 1993, the FARC organized its Eighth Conference. It was
designated symbolically Comandante Jacobo Arenas, we are
carrying out your orders (Jacobo Arenas had died in 1990). 81
delegates of the Fronts and urban structures participated.

While many progressive intellectuals and political organiza-
tions from the left thought that the dream of socialism and re-
volution was dead, the FARC continued fighting against those
giant windmills of capitalism. During the whole decade of the
nineteen-nineties, they stayed firm, not only with popular re-
sistance to neo-liberalism, not only with the Bolivarian pro-
ject of the Great Nation, not only with the dream of socialism,
but also with the maintenance of the politico-military stru-
ggle. People who elaborate chronologies of resistance to neo-
liberalism today sometimes fail to acknowledge this. They list
the struggles of the period and leave out the FARC and the
Colombian peoples resistance, without any reason or argument.
Dinner becomes indigestible
Breaking news!
Socialist ideas are not dead,
they are alive and kicking
110
The guerrilla grows
I
n that Conference, the FARC organized their forces into se-
ven Bloques, geografically. To coordinate every Bloque, they
designated a Secretariat member. The insurgency continued de-
veloping its Strategic Plan. The Bloques were in charge of the
development of that plan on a regional level.
Among the objectives of the FARC-EP Bloques were: a) Recruiting
new combatants, b) Forming political and organizational lea-
ders, c) Creating routes to be able to move its troops, d) Obtai-
ning finances, and e) Builing strong organizational work among
the masses as well as international relations. This included
governments and political and social organizations. In conclu-
sion, realizing the strategic deployment of its forces and the
objectives of the Bolivarian Campaign for a New Colombia.
The peoples struggle grows like the
shadow when the sun goes down.
111
The EZLN Zapatista National Liberation Army rises
I
n full neo-liberal ecstasy, when, according to Fukuyama, ca-
pitalism was preparing itself to rule forever, a new force joi-
ned the continental resistance. It was the Zapatista National
Liberation Army (EZLN in Spanish), an organization that emerged
on the 1st of January 1994. It was born in the poorest and most
ostracized areas of South Mexico, inhabited primarily by indi-
genous people.
The FARC-EP admires Villa and Zapatas heroic deeds, legendary
comandantes of the Mexican revolution, who advanced important
social issues and sowed a deep anti-imperialist consciousness,
still present, among their people. The FARC insurgency blends
its struggle with dreams of sovereignty, freedom and justice
for a dignified nation which is waiting for its heroes to come
back and start the emancipation process of the XXI century.
112
From Seattle to the Social World Forums
O
ne decade after the fall of the Berlin wall, the neo-liberal
message was no longer dominant. Violent, massive protests
against global financial organizations were taking place, not
only in the Third World, but also in the developed, capitalist
countries. One of the first of these was in Seattle, against
the World Trade Organization summit (WTO). Between the 29th of
November and the 3rd of December 1999, thousands of activists
brought together by trade unions, environmental organizations
and several social movements brought down the so-called Mi-
llennium Round.
A new era was coming up for the movement which would be called
altermundist (the right-wing media call it anti-globali-
zation, in spite of the fact that the movement really calls
for another kind of globalization, a different one). This mo-
vement of movements had the advantage of being very flexi-
ble and open, but had the limitation of being organizationally
weak with a reduced capacity for confrontation. When they were
repressed, they could easily neutralized. In Porto Alegre, Bra-
zil, this movement organized several World Social Forums under
the slogan another world is possible. These were open forums
which buried neo-liberalism ideologically, but disregarded the
radical and organized political left, especially the political-
military organizations.
The weight of globalization
113
The Cagun dialogues
O
n the 7th of January 1999, peace dialogues started in San
Vicente del Cagun. These were not the first dialogues bet-
ween the guerrilla and the state (there had been dialogues in
La Uribe, Caracas and Tlaxcala). At that moment, the FARC and
the government of Andrs Pastrana agreed on a common agenda
for a dialogue towards a New Colombia which pointed toward a
political solution for the armed conflict. On the opening day,
Marulanda didnt show up. The right-wing and the media mono-
polies repeated it a thousand times. The FARC had captured an
intelligence officer of the army who revealed a military plan
to assassinate the guerrilla leader, even if the president was
to be killed. Later on, Marulanda calmly met Pastrana, which
showed his willingness to engage in dialogue.

The conversations lasted for three years and took place in a
demilitarized zone of 42,000 square kilometers. They were inte-
rrupted on February 20, 2002, when the US pressured Pastrana to
end the peace negotiations and to move on with what later would
be known as Plan Colombia.
Washington is pressuring
Put an
end to
the peace
dialogues,
I have
a Plan
114
Marulanda, a rational voice in the middle of wild wolves
A
ll sectors of Colombian society attended the public peace
audiences in El Cagun: peasants, workers, employees, stu-
dents, trade unionists, feminists, indigenous people, Afro-Co-
lombian organizations, indigenous communities, etc. Even bu-
sinessmen. All of them presented their ideas about the kind of
country of which they dreamed. The guerrilla listened to them
and dialogued with everyone.

Marulanda made two important proposals: a) a plan for the subs-
titution of illegal crops without repression, with a pilot pro-
ject in Cartagena del Chair; and b) a prisoner-of-war exchange
and humanitarian interchange. None of the two proposals were
considered. The Colombian bourgeoisie, apart from being deca-
dent, is deaf. They dont want to hear the popular demands. They
only want to defeat the guerrilla and maintain the socio-eco-
nomic, capitalist and dependent structures of Colombia.
Government pressure
You and the paramilitar-
ies have to kill anyone who
dares to criticize me
At your
service sir
115
Chvez and the revival of Bolivarianism
I
n Venezuela, a petroleum-rich country and Colombias neigh-
bor, international social democracy applied in the nineteen-
eighties one of its central experiments: the combination of
strict economic neo-liberalism and a social media rhetoric.
This privatizing neo-liberalism of social democratic president
Carlos Andrs Prez sparked a popular protest known as the
Caracazo (similar to the Bogotazo in Colombia in 1948). It
started on the 27th of February 1989 and it ended the next day,
with a massacre, when policemen and the military crushed the
defenseless people of Caracas on the street.
In 1992, three years after this slaughter against the people, a
young military officer, Hugo Chvez Fras, with the Revolutio-
nary Bolivarian Movement 200 (MBR200 in Spanish), rebeled aga-
inst Venezuelas elite regime and led a military, patriotic and
anti-neoliberal rebellion. The movement ended in a fiasco. He
went to jail for two years. He was then released and continued
speaking out against neo-liberalism throughout the continent.
He traveled to Cuba in 1994. He won presidency in 1999 under the
banners of Simn Bolvar and growing sympathy for socialism.
THOSE WHO WANT A FA-
THERLAND, FOLLOW ME
116
Chvez and the return of socialism to the political agen-
da
E
very day, Chvez intensified his confrontation with the Ve-
nezuelan stockholder bourgeoisie and North American impe-
rialism until they organized -once again- a military coup in
April 2002. Chvez was put in jail, but the people on the streets
rescued him and returned him to power.

Strengthening the socialist perspective, Chvez had a public
meeting with the FARC-EP and declared before the Venezuelan
parliament and the TV cameras: The FARC-EP and the ELN are
not terrorists. They are real armies which occupy territory in
Colombia! Well have to acknowledge the FARC and the ELN! They
have a Bolivarian project which will be respected here (in Ca-
racas).
The Bolivarian revolution has dazzled them
117
Ninth FARC-EP Conference
O
nce the peace negotiations were suspended because of Nort
American pressure, the Colombian Armed Forces appeared on
the horizon trying to crush the guerrilla force. They failed,
despite millions of dollars they had received from the North.
Therefore, the Pentagon designed a new series of plans, always
in line with the same counter-insurgency guidelines of the
blood-spattered National Security Doctrine: Plan Colombia and
Plan Patriota. In the middle of this imperialist attack in Co-
lombia (later on, seven new military bases would be added), and
the escalation of the biggest intervention of North American
troops ever seen in history, the FARC held its Ninth Conference.

This Ninth Conference described the Colombian state as a fas-
cist, paramilitary and mafia state. The counter-insurgent de-
mocracy in reality is the media face of a repressive, autho-
ritarian and cruel state. But not any kind of repressive state;
its a mafia state.
X-rays of
the Colombian
State
118
What is the mafa?
T
he mafia is some kind of business association. It does busi-
ness and obtains profits through a combination of violence,
terror and criminal capitalist gangster activities, supposedly
not accepted within normal capitalism. (Supposedly).

The mafia that came to Colombia with the Mancuso family is not
the Sicilian variant but the Calabrean one, called (N-Drag-
heta), which was more violent and cruel than their colleagues
from Palermo or Napoli. They found fertile ground in the impe-
rial counter-insurgency war and they adapted themselves to it,
contributing their ability to provide security to any business
in exchange for the payment of a voluntary tax, as their Ita-
lian ancestors had done three centuries ago, to impose themsel-
ves through violent terror. And thats how, for half a century,
they slowly took control over all of the economic, political and
social activities. They were always protected and encouraged by
political and military central power, assisted by Washington;
until they finally reached the heart of the political system.
Sir, just give
us the order
and well make
you richer
119
Some details about the Colombian mafa
T
he Colombian mafia is different from the Italian, North Ame-
rican, or, more recently, Russian ones. In those classic
mafias (as in the Francis Ford Coppola film The Godfather),
gangster activities are carried out in the dark, secretly and
hidden. They bribe people, officials, cops, judges, but in a
surreptitious way, with absolute secrecy. The Colombian mafia,
on the other hand, is basically dedicated to drug trafficking,
but also to money laundering, money lending and other illegal
activities. Mafia business is open in Colombia. For example, the
Medellin cartel has tried to obtain public political space.
One of the biggest drug cartel chiefs offered to pay Colombias
external debt, which is unimaginable for the Italian mafia. The
Colombian bourgeoisie has been, since the beginning, a social
class without a project for a modern and inclusive country.
Their lumpen activities are not marginal; they have taken root
in the state. Drug trafficking, alcohol, gambling and prosti-
tution are 10% of the GNP (being moderated) and much more if we
take a look at exports. The economic base of drug trafficking
guarantees its political influence.
Colombia buried in the swamp of narco-para-politics
120
Mafa and drug traffcking: the drug-problem
T
he business of drug-trafficking has been the most dynamic
sector of the Colombian economy for the last three decades.
In this period, their managers have become the most important
economic group in the country, exceeding the accumulation of
capital by other business-financial groups.

In spite of all the legends launched by Colombia military in-
telligence and the Pentagons and the DEAs (Drug Enforcement
Administration) think-tanks, the FARC has fought against
drug traffickers as it has fought against the whole Colom-
bian bourgeoisie. Moreover, it has proposed to attack the drug
trafficking problem, starting with its economic base, with the
substitution of illegal crops for others, but without ever con-
fusing drug-traffickers and multi-millionaires (inserted in
the state and closely linked to the traditional parties and the
military) with poor peasants who grow coca only for survival,
without having any other alternative.
Buying consciences
121
Mafa and paramilitary forces
O
n the 2nd of December 1981, an airplane dropping leaflets
over the city of Cali, announced the birth of the MAS (Death
to Kidnappers), paramilitary organization, which was born at
a meeting between 223 mafia bosses. In this way, the Colombian
mafia prolonged the old structures of contract killers who had
been proliferating since 1948. Now, this was done on a different
scale and with a specific organization, the death-squads, or
paramilitaries. The main objective of these gangs is to punish
and repress the unarmed people, the popular support base of
the guerrilla (to drown the fish by taking away the water),
yet the paramilitaries hardly ever fight directly against the
guerrilla. Generally they kidnap, torture and kill the civilian
population. In this way, more than five and a half million pea-
sants have been forced to leave their lands, cattle and crops
which were taken by the big landowners with the shameless sup-
port of the government.
Sowing terror
122
From this period on, corpses began to appear in the rivers
again, hung on trees or tied on streetlight posts. The parami-
litary mafia was born from a monstrous marriage between drug-
traffickers, big companies and the armed forces. In the same
way in which the US had financed the counter-revolution which
tried to defeat the Sandinistas (Contragate) with money co-
ming from the illegal sale of weapons to Iran (Irangate), co-
caine trafficking and other dubious businesses, in Colombia the
counter-insurgency war and the death squads were also being
fed by drugs, the mafia and the paramilitary forces. The Yankee
empire applies the same formula everywhere.
123
Counterinsurgency: mafa and paramilitary forces
T
he main capital of paramilitarism was situated on the
banks of the Magdalena River, in Puerto Boyac. When one
entered the port in the nineteen-eighties, one saw an enor-
mous poster which said: Welcome to Puerto Boyac, Colombias
anti-subversive capital In the first meetings of these pa-
ramilitaries (called paracos by the people) of Puerto Boya-
c, the Brbula Battalion s commander, Luis Arcenio Bohrquez
Montoya, participated. Additional participants included: rich
cattle breeders of the area, functionaries of the Texas Petro-
leum Company, members of the Federation of Coffee Enterprises,
politicians of the Liberal-Conservative two-party system and
members of the Civil Defense .

Among the foreign advisors of the paracos were Yankee and
Israeli officers and mercenaries (the latter from the securi-
ty Spearhead company belonging to Israeli colonel Yair Klein).
Many of them operated in military intelligence of Charry
Solanos battalion. Initially, 4 Israelis trained 80 paracos
in terrorist techniques and attacks on ships. For the first
three classes they asked $800,000. The banana company Unibam,
from Urab, hired Yitzhak Shoshan, a former Israeli officer, to
resolve their labor conflicts
The big companies contract foreign killers
Gentlemen, the banana-
company UNIBAN hired me
to discuss the list of de-
mands with you
124
Paramilitary forces and self-defense
F
rom that moment on, the paramilitary forces and death squads
became widespread in Colombia, though they were called
self-defense; a name that really belonged to liberal and
communist guerrilla groups in the nineteen-forties. When l-
varo Uribe Vlez was governor of Antioquia, he encouraged the
legalization of the paramilitaries calling them Convivir,
a political project which in the beginning was only developed
between Paramillo and Urab but later on would be extended to
other areas of the country.
The first time the repressive state apparatus tried to appro-
priate the term self-defense was on the 9th of April 1969. At
that moment, the General Command of the Military Forces sanc-
tioned the Combat Regulations for Counter-Guerrilla (EJC
3-10, reserved). These regulations proposed to organize the ci-
vil population in a) Civil defense and b) Self-defense commit-
tees, both of them directed against guerrilla groups. The pro-
ject came from three North American military documents (which
teach how to organize death squads), and which had been studied
in Colombian military academies.
Uribe founds the Convivir
God bless you,
I wish you
good marksman-
ship.
125
The big companies fnance the mafa and paramilitary
forces
I
n Magdalena Medio, the only real authorities have been the pa-
ramilitary chiefs and the armys high command. The paracos
commit their massacres, which they try to attribute to the FARC
in order to discredit them. For example the case of the 18th of
January 1989, when two judges and 13 investigators from the Te-
chnical Corps of the Judicial Police were killed. In that case,
3 investigators managed to survive and tell the truth: it wasnt
the FARC, it was the paracos.
In the name of anti-communism and the counter-insurgency
struggle, the big companies, the main leaders of the two-party
system, the mafia drug chiefs, the paracos and the military
officers took control of the majority of lands in those areas,
pursuing and displacing thousands of Colombian families.
Well say it was
the FARC and
the media will do
their job
126

Paramilitary forces and democratic Security
N
arco-paramilitary forces were an instrument of politics and
the Democratic Security Doctrine (DSD), a continuation of the
National Security Doctrine (NSD) from earlier decades, recycled
and masked. Their job was to ensure a problem-free exploitation
of the natural resources by transnational companies and capi-
tal in general (the big companies).
The official army uses paramilitarism to avoid criminal accou-
ntability. They tolerate, allow and work together with them.
Sometimes they commit crimes in the name of the paramilitaries.
They get to a peasants area to tear it to the ground and burn
it. They start to run their chain saws (the same instrument that
destroyed nature, cutting trees, ends up destroying the human
bodies of anyone opposed to the capitalist regime). They burn
people alive, destroy their schools, their crops and they steal
their cows and raze anything they find in their way. The same
criminals who massacre their own people not only dont go to
jail, they also launder their money and introduce themselves
legally into the Colombian economy.
Evil trilogy
127
Paramilitary forces and their unpunished legalization
B
ehind the media facade, in Colombia there exists a narco-
state, whose deepest social, administrative, repressive (po-
lice and military) and economic structures are permeated by
this mafia-business. The paramilitary forces maintain a large
scale informal economy. After massacring union and popular
activists, they were rehabilitated, legalizing more than 10
billion dollars through mega-projects.
They had spread their assassinations, abuse, attacks and mons-
trous crimes for decades throughout the country. The best exam-
ple may be the already-mentioned systematic use of the chain
saws to dismember people alive. Afterwards, the Colombian bour-
geois state promulgated the so-called Law of Justice and Pea-
ce on June 21, 2005. With this law, they granted the paracos,
their denied sons who had been accused of crimes against huma-
nity, an impunity which legalized their fortunes and big capi-
tal, guaranteeing their reinsertion into the formal economy and
a splendid retirement. However, since they signed the cease-
fire on the 15th of July 2003, these delinquents have carried
out some 3000 more assassinations
Legalized fortunes of narco-paramilitaries
128
Paramilitaries, para-politics and big capital
T
he Colombian paramilitaries never operated by themselves.
In a TV interview, Salvatore Mancuso (boss of a paramili-
tary group called United Self-defense Groups of Colombia, AUC
in Spanish), declared that in the Urab area, for example, the
paracos were given a sum of money by the multinational ba-
nana company Chiquita Brands (the former United Fruit Com-
pany, later called Sevilian Fruit Company) for every guerrilla
fighter they killed.
Based on some documents captured from the drug chief Jorge
40, in March 2006, many deputies and senators, associated with
lvaro Uribe Vlez (president by then) and the official mem-
bers of the two-party system, were arrested, because they had
a close relationship with the paracos and drug-trafficking.
This international scandal was known as para-politics. The
highest leadership of the DAS (Administrative Department of Se-
curity), the highest body of Colombian State intelligence, was
also involved.
Two-party system
129
The cynicism of the DEA, the United States and drugs
T
he advanced military technology and all the military aid
money sent by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and
other US institutions did not address the war against drugs,
but the counter-insurgency war, the dirty war against guerri-
lla movements and the control and repression of the civilian
population which supported them.

.
Uncle Sam is stoned
This is
my personal
dose
130
The USA -the main consumer of drugs worldwide- doesnt fight
against drug trafficking on their own territory. Instead of
attacking the big production, trafficking and distribution
chains, they repress the peasants who grow coca. They are super
exploited, forgotten and ostracized, they grow illegal crops to
survive, not having any other viable alternative which allows
them to live decently. On the other hand, they dont combat the
big drug-traffickers. The FARC was right when it declared, in
a Central High Commands meeting in March 2000: Drug-tra-
fficking is an issue of globalized capitalism and the gringos
in the first place. Its not our problem. We dont agree with
drug-trafficking. But as the North American government uses
the existence of drug-trafficking as a pretext for its criminal
action against Colombian people, we demand that they legalize
drugs. Thats how you can restrain the high benefits produced
by the illegality of this business, thats how you can control
its use, giving medical care to the addictsthats how you can
definitely liquidate this cancer. To big illnesses, big reme-
dies.
No more dropping of Agent Orange
MONSANTO go home!
131
The FARC-EP and the coca plantations
T
he FARC-EP have never defended the big drug chiefs. They
have even had (and still have) armed confrontations with the
big drug-traffickers. They consider them part of the bourgeoi-
sie and thats why they charge them revolutionary taxes as they
do with the rest of the Colombian bourgeoisie. But the FARC-
EP doesnt repress the poor peasants who are involved in coca
growing, because they understand that its a social problem
which requires political solutions. They try to persuade the
peasants to substitute their coca crops with other commodities.
The FARC-EP proposes a comprehensive solution to the problem.
Their proposal aims at attacking the social problems which
cause drug addiction. To reduce drug consumption by Colombian
youth, it proposes long-term systematic education. Therefore,
they have edited and send out educational videos on the In-
ternet, for example the one called: La baretopoltica (See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZyeRWhzdg where young gue-
rrilla men and women try to be an example to people from their
own age.
And we wont have
any further excuse
to interfere in
Colombia
If we legalize
drugs
our business
will go
down
132
The FARC-EP and drug policy
According to the FARC-EP, the paramilitarys and mafias drug
trafficking is dangerous fuel for the civil war. To solve this
problem, the insurgency suggests substituting illicit crops
with other ones. It also suggests the possibility of establis-
hing aid programs with new alternatives for the poor peasants.
This whole project fits into a real agrarian reform, at the core
of the Agrarian Program of the Guerrilla fighters.

The FARC-EP has worked on concrete projects for the substi-
tution of crops. Its proposal suggests that poor people on the
countryside should grow profitable crops, too, such as rubber
or cacao. For this, they should receive help from the state and
international organizations such as the United Nations. Nobo-
dy is going to eliminate Colombias coca by just repressing the
poor peasants, as the US high command wishes to do.
Uncle Sam gets high
This is even
cooler than
cacao and maize
133
Health care and insurgent sanitarian policies
I
n the middle of the civil war, the FARC develops health care
programs, both for the civilian population in the villages
where it has great popular support as it does for its own comba-
tants. The sanitarian policies of the guerrilla start with the
prevention and good nutrition for its militants. And whenever
necessary, as in the case of seriously-wounded combatants, the
FARC has its own doctors who can perform the most complex sur-
gery in the middle of the jungle, in the same way the Vietnamese
did in the middle of their rice fields and bombings.

Health Care
FARC
Here the 100 law doesnt apply
134
How does a revolutionary army fnance itself?
T
he bourgeois state finances the counter-insurgency war in
Colombia with North American military investments (one of the
three most important in the world and the most important in La-
tin America) and sucks the popular sectors dry with draconian
taxes. Thats where the money comes from, with which the Santan-
derist Colombian army buys their airplanes, their satellites,
their bombs and the enormous network of informants (sapos),
paid by the state. The whole bourgeois state apparatus, inclu-
ding their financial institutions, is focused on the counter-
insurgency.
How does a revolutionary army sustain itself for decades in
this particular context? A long and cruel war, where the in-
surgency is constructing a social, political and military au-
tonomous force, which doesnt depend on other states, has to
confront the problem of financing. The insurgency responds by
attacking the mafia bourgeoisie where it most hurts: their bank
accounts and their bulky finances. Another source of finances
is the productive projects in different branches of the natio-
nal economy, in a clandestine way.
War taxes
135
The revolutionary law and punishments of a new estab-
lishment
T
he insurgency, without any external economic support, dis-
charges the costs of the revolutionary war over big capi-
tal, the big business, the rich and the big bourgeois families.
Therefore, it implements new laws, axis of popular sovereign-
ty, which dont respond to bourgeois institutions or its legal
system. The retentions (applied to the bourgeoisie that doesnt
respect the new revolutionary legality) are punishment for
non-payment of peace taxes applied to the ruling classes. Only
if one is aware of the drama caused by the counter-insurgency
war and bourgeois violence against Colombian people, one can
understand the problem of the insurgent retentions. The ones
who treat this problem as a vague, abstract and falsely equi-
distant humanitarianism are just being cynical and hypo-
critical. If you demand that the guerrilla stop the retentions,
why dont you demand that the state stop charging taxes for war
and receiving permanent aid from the USA?

Gringo aid
136
The insurgency is not a band of delinquents, kidnappers, ban-
dits and outlaws. Even a US observer like Noam Chomsky, in his
previously mentioned book, describes those measures as revo-
lutionary taxes, a classification adopted by the London news-
paper Financial Times, too.

Without finances
theres no
revolution
This plain
truth was
said by Lenin.
137
Insecurity, robbery and criminality

I
n the liberated areas where the guerrilla exercises its sove-
reignty and the new power is in chargethe index of crime and
citizen insecurity suddenly decreases. Robbery, kidnapping and
rape quickly disappear. Why is that?
Citizen insecurity is a product of extreme poverty, of exclu-
sion; of the lack of education and the lumpen culture introdu-
ced by the bourgeoisie into the big cities of Colombian society.
When its the insurgency who exercises power, the delinquency
statistics decline. The peasants and displaced populations re-
cognize that in the areas around guerrilla camps theres no
robbery, crime or assassinations. The people exercise power and
sovereignty by themselves, guaranteeing security among the ci-
vilian population.
Capitalist lumpen subculture
138
A peace crusade
I
n the middle of a strong anti-communist McCarthyism, the at-
tempt to criminalize social protest and the cruel persecution
against the guerrilla who maintains its program for a peaceful
solution to the countrys serious social problems, on a national
and international level, tendencies emerged which defended and
promoted political dialogue with the insurgency. Among these,
we should emphasize initiatives like the one taken by the go-
vernment of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which even
spoke about the need to recognize the legitimate character of
the Colombian insurgency as a belligerent force. We should also
mention the initiative taken by Colombian men and women for
peace, led by the Liberal political leader Piedad Crdoba. It
is supported by many intellectuals, politicians and democra-
tic personalities, who belong to different parties and sectors
within the nation and who want to put an end to the fratricidal
confrontation imposed by militarism.
They repress the desire for peace
139
As a development of its peace policy, the FARC-EP has carried
out unilateral initiatives which have led to the liberation of
hundreds of prisoners-of-war, which it had in custody. It tries
to make possible a humanitarian interchange of combatants from
one and another side, those who are in the State prisons and
those who are FARC prisoners. Hopefully they can agree to a
permanent prisoner exchange law which could ameliorate the
consequences of war; thats how they could take the first steps
toward a new peace dialogue in Colombia. Since the end of 2007,
senator Piedad Crdoba, a member of Colombian men and women
for peace, has facilitated the release of several groups of war
prisoners and politicians. But the Colombian state, controlled
by a decadent militaristic elite (among which ex-president Uri-
be and current president Santos stand out), has done everything
it could to sabotage the initiatives. It has even criminalized
those who dont agree with its militaristic positions.

The government
and the high
command
dont care about the
fate of the soldiers and
policemen who are
war prisoners
Even when
theyve risked their life
to defend the
system. Thats how
they repay them
140
Political prisoners of the FARC-EP and humanitarian in-
terchange
W
hen talking about a prisoner exchange (also called huma-
nitarian interchange) one is looking for the liberation
of prisoners on both sides. There cant be a real humanitarian
interchange in a war if you demand that only one side free its
prisoners while keeping absolute silence about the prisoners
on the other side.
The media, manipulated by the Colombian government and US agen-
cies, usually pressure the guerrilla to liberate its prisoners-
of-war. Curiously, they never mention the guerrilla fighters
imprisoned by the state, some of them condemned to more than 60
years of prison. Dont they exist? Do only the families of the
prisoners held by the FARC exist? What happens to the families
of the FARC prisoners who are in state prisons, in worse condi-
tions of overcrowding and violations by the regime?
National Outcry
141
FARC prisoners in the US
I
n the United States, the unparalleled paradise of human
rights, according to TV, different dissidents and rebels
around the world are in jail. North American citizens, but also
people from other countries. Of their own dissidents, one of the
most famous cases is the leader of the Black Panthers, Mumia
Abu-Jamal. There are also ex-militants of the Weather Under-
ground. They have been in prison for decades. In addition, there
are the five Cuban revolutionary militants (Gerardo Hernndez,
Fernando Gonzlez, Antonio Guerrero, Ren Gonzlez and Ramn
Labaino). They have been prisoners for over a decade now, be-
cause they infiltrated terrorist groups in Miami to neutralize
their actions. There are also a lot of Muslim militants, sub-
jected to the worst torture - without any juridical assistance
or minimal guarantees- at the military base in Guantnamo. To-
gether with all these people, in the US prisons there are also
guerrilla fighters of the FARC: Simn Trinidad, Sonia and Ivn
Vargas. Some of them have been condemned to more than 60 years
in prison, always in the name of plurality and respect for
anothers opinion!

Simn Trinidad, Sonia and Ivn Vargas have been extradited to
the US exclusively for political reasons, violating the Co-
lombian Constitution and its own bourgeois penal legislation,
with ridiculous lies and legal arrangements, trying to asso-
ciate them with drug-trafficking. The objective? To blackmail
the FARC so that it will give up its struggle, demobilizes and
surrenders.
FREEDOM FOR SIMN AND SONIA!
142
Prisoners held by the insurgency
A
mong the prisoners who have been held by the FARC there were
different kinds: a) those detained for economic reasons (for
example, because they didnt respect Law 002 about peace ta-
xes); b) military and police (captured in combat), c) CIA agents
who operated in Colombia and d) militaristic politicians who
incited war against the people from their privileged social
positions. Under what conditions have these prisoners been li-
ving? All the personalities who visited these prisoners - they
have been interviewed and filmed- agree on the fact that its a
difficult situation, but, as one of the FARC comandantes stres-
sed, none of them are on vacation, they are prisoners, products
of the confrontationbut they have their food supply, they are
respected by our combatants and they have the possibility of
minimal interchange between them, etc..
An illustrative case, used many times in the media campaign
against the FARC, is the case of Ingrid Betancourt, ex-candida-
te for president. The big media insisted, many times, on the fact
that she was on the verge of dying, that she was undernou-
rished according to a high official of the Colombian state,
she looked like a child from Ethiopia. Yet, when she came out,
the entire world could see Ingrid Betancourts conditions. She
was absolutely healthy! Curiously, no one was surprised and no
one wondered if everything said before had been a lie. Another
typical case was the one of the three CIA agents - called coo-
perating civilians by the international media-. Once libera-
ted, the Colombian state forgot about the war prisoners held by
the guerrilla. Many of the military and officers who are still
held by the insurgency are waiting for the government to accept
a prisoner exchange.
143
Human rights violations and disappearances
T
he Working Group on Forced Disappearance of the United Na-
tions denounced the Colombian state for 351 proven cases
which occurred between 1979 and 1986. The disappearances in-
creased. According to that organization, in Colombia there
are still cases of forced disappearances. Only in exceptional
situations do you hear of such cases in other Latin American
countries, but not as in Colombia. (24th of July 2006).

In 2007 there were 4,323 reportedly disappeared people in Co-
lombia. In 2008, 15,696 and the number has increased signifi-
cantly: 18,236 cases in 2009, for a total of 38,255 people re-
ported disappeared. The biggest number of disappeared is in
Antioquia, where it grew from 471 cases in 2008 to 3,976 in 2009.
Next is Bogot, where in 2009 3,769 cases were registered and
Valle del Cauca, with 1,929 cases. (see Noticias Caracol TV.com,
12/11/2010). These are official data of Forensis, the magazine
that reports annually about crime in Colombia. This is demo-
cracy! Without anyone batting an eyelash about it! As if it
were something normal for the dissidents to have simply va-
nished Theres nothing to envy in comparison with generals
Pinochet, Videla, Banzer, Stroessner This is exactly the De-
mocratic Security of presidents Uribe and Santos who, beside
this, during their criminal government, caused some 5 million
people to be displaced, and a counter-agrarian reform which
allowed a bigger concentration of lands.
Wizard to disappear Colombian people
144
Mass graves and False Positives
A
nother terrorist method applied by the Colombian state is
the False Positives (that is, civilians assassinated by
the Army and presented as guerrilla fighters killed in combat).
According to the United Nations, the systematic assassinations
of young people and peasants committed by the Colombian Army to
make them look like guerrilla fighters totals 1,800. The num-
ber was published in a report by the UN envoy, Philip Alston,
who was in Colombia to investigate those cases. Alston blamed
the compensation system, established by Uribe and Santos De-
mocratic Security to defeat the FARC. According to the UN, in
the year 2003, there was already some information about these
False Positives, although the scandal came to public light
only recently in 2007. Other studies show that since 2002, when
Uribe became president, the extrajudicial executions of civi-
lians have cost the lives of more than 3,000 people, some 160 of
them underage.
They do not only disappear people who express an opinion or
who disagree, opponents and militants who try to organize the
popular sectors. Worse, the Colombian state doesnt present the
corpses of the supposed guerrilla fighters they assassinate.
To these astounding figures, we can add more than 2,000 uni-
dentified corpses, buried in the biggest mass grave in Latin
America, located in a little town called La Macarena, Meta, 200
kilometers South of Bogot. This is a mass grave, which is bi-
gger than the ones in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Guatemala. In
pure Nazi style, this is always done in the name of freedom.
Hitler the teacher
You have some
outstanding
pupils in
Colombia
145
Continuation of the FARC-EPs Strategic Plan
I
n spite of the cruel repression and the attempt to crimina-
lize any popular protest, the FARC continued developing its
long-term Strategic Plan for the Colombian revolution. In the
middle of this dispute with the Colombian state and with the in-
tervention -now direct- of the United States, the FARC comple-
mented their plan for armed struggle with social and political
alliance projects with the popular movements. The objective was
to create a National Constituent Assembly to define a new cou-
ntry and a new political regime, radically changing the social
and political structures of the state.

Two initiatives at the same time: Neither only revolutionary
war or only political activity. Both! The most important ideas
of Lenin, the great legacy of the Vietnamese, the historical ex-
perience of Marulanda. Combine all methods of struggle, fight
and debate on any field. The FARC-EP believes that all the di-
fferent methods of mass struggle should be kept in mind. The
guerrilla is a central part of it, but its not the only part.
The FARC-EP sees revolution as a wide range of converging
methods of struggle in which the peoples insurrection in the
big cities will join the offensive of the insurgent movement.
Together with the guerrilla movement goes a political party and
mass organizations, including social organizations as well as
the clandestine Bolivarian movement.
146
Bolivarian platform for the New Colombia
I
n their Manifesto of September 2007, the FARC put forth for
the consideration of the country and its political and social
organizations, the Bolivarian Platform for a New Colombia. It
was a contribution to the discussion and interchange about the
ideas and program of a new government. The FARC proposed it
should be patriotic, democratic, Bolivarian, and moving towards
a new social order, committed to a political solution of this
conflict.
A new government, that should bring the political and social
project of the Liberator (Bolvar) into existence, and create a
new Bolivarian Army to defend the nation and social security.
A new order built on democracy and peoples sovereignty, which
should add moral and electoral power to the three traditional
powers and establish a unicameral legislature and provisions
for recall. A new system of government, which would put an end
to neo-liberal policies, assume control of the strategic sec-
tors and stimulate production in all ways, which would demand
respect for the nations sovereignty regarding its natural re-
sources and implementing efficient policies to preserve the
environment.
147
First the nations sovereignty
A
nd the FARC continues: A government, which ensures free
education on all levels, implements social insertion and
agrarian justice, re-negotiates contracts with transnational
corporations which are harmful to the nation, cancels military
pacts, treaties and agreements which blemish the nations so-
vereignty and which doesnt extradite Colombian citizens and
cancels the external debt payment concerning fraudulent loans
from any period.
A government, whose international politics are based on the
Great Nation and Socialism, and whose priority is the integra-
tion of the people of Our America. Thats why the FARCs policy
on borders is based on brotherhood, not on confrontation with
the armies of neighboring countries.
External debt makes the country bleed
148
Clandestine political construction
L
earning their lessons from the extermination suffered by
the leaders and militants of the Patriotic Union in the late
nineteen-eighties, the FARC initiated the political construc-
tion of a mass movement; open, democratic, patriotic, anti-im-
perialist, but clandestine: the Bolivarian Movement for a New
Colombia.
At the same time, the FARC considered the problem of financial
resources, which are vital for the implementation of the Stra-
tegic Plan. They re-configured the Central High Command of the
insurgency (increasing it to 31 members). They also established
specific responsibilities for every comandante who was going
to be in charge of the governmental structures on national,
regional and municipal level, considering the possibility of
the seizure of power via armed uprising. The FARC planned be-
forehand what this future government would look like, in the
hands of people and revolutionaries. They already had a con-
crete governmental plan and specific measures to take in case
of a popular victory.
Democratic agrarian reform
149
Two ways towards revolution and socialism
M
eanwhile, as the political analyses of the situation in Co-
lombia were diverging between the FARC and the Communist
Party, upon whom it had drawn historically, the insurgency de-
cided to promote the construction of a Clandestine Communist
Party (PCCC) without confronting the other, legal, CP but with
its own, autonomous perspectives and organization. The FARC
and the PCCC on the one hand and the PCC on the other, propo-
sed different ways to arrive at socialism and communism. Ac-
cording to the ideas of the FARC comandantes we will probably
meet again along the way. The real problem in this political
debate was the issue of power, central axis of the revolution
in any country of the world. Contrary to the postmodern ideas
that advocate changing the world without taking power, the
FARC thinks that it is not possible to get to genuine, profound,
structural, long-term changes, if you avoid the problem of the
seizure of power.
The FARC-EP defines itself as a political armed party. A commu-
nist party of Marxist, Leninist and Bolivarian inspiration. Its
political structure corresponds to the Leninist principles of
organization, adapted to Colombian reality. Every combat squad
works as a political party cell, with periodic meetings. The
squad comandantes cant be politically in charge of their cell
(in this way, they allow discussion and democracy, interchange
of opinions and self-criticism).
Only by taking
over power
will we be able to
carry out big
transformations
150
Insurgent tasks and political strategy
I
n the FARCs political strategy, there are several fundamental
tasks for the accumulation and development of the guerrilla
force in different phases: a) the increasing the number of com-
batants, b) the strengthening of Fronts, c) the achievement and
improvement of means for confrontation, d) the construction of
strategic routes, e) the consolidation of mass organizations, f)
the construction of the Clandestine Communist Party-PCCC, g)
the deployment of the Bolivarian Movement, h) the development
of urban military structures, i) the multiplication of the Bo-
livarian militias in the countryside and in the cities, j) the
strengthening of mass fronts.
This wide range of converging forces has one common goal: to
sustain the insurrectional uprising and the unification of po-
pular struggles and the guerrilla forces.
The solution is in our hands
Unity
151
Political education in the FARC-EP
T
o know how to combine all methods of struggle, it will be ne-
cessary to insist again and again on the political education
of militants and leaders. In the FARC-EP, political education
revolves around Bolivarian ideas and the classics of Marxism,
especially Latin American. They try to develop a comprehensi-
ve education. For that purpose, there are different kinds of
schools. From the moment a combatant joins the organization,
ones educational process begins; in the first place, in daily
life, in his or her relationship with other, more experienced
combatants; secondly, in a series of basic, technical and spe-
cialized classes, and also schools for comandantes.

In these schools they study a series of subjects or specializa-
tions like cartography, combat intelligence, explosives. There
are also classes on economics, philosophy, clandestine mass or-
ganizational work, marksmanship theory and practice, snipers.
To educate the number of comandantes required for the imple-
mentation of the Strategic Plan, this educational system inclu-
des a school for comandantes called Hernando Gonzlez Acosta.
Guides of the revolutionary way
152
The FARC, counter-hegemony and the battle of ideas
C
onfronting the big media monopolies (belonging to a small
number of millionaire families like president Santos), who
spread a one-dimensional, McCarthyist, repressive, anti-commu-
nist rhetoric, which is always docile toward the USA, the in-
surgency tries to develop a counter-hegemonic communication.
With few resources, without the oligarchys big money, the FARC
broadcasts through the Bolivarian Radio Chain, Voz de la Re-
sistencia (Voice of Resistance), which transmits from the Co-
lombian jungle.
Far from the supposed lack of ideology, which some badly-
informed analysts attribute to it, the insurgency also has
its political magazine Resistencia (national and interna-
tional) in which it puts forth its views on Colombian society,
its press agencies, its websites (see the references at the end
of this book), its folders and theoretical literature. A who-
le network of cultural and communication counter-hegemonical
institutions to conduct the battle of ideas, culturally and
politically, against the totalitarian rhetoric and the minds
manipulation by the oligarchic power.
153
The Bogot media
T
he new forms of domination combine repressive aplication of
state terror (which leaves mass graves, thousands and thou-
sands of forced disappeared people, entire villages of dis-
placed people (more than 5 million according to the Colombian
Supreme Court), paramilitarism, hundreds of political prisio-
ners, etc.) with the media manufacturing consent. Therefore, the
Colombian bourgeoisie has a whole series of TV channels, radio,
printed press and different media, dependent upon the repres-
sive and oligarchic regime.
The guerrilla is bad,
the USA is marvellous.
Torturers are excellent
fathers. People are poor
because they want to
be so
154
Why has it taken so long to take power in Colombia?
W
hy has the Colombian revolution taken so long? When will
the FARC-EP undertake its final offensive? Why didnt Ma-
rulanda and his combatants take power in a short time? To an-
swer these questions, its necessary to have a look at different
issues, for example the correlation of forces and the revolu-
tionary situation.

Social revolutions are not carried out according to the wishful
thinking or the individual whim of one or another person. There
are certain conditions which make the revolutionary solution
to a crisis possible or impossible. In Colombia, and in any cou-
ntry of the world. The fact that the Colombian revolution takes
so long doesnt mean that it is impossible or not feasible. In
other societies, the revolutionary would have to struggle for
many years, too (two analogous social and historical examples
are the Vietnamese and the Chinese revolutions, among others,
where the social conflict wasnt resolved in a few years, in a
rural flash war as in the Cuban revolution or through quick
urban insurrections like in the Russian revolution).
The situation in
Colombia is not the same
as the situation in Cuba
before 1959. The geno-
cide against our people has
been much bigger than the
repression of the Batista
dictatorship
155
What is a revolutionary situation?
R
evolutions dont arise because of magic or because of a
revolutionarys desire. To produce a revolutionary crisis,
contradictions and conditions will have to converge at the same
time. Lenin, trying to get over the mechanical idea that places
all its hopes only on the economic crisis, following Marx and
Engels, argued that, it is not only economic crises which produ-
ce a revolutionary situation. This presumes objective, but also
subjective changes. To the dialectical method of Marxism, the
objective and subjective circumstances are added and they are
mutually interdependent.

The objective circumstances of a revolutionary situation have
to do with the unresolved problems of capitalist production
and the economic crisis. The subjective condition refers to the
organizational level, consciousness and popular mass and wor-
kers struggle. Both of these are affected by power relations-
hips between social classes. The conditions are never complete
if there doesnt exist an active and organized intervention by
the popular masses. For a revolution to break out - warned
Lenin- its not enough that the ones from below dont want to
keep on living as they did before. It is also necessary that the
ones from above cannot continue governing as they did before.
To open the possibility of a
revolution, therell have to
come together several circum-
stances. The most important
is mass activity, the subjective
dimension.
156
The armed struggle: more in force than ever before
M
obile guerrilla warfare as a tactic offers great possibili-
ties for the insurgency to act under any circumstance. They
can easily change from resistance in the deepest jungle to ac-
tion in the peripheries of municipalities and cities. Their ac-
tion can get to the economic heart of the country; it can be ma-
nifested on transportation and on critical points of the energy
infrastructure and road networks.
Growing misery, forced displacements, false positives, the
everyday appearance of mass graves, unemployment, the unful-
fillment of the social debt, the indignant surrender of natio-
nal sovereignty to the United States, is a powerful time-bomb
about to explode. Social disconformity, together with the mili-
tary action of the guerrilla force can, as Marulanda said, open
the doors to a new social order, marked by justice.
Specialists
Ive killed hundreds
of Palestinian women
and children
Youre hired to do the
same thing in Colombia
OK
157
The impotence of the Colombian army concerning the
FARC-EP
T
he Colombian army refuses to consider the FARC a serious and
irresolvable problem for them. However, the reality is diffe-
rent: a) the Bolivarian FARC is structured into seven Blocks, so
the Santanderist army has been organized into seven divisions;
b) the Secretariat members of the FARC are seven, so the army
calls upon seven Israeli generals and Mossad officers to plan
the infiltration and selective assassination of every single
Secretariat member, and, c) the Colombian army considers that
they are not able to defeat the FARC, so they directly call upon
the military forces of the North American South Command to ope-
rate seven military bases on Colombian territory.
The South Command gives orders to the Colombian army
Go on fighting, idiot,
Im the one
in charge
158
US South Command intervention
T
he pretexts and conflict hypotheses of the North Americans
in Colombia are: a) Combat against the internal enemy (like
in the National Security doctrine, NSD), b) Struggle against
communism (as in the good old days of the Cold War, supposedly
over), and c) The confrontation against what they call narco-
terrorism. Many actions, missions and operations by the Co-
lombian army are directly conducted by North American officers
from the South Command settled in the Larandia base (Caquet)
and the Tres Esquinas base (gringo military base). They even
give orders and instructions in English in the middle of ope-
rations.

The Mossad and the Israeli army also operate in Colombia, to-
gether with the CIA and the South Command of the Yankee army.
Their intervention doesnt have anything to do with protection
of Jewish people (there are few Jews in Colombia). It is motiva-
ted by drug-trafficking and by geopolitical interests shared
with Yankee imperialism. The Israeli advisors have been present
in Colombia at least since 1987, through security companies
like the Israel Trading Corporation (Isrex) or Spearhead. Besi-
des their normal advice and intervention, since 2010, the armed
forces of Israel have assigned generals and officers to Colom-
bia, each one of them dedicated especially to the seven FARC-EP
Secretariat comandantes, in order to assassinate them.
Colombian army subordinated to the gringos
You,
undeveloped
one,bring me some
toilet paper
Yes, sir,
at your
service
159
The South Commands Plan Patriota
I
ts a counter-insurgency plan designed by the South Command
strategists of the US army. It is directed by North American
officers in the theater of operations. The Colombian military
commanders just act like subordinates of the gringos. Their
plans are being executed by professional soldiers or mercena-
ries structured basically into Mobile Brigades.
Plan Patriotas headquarters is located at the military base
of Larandia, Caquet. To plan and conduct the operations, they
have access to real-time satellite information and databases,
obtained through technical intelligence and spy airplanes with
and without crews. The satellite radar station is located on
the Tres Esquinas airbase, some kilometers down, near the Or-
teguaza River. In reality, Tres Esquinas is a secret United
States military base, located exactly at the point where the
Amazon starts, coveted by the empire.
160
CIA and Mossad: intervention in the internal confict
P
lan Patriota, derived from Plan Colombia, is the military
component of the so-called democratic security: security
for foreign investments and different kinds of coercion aimed
at suffocating growing social discontent. The most important
objective of this proposal is the illusion of the military de-
feat of the FARC-EP Bolivarian guerrilla force. The Washington
hawks think that they can eliminate an important element that
seriously challenges their continental domination.
Hundreds of gringo, Israeli and British military advisors par-
ticipate in this labor. They personally conduct the technical
intelligence from the most important garrisons in the country.
They hope to obtain results with the introduction of microchips
or positioning accessories (GPS) and with the Air Forces preci-
sion bombings of guerrilla camps.
This is the
location of
the main
camp of the
FARC-EP
161
A Strategy that involves all the States resources
T
he Cagun peace dialogues were only a stratagem of the Bo-
gota and Washington governments to gain time for the army to
re-engineer itself and to do some final retouching on Plan
Colombia. Their peace strategy has always been based on a po-
licy of forcing the insurgency to surrender.

While it was dialoging in El Cagun, the government was crea-
ting new Mobile Brigades, high mountain battalions, and im-
proving their military equipment. When Plan Patriota began,
the state, reinforced by the paramilitaries, concentrated their
fire against the FARCs Bloques and tried to destroy the clan-
destine organization and what they considered the guerrillas
support bases (massive raids, forced displacements, false posi-
tives, etc.). In economic terms, they established war taxes and
they reduced social investment. They criminalized protests and
political expression. While they gave away the judicial sove-
reignty by extraditing Colombian citizens to the United States,
the congress, taken by para-politics, subordinated itself to
the executives dictates.
The pain of the displaced people
162
The force deployment
T
he first step was the deployment of forces over a wide circle
in Caquet, Meta and Guaviare. From the occupied points, the
advance began with the illusion of a big general headquarters
which could never exist because of the guerrillas mobile war-
fare. It was more like reconnaissance on the ground after inte-
lligence from the air.
The advance was preceded by violent bombings. In the first
battle, 1500 guerrilla fighters of the FARC Bloque Oriental
confronted several of the official armys Mobile Brigades, ave-
raging one guerrilla fighter against 15 soldiers. A little bit
to the West, in El Billar, 800 guerrilla fighters of the Blo-
que Sur fought the infantry troops and the Air Force for three
months.
We have to
destroy anything
constructed
by the FARC
163
All the states frepower in action
P
reviously, the operational command had ordered construction
of dozens of secret heliports in the middle of the jungle,
in order to land troops. With the battles, the routes and roads
were blocked to cut the flow of the insurgents weapons and am-
munition. A strict control over the rivers was established and
the peasant population was forced to leave the area.

The air was taken over by technical intelligence, bombers and
airborne missions. Their objective was not only the guerrilla
force, but also the destruction of all infrastructure (machi-
nes, cars, repair garages, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges,
storage places, fuel depots, etc.) and to sow terror among the
population.
164
Marulanda commands the resistance
T
he army advanced massively and with sufficient firepower.
They advanced in rows of 300 men separated by a distance of
100 to 200 meters, covering a terrain of 8 or even more kilome-
ters. They moved forward slowly. To advance, they had to wait
for the route to be cleared by bombers and heavy artillery.
Commander-in-Chief Manuel Marulanda calculated that 50 per
cent of the force penetrated on foot, while the rest landed in
dozens of airborne missions day and night.
The guerrilla fighters received them with their mobile gue-
rrilla warfare. The enemy had to confront an extremely fluid,
hard-to-find adversary. Soon the guerrilla Commander-in-Chief
realized that combat in the jungle didnt have good results.
There was little precision, because of a lack of visibility. The
terrain was unfavorable. In semi-covered areas, the guerrillas
attack was more efficient because it allowed shooting more pre-
cisely.
165
The command war in the jungle
T
he FARC-EP commands appeared and disappeared, attacked by
surprise. They planned their movements and explorations very
well. They located the enemy and when he was moving, they went
into action. The attack on the vanguard, the rearguard, or on
the flanks was mixed with mines or snipers, which was a lethal
combination.

The Nuevo Arco Iris Foundation, which analyzed the evolution
of the Colombian war, estimated that the army had achieved su-
periority in the air, but they made clear that on the ground,
the initiative was on the guerrillas side. (We dont know the
parameters for measuring such superiority in the air, since
the guerrilla doesnt have any air force). The psychological
impact of the mines and the action by small commands over the
adversary was so devastating they declared, that it can stop
or obstruct the troops advance completely.
166
The guerrilla has assimilated the armys new operation-
al modality
I
ts obvious that the insurgency has assimilated the new opera-
tional modality implemented by the South Command. But theres
one thing that the Nuevo Arco Iris Foundation didnt manage
to see: the elevated morale of the guerrilla combatants. The
guerrilla fighters who are wounded during the confrontation,
dont even wait for their wounds to cure completely when they
are asking to be sent to the frontline again.

In the middle of the conflict, of the annihilation bombings, the
FARC guerrilla never interrupted its activities for a second:
the military schools, the war surgery in the jungle, the supply
of all necessary things to meet the logistical requirements of
the conflict. Plan Patriota hasnt been an obstacle for high
commands on all levels to attend their meetings. If any of their
comandantes fall in combat, there is always ready a list of
capable comandantes to replace them. The strength of the FARC
lies in its cohesion, in the clarity of its principles and in the
support of the population.
This is
ridiculous!
They make us
break our legs
to defend
capitalists
167
The new North American bases and Plan Colombia
A
s the official armed forces couldnt handle the insurgency,
they appealed for direct North American intervention. The-
refore, the Colombian state, managed by a decadent and depen-
dent bourgeoisie, without a suitable project for the nation,
handed over seven military bases to the United States: the bases
of Malambo, Atlntico; Palanquero, in Magdalena Medio; Apiay,
in Meta; the naval bases of Cartagena and the Pacfico; and the
training center of Tolemaida and the Armys Larandia base in
Caquet.


The USA is the main promoter of war in Colombia. Plan Colombia
has invested 10 billion dollars in the war. The objective? To
defeat the insurgency by military means and to get control over
the Amazon, petroleum resources and raw materials, which are
already starting to be scarce in the USA. Plan Colombia, in its
original design, was the military component of the general plan
for imperial domination over Our America, together with Plan
Puebla-Panama and all the other plans, the trans-nationaliza-
tion of law and dollarization. The escalation of Plan Colombia
was called Plan Patriota. It was a qualitative leap in which
the US took direct control over the war. When General Padilla,
being commander-in-chief of the Colombian army, received his
boss from the North -docile, obedient and with open arms- he
declared: This is about strengthening a relationship which
has been successful with access to Colombian military bases.
They are not North American bases, they are Colombian, but we
offer them the possibility of using our installations. A real
patriot!
Count on us
This is
my real
objective
168
The Colombian army and Yankee technology
I
n direct combat with the guerrilla force, the Colombian army
is usually defeated, in spite of counting on a force of 500,000.
But their technological superiority, thanks to North American
instruments (spy satellites, night heat-detectors looking for
guerrilla camps, high-technology un-piloted aircrafts, etc.)
allows them to dream about blocking the insurgent advance. If
in 1964 the United States donated 30 million dollars to be
used against the guerrilla force, in 1999 this same country
gave away 16 billion dollars to support Plan Patriota
against the same enemy. Until 2006, the US had already invested
4 billion dollars in this plan. The Colombia state received the
largest aid (in reality a military investment) from the US in
all of Latin America. To be able to act against this amazing
gringo military aid, the insurgency had to rely many times
on homemade and artisanal weaponry.


With a lot of cynicism, the Colombian military and many journa-
lists paid by them, question the mines used by the insurgency in
Colombias mountains and jungles. It would be so easy to stop
using those minesif the Colombian Army and their Pentagon
bosses stopped bombing. Something similar happened in other
decades to the Vietnamese, Algerian and Palestinian revolutio-
naries. When the hypocritical and cynical journalists, paid by
the powerful, suggested stopping the bombs, an FLN leader from
Algeria responded: If you just gave us your bombers, we would
be pleased to give you our homemade bombs.
David against Goliath
They are
fabricating
massive destructive
armament
169
The crisis of bourgeois civilization and the Colombian
confict
T
he capitalist system is a battered and listing boat heading
for the storm under the impulse of consecutive bursts of cri-
sis (economic, energy, environmental, technological, military-
industrial, etc.). It is heading to its own grave. Conditions
are changing in favor of the excluded. A new civilization of
justice and humanity is possible through struggle and popular
mobilization.

Turning its back on this reality, the Colombian oligarchy,
drunk with triumphalism, is talking about the end of the end of
the guerrilla, as if the conflict could be settled with spells
or magical tricks. The ruling class autism doesnt allow them
to imagine the defeat of the military industrial complex in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever the oligarchy says through its
misleading media factories, in Colombia the US South Commands
Plan Patriota has not defeated Manuels insurgency.
They win, but in the movies
Boss, we
are winning
the war
170
And the Bolivarian military?
We have to cut
all the guerrilla
fighters
into pieces with
motor chains. They
are bandits.
But my general
they are Bolivarian! Our
enemy is not the guerrilla,
it is the gringos arrogance
in our country, dont you
think so?
171
Patriotic policy towards the Armed Forces
Youre right, Jacobo.
There are also patriotic
and Bolivarian soldiers, who
feel uncomfortable serving
the USA. In the FARC we
reach out to them and we
consider them our broth-
ers.
Not all the military are
assassins or willing to
serve the empire. What
do you think, Manuel?
172
The FARCs border policy
T
he FARC, inspired by Bolvar, doesnt consider the armies of
the neighboring countries to be its enemies. It fights aga-
inst the armed forces of the Santanderist oligarchy and their
external advisors from the great powers who operate on Colom-
bian territory, mostly North Americans (but also Israelis).
The FARC considers that the military confrontation of which it
is part and in which it participates, is a Colombian internal
civil war, started a long time ago (during La Violencia, the
period following Gaitns assassination), which could be trans-
formed into a patriotic war if the United States decided to fur-
ther increase its direct counter-insurgency intervention, as it
did in South Vietnam to sustain a puppet and dependent regime.
Puppet governments
173
The FARC, patriotism and internationalism
S
imn Bolvars political project was the Great Nation, a uni-
fying dream of many peoples and cultures, improving the
small nations (or small fragmented republics, inherited from
the European colonial administrations). Socialism and commu-
nism, inspired by Marx and Lenins ideas, also seek active in-
ternational solidarity among the exploited and the wretched
of the Earth. Being a child of these two liberation traditions,
Bolvars patriotic ideas and Marx and Lenins communist ideas,
the FARC is a patriotic political force, which is internationa-
list at the same time.

In the FARC, internationalism is not just a sentiment on paper.
On the contrary, its about concrete and active internationa-
lism. An internationalism closely bound up with the members
of the FARC-EP (as in Bolvars time, in the insurgency not
only Colombian men and women, but also militants from other
countries participate, who feel part of its project) and to
the FARCs solidarity with other struggles (such as the Pales-
tinian, Basque, Cuban, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and all Latin
Americas struggle). There isnt anything more akin to Marx and
Lenins internationalism than the unifying project of the Bo-
livarian Great Nation. Its no coincidence that Jos Mart sum-
marized this as Homeland is humanity.
Jos Mart, internationalist
Jos Mart
Homeland
is humanity
174
Solidarity with the FARC struggle: A commitment of the
revolutionaries of the world

There, deep in the jungle, where the hyperbole of the bomber
explodes the thunder, untying the fierce song of the Kalash-
nikov There, where Bolvars flame flickers and the invi-
sible ones resist, Manuels insurgents, wrapped in the smoke
of forgetting, of gunpowder spread by the windThere, where
the curtain of bullets and fire stopped the massive advance of
the troops and made them wander without objectives in the jun-
gle, there you can hear the hurt voice of Guevara: It is not
a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of
sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his death or to vic-
tory The fire of the invisible ones, my brother, is everybodys
fire. Solidarity will open the ways of hope for us.
175
Revolutionary women in the FARC-EP
I
t has been very difficult for the Colombian government and
military intelligence to explain the numerous and powerful
presence of female combatants in the FARC-EP. Since they cannot
hide them anymore (for example, in some documentary movies many
guerrilla women appear), their argument is that they are for-
ced to be there. The machismo of traditional Colombian society
and their elites in power is uncomfortable with the equalita-
rian way of life in the insurgency and its behavior toward the
civil population.
Intelligence, courage, beauty, happiness and struggle
176
Indigenous people in the FARC-EP
T
he Colombian governments attitude towards indigenous people
is the same one as the dominant Creole classes had long ago,
since they are the direct heirs of the Spanish colonialists.
Racism, persecution, discrimination, under-estimation, and, in
the best case, paternalism. The indigenous people are seen as an
obstacle to be eliminated. The Colombian oligarchy uses their
paramilitaries to expell them, to displace them and to get con-
trol of their lands. The FARC-EP, contrary to the official pro-
paganda (and to many prejudices in European universities, who
express their superficial opinion by trying to counterpose the
FARC-EP to the Zapatistas), have maintained patient, long-term
political work in the heart of Colombias indigenous communi-
ties.

Its not true that Marxism is contrary, alien or indifferent to
the native cultures of Our America. Already in the period of the
Peruvian Marxist Jos Carlos Maritegui, the problems of the
indigenous world were among the main concerns of Latin Ameri-
can Marxism, which inspires the FARC-EP. Examples include the
book Tayrone stories (Relatos Tayronas) where they recollect
experiences with the indigenous communities of Arhuacas, Wiwas,
Koguis and Kankuamas of Colombia.
Indian, we
discover you
Me also
discover
your bad
intentions.
Kill us and
steal our
lands
177
FARC-EP and the insurgencys cultural hours
A
re the guerrilla men and guerrilla women of the FARC ro-
bots? Are they ignorant people who dont know what theyre
fighting for and who sacrifice their lives just because? Only
if you dont know or completely ignore the real daily life of
the camps and combat units of the FARC-EP can you imagine
yourself that kind of guerrilla force. The insurgents, when
they are not fighting, have cultural hours every day (normally
in the afternoon, before going to sleep) of different types: in-
formational, political and entertaining.

In the informational and political cultural hours, they discuss
the days news, first they summarize everything that happened
in Colombia, in Latin America and in the world, and after that,
they express opinions and discuss it. This is done every day. The
FARC-EP guerrilla is an insurgency that is absolutely up-to-
date. Their combatants are no reckless and dull animals, lost
in the jungle without any links to civilization, but infor-
med people who have communist ideas. Thats why they fight, to
change society. In the entertaining cultural hours they watch
movies (political documentaries or features), they read poetry
(written by classical poets or by the combatants themselves),
they tell jokes or humorous stories and they present theatrical
performances. Every now and then, if war allows, they organi-
ze dances or they perform popular music (according to the area
where the guerrilla force is located and regional customs).
Cultural Differences
FARC-EP
Colombian army
178
Theatre in the FARC-EP
T
here are a lot of revolutionary traditions, which have tried
to separate theater from its bourgeois audience and its nor-
mal commercial circuits. From Bertold Brechts epic theatre in
Europe and the United States to Augusto Boals theatre of the
oppressed in Brazil (influenced by Brecht and Paulo Freire),
always trying to let the spectators play a leading role and the
performances to break with bourgeois cultural structures and
customs. The FARC-EP also tries to explore this kind of per-
formance where guerrilla men and women are not mere spectators
but play a leading role.
Normally, performances in the FARC-EPs camps are done on spe-
cific dates, like the commemoration of Che Guevaras assassina-
tion (8th of October), Simn Bolvars death (17th of December)
or other special occasions. They can vary, including from more
traditional theater works to recitals or costume balls (which
they prepare with scarce resources, because of the difficulties
of war) and with allegorical figures (death, the boss, landlords
on the farms, the peasant, the worker, the revolutionaries, La-
tin American unity, etc.). You can see some of them on the In-
ternet. These dances with theater performances are very similar
to the mystics developed in the Movimiento Sin Tierra camps
in Brazil, but carried out with Colombian objects and symbols.
Who is still alive dont say
never; firmness
is not firm; not everything
will continue the same:
when the dominating will
have spoken, the dominat-
ed will speak; Who dares
to say never? Who does
it depend on that oppres-
sion continues? On us. Who
does it depend on that it
ends? On us, too. Let the
one whos defeated get up!
The one whos lost, let him
struggle!
179
The FARC-EPs insurgent music
A
ll popular revolutions have created their own music, which
molds the cultural identity of their peoples, apart from
transmitting the message of disobedience and dreams of libe-
ration beyond the reading audience of traditional political
militancy. The folk songs of the Mexican revolution, the songs
of the Spanish civil war or the Cuban Nueva Trova (new ballads)
are well-known examples. The Sandinistas had their ballads, too
and Chilean folklore flourished during the time of Salvador
Allende. The case of the Colombian revolution and the FARC-
EPs insurgent music is no exception, though different from
other previously-mentioned revolutions, their rebellious music
is still not sufficiently known.

The FARC-EP have interpreted and recorded more than 300 songs
with varying rhythms, basically Colombian (vallenatos, cumbias,
etc.) but also Andian music, tangos, merengues, rock, blues,
salsa, rancheras, etc. You can hear all the FARC-EP music on
Internet and it has also circulated in different countries,
animating youth festivals and militant solidarity meetings.
180
The FARC-EP and paintings
P
ainting, engravings, drawings and posters have also been
present in different revolutions. Who could forget all the
artistic graphics of the Soviet vanguard of Lenins epoch? And
what about the Mexican murals of Diego Rivera and David Alfa-
ro Siqueiros? Osvaldo Guayasamin was also one of the greatest
Latin American painters, in spite of the fact that he didnt
count on his own revolution (Ecuador). In the case of the FARC-
EP, different painters have tried to continue the road where
culture and revolution come together, both in figurative and
in abstract art.

The best-known case is the Colombian painter, drawer and sculp-
tor Fernando Botero (known because of his practice of painting
human figures always a lot bigger than they are in real life).
Without belonging to the FARC insurgency, Botero has made a
painting of comandante Manuel Marulanda Velez, causing a big
national scandal. Other painters, less famous, have also tried
to represent the Colombian revolution through art. One of them
is Inti Maleywa, painter (and combatant) of the FARC-EP with
many paintings and drawings; you can see most of her work on
the Internet.
Painting of Inti Maleywa (FARC-EP)
181
The FARC-EP and poetry
A
s with paintings and music, literature and particularly
poetry have had a privileged place in the anti-capitalist
revolutionary culture of our time. In spite of the fact that the
great mind-controlling factories want to present revolutionary
people as uncivilized, authoritarian monsters without culture
or sensibility, who could today deny the poetry of Vladimir Ma-
yakovski, Miguel Hernandez, Pablo Neruda, Raul Gonzalez Tunon,
Cesar Vallejo, Nicolas Guilln, Victor Valera Mora, Otto Rene
Castillo, Leonel Rugama, Roque Dalton and so many other commu-
nist and revolutionary poets? Didnt Ernesto Che Guevara carry
a green notebook in his guerrilla backpack when he was in Bo-
livia, especially dedicated to the poetry he most loved?

The FARC-EP also have their poets. Not only in the pleasure the
guerrilla men and women feel for poetry (recited normally du-
ring their cultural hours) but also for their comandantes own
poetic creations. For example, some of them have published se-
veral books of poetry. On the Internet you can find their poems,
collected in the book written by FARC combatants, together with
international artists like the Venezuelan Paul Del Rio, the
Peruvian Milagros Chvez and the Salvadoran Oktavio: Versos
insurgentes. Poesa guerrillera (Caracas, 2007).
182
FARC-EP and cinema
I
f music, painting, literature and poetry have fired the cons-
ciences with the dreams or desires of rendition of all revo-
lutions, what hasnt the cinema done? Sergei Eisensteins ar-
mored Potemkin, for example, provided the iconography of the
Bolshevik revolution which still reminds us of that assault
on the sky during Lenins time. The Cuban documentary cinema
of Santiago Alvarez left its traces in the way we recall Fidel
and Ches Rebel Army or even the Vietnamese victory and the
legendary Ho Chi Minh. The FARC-EP also have their own cinema.
They have often been accompanied by filmmakers who portrayed
first Manuel Marulanda, and then different FARC comandantes
and combatants until the present.
One of the first documentaries about Marulanda is about Riochi-
quito (filmed in 1965 by the French directors Jean Pierre Serget
and Bruno Muel). Followed by 50 aos de monte (50 years of
jungle, s/datos, debut in 1999); Guerrilla Girl (2006, direc-
ted by Frank Piasecki Poulsen from Denmark) and FARC-EP: the
insurgency of the XXI century (2009, filmed by the team Glau-
ber Rocha and directed by Diego Rivera from Mexico), and the
documental saga of the Colombian journalist and writer Jorge
Enrique Botero.
Manuel in the movie made by Jean Pierre Serget and Bruno Muel
183
FARC-EP in the history of Latin American Marxism
C
ontrary to those who intend to present it as a sub-product,
derived mechanically from the Cold War, the reason for being,
the political identity and the history of the FARC-EP are a
fundamental part of political culture and the contemporary
history of Colombia and Latin America. If you dont have any
knowledge about Colombian history, its class struggles, its
unresolved conflicts and its civil war, you wont understand
anything about the FARC-EP. Anyone who intends to give an opi-
nion about the insurgency (for or against) without taking into
account the historical and social context of Colombia and Latin
America, past, present and future, can hardly express a correct
point of view.
184
The general history of popular struggles and Latin American
rebelliousness, has been one of fighting for more than five
centuries against colonial, neo-colonial and imperialist do-
mination. The FARC-EP is part of a specific tradition: Latin
American Marxism. In the heart of this movement, we find Ma-
nuel Marulanda and he will be there together with Jose Carlos
Maritegui, Julio Antonio Mella, Anbal Norberto Ponce, Luis
Emilio Recabarren, Agustin Farabundo Marti, Luis Carlos Pres-
tes, Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Miguel Enriquez, Raul
Sendic, Camilo Torres, Turcios Lima, Carlos Fonseca, Schafick
Handal, and so many other continental revolutionaries.
185
Noam Chomsky on the Colombian State and the FARC-
EP
Referring to those who accuse the FARC of under-estimating
legal political action or privileging the violent way of
weapons, North American thinker and investigator Noam Chom-
sky, in his book Rogue States. The role of force in world
affairs, recalled the selective and planned massacre against
the Patriotic Union and its thousands of militants and acti-
vists assassinated in the name of democracy.

Moreover, the North American thinker reminds the FARCs critics
that, according to Human Rights Watch, the Colombian state has
produced the biggest displaced population in the world, af-
ter Sudan and Angola. Questioning the genocidal policies of
the Colombian state, Chomsky harshly criticized the so-called
anti-drug policy implemented by Plan Colombia. According
to him, the target of Plan Colombia are the guerrilla for-
ces, mainly consisting of peasants, who demand internal social
change, which would interfere with the elites integration re-
lated to United States interests, which are guaranteeing privi-
leged access to the valuable resources of Colombia, including
petroleum, which is very likely to be an important factor be-
hind Plan Colombia (). In standard US terminology, the FARC
forces are narco-guerrillas, which is a useful concept to cover
counter-insurgency operations, but which has been questioned
by well-informed observers.
The old trick to invade and rob
The struggle against
drug trafficking is
the excuse, our
target is the
FARC
T
o
r
t
u
r
i
n
g

H
a
n
d
b
o
o
k

C
I
A
186
James Petras and Jos Saramago about the FARC-EP
I
n a letter published on the 19th of July 2007, James Petras,
the prestigious sociologist of New York University (USA), re-
proached the Portuguese writer Jos Saramago because of his
criticism of the Colombian FARC insurgency. In this letter,
Petras wrote: Recently, Colombia (despicable because of its
death squads sponsored by the government and because of the
peasant massacres) became the favorite place for some of the
best-known Western intellectuals to dictate their moral the-
siscondemning the Cuban Revolution (Susan Sontag) and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Mr. Jose Saramago). -In
Colombia theres no guerrilla, they are simply armed bands-.
You say that they are not really communists because, -they
are dedicated to kidnapping and assassination, violating human
rights-. You generously admit that - maybe in the beginning
they were (communists) but not anymore-. Lets discuss guerri-
llas in Colombia, particularly the FARC.
187
Petras continued: You acknowledge that, at the beginning, the
FARC might have been communistsbut not so later on? 20 years
later the FARC negotiated a peace agreement with president
Betancourt, so that a lot of their militants and some of their
leaders could form a party, the Patriotic Union, and compete in
elections. Between 1984-1989, the Colombian army, police and
death squads murdered more than 5000 members and electoral
activists, including two presidential candidates. The FARC re-
turned to armed struggle. This was the point when they ceased
to be communists? (). I would like you to give me an answer to
the question why the FARC-EPs proposals about the agrarian
reform and demilitarization are being supported by millions of
peasants, dispossessed and tortured by the Colombian govern-
ment () The guerrilla -the FARC and ELN- are today, and they
have always been, guerrilla forces. They are armed because they
have to be so, because Colombia needs some basic changes and the
political system doesnt allow other means, for example, elec-
tions without terror or intimidation.
188
Manuels deaths
A
fter having maintained an uninterrupted rebellion during
six decades -some called him the oldest guerrilla fighter
on the continent- Manuel Marulanda Vlez died of natural
causes on the 26th of March, 2008. He counted on the honor, not
provided by any official medals of the Santanderist army, of
having confronted 17 governments of the Colombian bourgeoisie
over 60 years: Mariano Ospina Prez (1946-1950); Laureano G-
mez Castro (1950-1951); Roberto Urdaneta Arbelez (1951-1953);
Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957); governments military junta
(1957-1958); Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958-1962); Guillermo Len
Valencia (1962-1966); Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966-1970); Misael
Pastrana Borrero (1970-1974); Alfonso Lpez Michelsen (1974-
1978); Julio Csar Turbay Ayala (1978-1982); Belisario Betancur
Cuartas (1982-1986); Virgilio Barco Vargas (1986-1990); Csar
Gaviria Trujillo (1990-1994); Ernesto Samper Pizano (1994-1998);
Andrs Pastrana Arango (1998-2002) and lvaro Uribe Vlez
(2002-2008, year in which Manuel passed away because of natu-
ral causes).
THEY WERE ALL DEFEATED BY MANUEL
189
None of these oligarchical governments could compel him to
yield, to exhaust him of buy him out. By no means could they
defeat him. It was exactly the same for all the North American
administrations he confronted, without ever remaining idle. Ma-
nuel died with his head high, beloved by many humble Colombian
people (and people from other countries), without ever giving
up the banner of his struggle. He said goodbye exactly in the
same way in which he started, without material wealth, com-
pletely sure of his political project, surrounded by a lot of
affection and with great moral prestige.

Sixty years. The dwarfs repeat the same thing
We
surrounded
him
Hes
almost
falling
190
Manuels lives
A
ccording to the memories of his friends and his combatants
and all the people who knew him, Manuel Marulanda Vlez had
always been, since he was young, a great joker (mamador de ga-
llo is the Colombian expression). He had a foolproof sense of
humor. One of the jokes that he most liked to tell was of his nu-
merous deaths announced periodically by the Colombian ruling
class on the radio, in the newspapers and on television. Since
they couldnt defeat him in real life, they defeated him.in
their dreams. And they even believed those funny stories them-
selves!
The different versions of his repeated supposed deaths (In
1964, 1970, 1995 and 2004, to mention only some) are so ridicu-
lous and even comical that the Colombian writer Arturo Alape
wrote the biographical book The lives of Pedro Antonio Marn.
What a disillusionment! It
was only a dream that Ti-
rofijo had been eliminated
191
And after Manuel? Easy, the struggle continues
N
o one fights or struggles alone (except for the Yankee mer-
cenaries, tall and blond, who always triumph in Vietnam.
according to Hollywood war movies). In real life, big political
personalities stand out in history, but they are always part of
a community. Marulanda is no exception.

As a founder and maximum comandante of the FARC-EP and the Co-
lombian revolution, Manuels biggest virtue and merit has been
the creation of a collective, political organization that has
managed to last (and grow) in time. He had enough lucidity to
avoid the presumption of many leaders who thought that without
them everything would be lost. In the case of the Colombian
guerrilla, nothing similar happened. Therefore, when Marulan-
da died, nobody became an orphan. They have mourned his death.
He was really loved, respected and admired. But the struggle
goes on. The insurgency has said so, and its Secretariat named
the communist militant Alfonso Cano (who was educated since
he was young at Marulanda and Jacobo Arenas side) as the new
Commander-in-Chief of the FARC-EP.
I, Rambo, will
kill the entire
FARC by myself
Yes, but
only
in the
movies
192
Demobilization and surrender?
I
n Colombia, different insurgent groups have demobilized and
surrendered during the last decades. They fought for some time
and then they got tired of it. They became realistic. They
entered the system. Thats what the M-19, as well as the indige-
nous group Quintn Lame and an important sector of the Popular
Liberation Army, have done.
Have they achieved anything by surrendering? Has Colombia
changed? Is there less injustice? The answers are obvious
every time there is more violence. To the habitual repressive
power of the state apparatus -with ten thousand disappeared in
the last three years- now you can add the seven gringo military
bases. Poverty hasnt ceased growing. Same thing for inequality
and exclusion. The pyramids that measure personal income show
a bigger social polarization every time. The distance between
the richest and the poorest grows geometrically.
193
The FARC-EP and courses on Manuel Marulanda
I
n the same way as was done since 1997, with the 30th anni-
versary of Che Guevaras death, lately there have started to
flourish on the whole continent Political educational courses
on Manuel Marulanda.
In this political educational space, his ideas, his strategy and
also the place of the Colombian insurgency in Latin American
Marxism today, are being discussed. New generations of Colom-
bian and Latin American youth, who hadnt even been born when
Manuel fought in Marquetalia, today learn from his story and
his life to continue the struggle and try to make his dreams
come true on a national, continental and worldwide scale.
Following Bolivar
H
is
t
o
r
y

o
f
t
h
e

F
A
R
C
194
Bolvar comes back!
A
fter the hegemony of neo-liberalism and post-modernism, the
disobedient and liberation message of Simn Bolvar returns
to the scene.
The Great Colombia, as a fraternizing category of peoples and
cultures and the Great Nation as a project of global emanci-
pation, today nourish rebelliousness in jungles and mountains,
in cities and countrysides, in factories and neighborhoods, at
schools and universities.
No movement can triumph
without knowing the his-
tory of its nation
195
The battle for defnitive independence
A
s the FARCs communiqu on the two hundred years of inde-
pendence makes clear: battle continues. There is a spiral
which goes up to reach freedom. The struggle of the patriots of
the XIX century has a close connection to the struggle of the
patriots of the XXI century ()
The struggle for definitive independence is not only bound up
with the defeat of the capitalist system and imperial domina-
tion, but it also demands the overcoming of this decadent system
and the inauguration of a new era of justice: The era of socia-
lism and the Great Nation () Washingtons biggest concern is
Simn Bolvar, who is still alive and throbbing in the avenging
desire of the people, and in the power of his ideas, of his po-
litical and social project. Bolvar is still fighting through
the FARCs rifles and through the desire for change and the
struggles of Colombian people.
This Bolivar is
a terrorist, he
is against me
I could
finance
some paras
and
196
The FARC-EP and Bolvar seen by the empire

T
he Pentagon and the Santa Fe IV documents (programmatic
texts which particularly attack the FARC-EP from Colombia
and President Hugo Chvez from Venezuela) declare Bolvar and
Bolivarianism as one of their current strategic enemies.
To the imperial eyes, Bolvar inspires the armed struggle of the
guerrilla force (FARC-EP?), populism (Chvez?) and socialism
(Cuba?). Three demons to fight against in the new North Ameri-
can witchhunt.
The donkey talking
Be careful: They
are preparing
the situation for
the aggression
Cuba, Venezuela,
Ecuador are the
axis of evil,
terrorists.
197
In spite of the National Geographic, Marulanda is alive

Tirofijo is dead is the name of a documentary produced by

the magazine Semana, producer Imagina and RCN, broadcast by
the National Geographic magazine. The mere title is a moan of an
oligarchy that always saw him as a threat to their privileges,
because Manuel Marulanda incarnated the desire for dignity
of the majorities. The life of this legendary founder of the
FARC is not a symbol of the defeat of the armed struggle as a
way to engage in politics in Colombia, as the promoters of the
documentary intended to show. The thing is that another way of
opposition has never been allowed. The ruling class has always
wanted the states monopoly of weapons and the defenselessness
of the people, to impose injustice.
198
The justice of Manuels struggle is unquestionable. Therefore,
the producers had to recognize that You can revile, detest
or admire Marulanda, but nobody can deny that he is one of
the most important Colombians of the countrys recent history.
Every single General of the Republic or president tried to kill
him. 17 successive governments, with their generals, resources
and war equipment, werent able to. General Valencia Tovar said
about Manuel Marulanda: He was one of the most astute military
strategists, thanks to a rarely-seen intuition and to a syste-
matic learning from his experiences.
199
Life cant be reduced to
money, a luxurious car and
a nice TV. Theres some-
thing a lot more valuable:
The struggle for a better
world!
The FARC-EP and the youth of the XXI century
200
Force and legitimacy of the armed struggle.


Ernesto: While the
FARC exist, no one can
take your rifle away
from you
Thats
right Manuel,
thats right
According to Che, its a felony
to criticize that brother be-
cause he carries a rifle, fighting
against tyranny.
The commanders star is Mar-
quetalia and La Higuera. Com-
bat in the trenches is their
shining light
I WARN THAT FROM NOW ON, I WILL HAVE
TO HAVE MY RIFLE NEAR ME AND THAT I
HAVE TO BE AWAKE TO SCARE AWAY SU-
PPLICATIONS, AND TEARS, AND ENTREATIES,
PROMISES AND AMULETS, MIRACLES AND
PRAYERS, BECAUSE IM NOT A SAINTNOR
AM I DEAD.
SHOW ME RESULTS, FURROWS OF FIRE, CUT
SUGAR CANE, OPEN FACTORIES, FILL ROOMS,
VOLUNTARY JOBS, SEEDS THAT GERMINATE
SMILES AND DAWNS, POEMS AND SONGS,
AND A LIBERATED FATHERLAND.
FOR THE ENEMY, NOT EVEN THIS LITTLE
OK? FOR THE ENEMY, ONLY IRON AND BU-
LLETS
201
Against machismo and discrimination
We join
the insurgency
This system
is macho and
patriarchal
202
The workers in the New Colombia

Painting from Inti Maleywa (FARC-EP)
Comrades, For how long
are we going to keep our
heads down?
203
The FARC-EP seen by the world
The FARC from
Colombia give us hope.
The utopia didnt
die in May 1968.
204
Marx and Bolvar in the XXI century
Simn:
rebellion is
legitimate!
Thats how it is, Karl:
Our future is the
Great Nation and
Socialism
205
Who is this book dedicated to?
To the youth, comrades, to the youth. and to all people who
fight for a better world.
I dont have any
doubt, Jacobo, Im sure
about it. With this youth
no one can stop us! We
are going to take over
power! WE ARE GOING
TO WIN!
Manuel: the
new generations
will continue
our struggle!
THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD WHO HAVE
STRUGGLED FOR FREEDOM HAVE FI-
NALLY EXTERMINATED THEIR TYRANTS
Simn Bolvar

206
Marulanda and the FARC-EP on the Internet
You can consult biographies of Marulanda, historical documents
about the Colombian conflict, chronologies of resistance and
actual documents of the FARC-EP in some of the next Internet
sites (sometimes the insurgencys enemies cancel the sitesbut
there will appear others where you can consult this kind of
materials):
In English:
http://www.farc-epeace.org/
In Spanish:
http://www.farc-ep.co/
http://www.pazfarc-ep.org/
http://www.resistencia-colombia.org
http://www.mujerfariana.co
http://frentean.blogspot.com/
http://www.abpnoticias.com/
http://anncol.eu/
http://euskalherriasozialista.blogspot.com
http://www.lahaine.org/
(seccin El mundo)
http://www.rebelion.org/
(section Colombia)
http://www.kaosenlared.net/
(section Internacionales)

http://www.rosa-blindada.info/
(sections Resistencias y Batalla de las ideas)
207
For the New Colombia
the Great Nation and Socialism
We will triumph



208