FARC
From WolfWikis
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is one of the largest guerilla armies in Latin America. An organization of approximately 18,000, FARC has been in existence for over 40 years. They are most influential in rural areas and, in some cases, exist as the ruling organization in the region.
Their ideology is a leftist one which focuses on the use of Colombian funds and land for social programs and the creation of a solid infrastructure. They view the current Colombian government as drug mules who use drug money to oppress its own people. In an interview with Paul Reyes, commander of FARC, he states, “Drug trafficking money circulates at every level of the government, in all the apparatuses of the State, all the governmental institutions… Drug trafficking money has also penetrated inside the police, inside the army, inside the DAS, the SIJIN, that is to say, inside all the components of state security. The president is compromised with this money. This money is also found in industry, in commerce, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the chemical industry, in all of these.”
FARC is most well known internationally for kidnapping. Their kidnappings are usually political in nature. They target people whose control would give FARC some leverage should Colombia agree to discuss the issues for which FARC is fighting. The most notable of their current detainees is Ingrid Betancourt, kidnapped February 23, 2002, a Colombian senator who was running for President of the country. Her detention gained international notice when, because of her dual citizenship with France, France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy demanded her release.
I interviewed Jason McLachlan, now an associate professor of ecology at Notre Dame University, who had been kidnapped by FARC while he was studying abroad as an undergrad in 1988. He said that he had been detained by FARC because someone had told FARC that he and a friend with whom he was traveling were working for the CIA. Although he was detained by a group that has long been recognized by the United States and most of the international community as a terrorist organization, McLachlan said that one of his biggest fears was being handed over to the Colombian military. "One thing that they (FARC) were afraid of is that if they released us to the military, the military might kill us and blame it on them."
McLachlan also described the typical FARC soldier, "These guys were not well trained military people. Most of the people... were sort of very poorly educated peasant guys who had joined the FARC because it was better than scratching out a living in the jungle of Colombia." "The reason why they have a revolutionary army there is because they have a lot of poverty. The FARC is a complicated group politically and I think there’s a lot of criticism now about what their real political motivations are but for sure, among the rank and file guys that we were hanging out with, they had a certain political integrity, also being in the FARC was better than starving to death out in the jungle"
When I asked about the reaction stateside, McLachlan told me that he thought it was best that the State Department had minimal involvement. "They (the State Department) were not involved in the negotiations at all and in fact, it was probably a really good thing, because the whole time we were saying, "hey, we're just students. we have nothing to do with the United States Government. We're just some guys studying agriculture." and if the U.S. government had put pressure on them, it would have associated us with the government."
What surprised me the most in the interview was the human rights standards which FARC upheld throughout McLachlan's detention. "The FARC are very aware of human rights. And, although kidnapping people doesn't conform to basic standards of human rights, those guys get tortured by the Colombian military all the time...So they're very sensitive to human rights and they know that having a good human rights record helps them in the international community." "We were never tortured or humiliated or put in a bad spot. It's just that where we were was an incredibly dangerous place and we were also being held against our will."
McLachlan was released after being held in the jungle of Colombia for ten months. He and his friend were used as collateral to negotiate a ceasefire with the military. The Catholic bishop of the region acted as intermediary in the deal and turned Jason over to the United States embassy.