COLOMBIA:
No Big Changes Expected
after Rebel Chief’s
Death
By Diana Cariboni*
MONTEVIDEO (IPS) - The
death and replacement of
FARC chief "Manuel
Marulanda" will bring
neither a breakdown nor
a change in direction in
the Colombian rebel
group, which has been
militarily weakened and
has fallen silent on the
political front,
according to experts on
Latin America’s
longest-lived guerrilla
movement.
The death of the founder
and top leader of the
FARC (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of
Colombia), whose nom de
guerre was "Manuel
Marulanda", was
announced Saturday in an
interview with Defence
Minister Juan Manuel
Santos in the Semana
magazine and confirmed
Sunday by "Timochenko",
who forms part of the
insurgent group’s
seven-member
secretariat, in a video
broadcast by the Latin
American TV channel
Telesur.
"A great leader is
gone," said "Timochenko",
whose real name is
Timoleón Jiménez. He
said Marulanda died of a
heart attack on Mar. 26,
in the arms of his
girlfriend and
surrounded by his
troops.
Marulanda (Pedro Antonio
Marín) was succeeded by
guerrilla commander
"Alfonso Cano"
(Guillermo Sáenz),
Timochenko reported.
The late rebel chief,
also known as "Tirofijo"
or Sureshot, was born in
1928 or 1930 --
according to conflicting
versions -- in the
coffee-growing town of
Génova in the central
Colombian province of
Quindío.
His death was preceded
by two other major
losses for the FARC.
On Mar. 1, "Raúl Reyes",
the group’s
international spokesman,
was killed in the aerial
bombing of his camp,
which was located in
Ecuador. The
cross-border incursion
by the Colombian
military sparked a
serious diplomatic
crisis in the Andean
region.
And on Mar. 6, another
member of the FARC
secretariat, "Iván Ríos",
was killed by one of his
men, who cut off his
hand to collect the huge
reward offered by the
government.
Marulanda "is an
extremely wary
‘campesino’ (peasant
farmer) and a born
military strategist,"
was how he was once
described by Gilberto
Vieira, secretary
general of Colombia’s
Communist Party from
1946 to 1991, who knew
the rebel chief very
well.
Born into a poor rural
family, Pedro Antonio
Marín took up arms at
the age of 18, after the
assassination of Liberal
Party leader Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán in 1948,
which triggered a decade
of political violence
known as "La Violencia".
According to his
official biographer,
historian Arturo Alape,
Marín and his brothers
and cousins joined the
armed struggle in 1949,
because "rising up in
arms was the only way to
survive."
In 1950, he took the
name Manuel Marulanda
Vélez, in honour of a
trade union leader who
was tortured and killed.
During an armistice that
began in 1957, after the
collapse of the
four-year dictatorship
of General Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla, Marulanda was
even a public employee,
working as a highway
inspector.
In 1964, Conservative
President Guillermo León
Valencia ordered, as
part of the U.S. Latin
American Security
Operation (Plan LASO),
an attack on the village
of Marquetalia, where 49
families of former
combatants, led by
Marulanda, were living.
The military operation
forced the families to
scatter, and Marulanda,
along with several dozen
other guerrilla
fighters, created the
FARC in the southern
region of El Caguán, in
the province of Caquetá.
More than four decades
later, the group still
maintains its original
aim, agrarian reform.
In 1984, a peace
agreement between the
government of then
president Belisario
Betancur and the FARC
led to the creation of a
leftwing political
party, the Patriotic
Union. But it was
destroyed, as 5,000 of
its members and
supporters were killed
off by far-right
paramilitary groups and
the security forces.
Between 1999 and 2002,
under Conservative
President Andrés
Pastrana (1998-2002), a
42,000 square km
demilitarised zone was
created in El Caguán,
for peace talks between
the government and the
FARC.
But the only real
advance made by the
talks was a humanitarian
exchange of hostages
held by the FARC for
imprisoned guerrillas.
After the talks broke
off, Marulanda never
again appeared before
the cameras, and it was
rumoured that he was in
bad health.
"It is sad news…He was
an important figure,
which is not recognised
by those who fan the
flames of class hatred,"
the secretary general of
Colombia’s Communist
Party, Jaime Caycedo,
told IPS.
"He was important
because of his
trajectory, background
and agrarian traditions
against the oligarchy.
It is also significant
that he died of natural
causes," he added.
Iván Cepeda, head of the
Movement of Victims of
Crimes of the State,
told IPS that "it cannot
be denied that he was a
historic leader."
But he also expressed
his hope that "this will
represent a shift in
course by the FARC, and
that a priority will be
put on negotiations that
would lead to the
release of the hostages"
held in remote jungle
camps by the rebel
group.
MARULANDA’S SUCCESSOR
"We must not see
Marulanda’s death in
terms of a ‘before’ and
‘after’," Luis Eduardo
Celis, of the Bogotá
think tank Corporación
Nuevo Arco Iris, told
IPS from the town of El
Retorno in the southern
province of Guaviare.
The new head of the FARC
secretariat, Cano,
"represents a
long-expected
succession, because he
has a more intellectual
background and can serve
as a bridge between
Marulanda’s generation
of peasant fighters and
the younger, more urban,
university-educated
generation," he said.
"He has the complete
support of the FARC, and
his leadership does not
come as a surprise to
anyone," commented Celis,
who was in Guaviare to
attend the National
Forum for Reconciliation
in Colombia, along with
400 other delegates from
around the country.
The FARC represents the
Colombia "of the poor,
marginalised coca
farmer, and he (Cano) is
very familiar with the
movement, to which he
has dedicated more than
half his life. He has
lived and worked
alongside all of the
FARC’s commanders, so I
foresee a very smooth
transition," he added.
Under his leadership,
"there will be no
significant changes.
This is a very
reclusive, meticulous
and conservative
guerrilla group, which
is engaged in a trial of
political and military
strength with
(rightwing) President
Álvaro Uribe, something
that is not going to
change," Celis
predicted.
Changes could come "if
the political scenario
is modified, for
example, if a
humanitarian
hostage-prisoner swap is
achieved," said Celis, a
former non-combatant
member of the National
Liberation Army (ELN),
Colombia’s
second-largest insurgent
group.
But Uribe "has dug in
his heels against an
agreement," he said.
"The government’s aim is
to defeat the FARC
militarily, to force
them into an armistice."
Cano, 62, studied
anthropology at the
National University of
Colombia and was a
leader of the Communist
Youth before joining the
FARC. He led failed
peace talks in Caracas,
in 1991, and in Tlaxcala,
Mexico in 1992.
The collapse of the
talks in Mexico gave
rise to a dispute within
the secretariat, in
which Reyes’ position of
refusing to engage in
further negotiations
outside of Colombia
reportedly won out.
Cano is the founder of
the Bolivarian Movement,
FARC’s clandestine
political wing.
He is now apparently
somewhere between the
central province of
Tolima and the southwest
province of Valle del
Cauca, an area besieged
for months by 8,000
military troops.
But "we are talking
about huge areas, of
40,000 or 50,000 square
km," said Celis. "This
is a peasant army that
moves around calmly and
easily within that area.
They’ve been there for
50 or 60 years, they
aren't improvising."
Despite the recent loss
of several members of
the ruling secretariat,
"a military defeat of
the FARC does not lie
just around the corner,"
said Celis.
He estimates that the
group currently has
10,000 combatants,
having lost a similar
number -- "mainly the
youngest, those who were
recruited between 1998
and 2000" -- over the
last six years, to
death, desertion or
capture.
"The army has made
important, but not
strategic, advances. But
if Uribe ends up in
office for a third term
(for which a
constitutional reform
would be necessary), the
FARC would definitely
find itself in a
complicated position,
because the guerrillas
are not capable of
returning to their
previous military
strength," he said.
Continuing to wage war
until a total defeat
"would be a very bloody
route to take. Defeat
would also mean the end
of a social and
community network" that
supports the FARC.
POLITICAL ACTIVITY AT A
STANDSTILL
Another question is the
group’s current lack of
political initiative.
"The FARC no longer
presents proposals to
the country," said Celis.
The director of the
Institute of Studies for
Development and Peace (INDEPAZ),
Camilo González Posso,
said Saturday at the
National Forum for
Reconciliation, in
Guaviare, that "major
rectifications are
needed on the part of
the FARC."
"This policy of seeking
a humanitarian
hostage-prisoner
exchange has even
silenced the FARC
itself, because the
group has suspended its
political discourse
while pressing for an
agreement," added the
former government
minister.
"Get into politics, we
know you are
politicians, engage in
politics, don't wander
around the world asking
for your status (as a
terrorist group) to be
changed; change it by
getting involved in
politics," he urged the
guerrillas.
But Uribe must also
rectify his position,
and move "from
humanitarian rhetoric to
practice," because the
country "does not
deserve an escalation of
the conflict within its
borders as a result of
the failure to reach a
humanitarian accord on
the hostages," said
González Posso.
For his part, Celis said
"there is a great deal
of space for
negotiating. Of course
they (the guerrillas)
have very big
aspirations, which are
out of line with their
real capacity, but there
is a possibility for
discussing change."
In Bogotá, meanwhile,
Cepeda said "we hope
that under the new FARC
leader, a political
approach will prevail
over a military focus."
*With additional
reporting by Constanza
Vieira (from El Retorno)
and Helda Martínez
(Bogotá). |
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