Reckless Charges Against the FARC

In the current issue (May-June 2001) of Against the Current, there is an article by Dr. Joanne Rappaport titled "Colombia: Options from the Grassroots." She is an "anthro" who has spent time working with Colombian Indians. Her article takes no position on class questions, but is written from a "civil society" and "need for peace" perspective found in NACLA, the Nation Magazine, etc. Although not mentioning these publications specifically, James Petras has an article in the May Monthly Review titled "The Geopolitics of Plan Colombia" which tries to cut through these middle-class pieties.

In general the Colombian "peace movement" internationally has tried to use indigenous demands as a wedge against the FARC, less so against the ELN which tends to operate in territories less populated by Indians. The conflicts between the FARC and the Indians tends to be a side-effect of the civil war that is mainly a contest between the leftwing guerrilla movement and the army and paramilitaries. Official Indian organizations such as the CRIC have complained about incursions by both left and right into their territory, especially in Cauca. In one well-publicized incident, the FARC killed 3 indigenous activists from the USA who had been misidentified as CIA agents. In general, the FARC suffers from a heavy-handed paternalistic attitude toward Indians that is not much different than the one that led to clashes between the FSLN and Miskitos in Nicaragua.

That being said, it is of crucial importance to hold the FARC accountable for any such misdeeds on a fair and impartial basis. Whatever their failings, they are in the gunsight of what might turn out to be the most perilous military intervention by the US since the Vietnam war. Unfortunately, left-liberal journalism has not adhered to the highest standards in the past.

For example in the July/August 1999 NACLA Report, editorial board member Mario Murillo stated that "Over the past year, FARC guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries have murdered, abducted, and threatened numerous members of the Embera Katío community, a tribe of about 500 families living along rivers in northern Córdoba…"

However, a report filed in July 22, 1999 on the website of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia reported that the murders were committed not by the FARC, but by members of the rightwing paramilitary United Self Defense of Colombia (AUC) disguised as FARC combatants. When I emailed Murillo asking for an explanation of the discrepancy, he failed to reply. He also stuck to his story at a conference on Colombia held at Hunter College. When I asked one of the Indian panelists at the plenary session if she could substantiate the NACLA charges, she said she could not.

Rappaport's article is written from the same exact perspective as Murillo's, which is troubling considering that we would expect Against the Current, purportedly some kind of Marxist publication, to have a more acute class analysis than that found in NACLA. Rappaport warns us that the FARC should not be confused with the FSLN or FMLN, since it is less popular and more brutal than the Central American revolutionary movements of the 1980s.

Of course, one of the big problems facing those of us who would like to see imperialism defeated in Colombia is the lack of an organization like Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador in the USA which could counter lies about the FARC. This is a party function of the FARC's own insular nature, which can be explained by its nearly 40 year isolated struggle. Its leader Manuel "Sure Shot" Marulanda could never possibly be mistaken for Subcommandante Marcos, who consciously reaches out to a cosmopolitan audience through the Internet. "Sure Shot" seems more at home with crude peasants like himself, although he has met with American corporate leaders who seemed to be hedging their bets.

The other problem is that legislation against "terrorist" groups, passed largely because of the success of CISPES, has made it more difficult to work with the FARC. In one instance, a US ISP was forced to close down a pro-FARC because of fears of prosecution.

In any case, when reading through Rappaport's screed against the FARC, one sentence did not sit right with me. She wrote that the "FARC killed peasant leaders organizing against the encroachment of Carton de Colombia". My reaction as a self-taught journalist is to ask questions such as "Who, what, why, when, where and how." I wanted to know what prompted such killings. Did the FARC kill people because they were Indians? Or did they kill them because they supported the encroachment? Or was it a case of mistaken identity? I wanted to understand the POLITICAL context in other words.

When I wrote Dr. Rappaport requesting further information, especially from independent sources who had no particular axe to grind, she finally got back to me. She wrote, "Sorry. I don't have any information on that on hand. That was in the late seventies and I heard of it through AICO, the movement that organized the indigenous community of La Paila in Buenos Aires."

All I can say is that when the FARC is charged with a 25 year old murder in one of the highest-profile socialist magazines in the United States and the author can not document her charges, the solidarity movement in the USA which will be necessary in case of war will have to pick and choose its allies very carefully.