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.