Inside the FARC: Colombia's guerilla fighters

[bemildred]

Longish, no excerpt.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/2011523145921384863.html

[gbscar]

1. Nice find.

This was an interesting read, particularly because it proves you can actually show a little known side of the FARC without losing a healthy dose of skepticism and critical thinking skills. At the same time, it also shows that the Colombian government may be far from winning, despite having weakened the group.

Like many other parties involved in the war in Colombia, the FARC are certainly a complex organization that isn't entirely made up of angels nor devils. Finding a real solution to the Colombian conflict requires acknowledging that they are, in fact, human beings, regardless of their resorting to criminal and yes, occasionally even terrorist methods. Simply demonizing them, regardless of its popularity in much of the mainstream U.S. and Colombian media or political circles, will not open any doors to peace.

As the article says, it's easy to lose track of time on both a personal and collective level during long, repetitive walks and after infinite numbers of skirmishes or bombing raids. To some extent, I'd suggest this also has an impact on the underlying political and military stagnation of the group and the war as a whole.

The human condition of these guerrillas reflects the largely overlooked personal tragedies that led them to join the war, including both violence and the larger injustices of the current status quo, but it doesn't glorify nor glamorize their struggle either, in spite of whatever fleeting welfare and vague hopes they may provide to pockets of peasants in remote villages. Revolutionary war has an uglier side too, even if this article only hints at it.

[bemildred]

2. Hard to come by.

I remember one some time back, maybe five years, maybe longer, written by a female person who lived in FARC territory, maybe it was in Granta, and wrote about coming in from abroad and how she got back home, relations with the local FARC people and Colombian authorities, what life was like etc. We get so much polemicized shit ...

[Judi Lynn]

3. Kicking.

:kick: