Is the CIA behind the 4 February march against FARC?
OpinionBy Marsares
Sunday 3 February 2008 0:12 COT
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The neighbourhood is nervous. The 4 February demonstration spoils their plans. With what face will they continue their efforts to sell the world the altruist spirit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), if the same people which they claim to represent rejects them publicly, pointing them as what they are, a group that violates the Geneva Conventions sistematically and whose degradation transformed a social revolution into a latrine with the most basic instincts?
Then they boost their imagination. For them, the motive for this march is not their crimes against humanity, but a “destabilizing plot against Venezuela, orchestrated by the Empire and the Colombian narco-democracy", and put the social networking website Facebook as the United States’ instrument to manipulate the world.
The libel is written by “Juan Carlos Vallejo”, a regular writer for the Bolivarian Press Agency [a media outlet which publishes news and communiqués by FARC, not to be confused with the official news agency of the Venezuelan government, the Bolivarian News Agency], who, after heaping a bunch of adjectives and associate the march with the visit to Colombia by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen (he missed Condoleezza Rice), uses the article With friends like these… by The Guardian’s Tom Hodgkinson, in order to show that Facebook is a weapon of the "empire".
It is true that this article, quoted by fellow blogger Víctor Buitrago in other post, makes several objectionable issues of Facebook evident. But the fact their directives are neocons, tooth and nail defenders of a limited State, of individual liberties above the collective ones, and of the laissez-faire doctrine does not mean that the march is manipulated by them or the Bush administration.
With or without Facebook, FARC continue being what they are, a group which degraded itself becoming a drug cartel, replacing the revolutionary morals with drug dealing and terrorism. The infamy of the tropical gulag they invented, the criminal land mines they scatter everywhere, the recruitment of under aged boys and girls, the indiscriminate murder of civilians, extortion, drug trafficking, need no one else to show they are as enemies of Colombia as the paramilitaries and the state agents who act in collusion with them.
But there’s something true on what "Vallejo" claims, the march is a political one and opportunists, "flashy" fellows, sky-divers, meddlers, and all the domestic and foreign fauna will parade, seeking for benefits from the collective rage, including the paramilitary under-hands. It can’t be helped. But a lot of ordinary people, sick and tired of violence, who just want to work in peace and support anything in order to get it, will parade too.
This is the curious thing here. CIA does not have the need to intervene, neither Uribe nor the Facebook trio. FARC, with their war crimes, are enough to mobilize Colombia and the entire world against them. And their allies contribute with a lot of effort. The Venezuelan president and his Nicaraguan prompter, the same way the "Vallejos", using the insult as the only argument to defend them, rouse the rejection towards the violent ones.
But the story does not end here. They, the delinquents commanded by Manuel Sure-shot Marulanda, are the main responsible for president Uribe’s current 80% approval rating. They, and only they, are the main guilty of the strengthening of authoritarianism in Colombia, the satanization of Colombia’s democratic left, the legalisation of the power of the paramilitaries and the stagnation of the social change process.
The 4 February march will not only politically corner FARC and their Venezuelan ally. It will also become a referendum for Uribe’s second re-election. There’s nothing to do. When the future generations write the history of these days, they will point FARC as one of the most efficient allies the United States have ever had, which, thanks to their help, was able to keep a reactionary base into the Socialist ocean inundating the continent.
No one knows for whom he works.
This article was originally published 27 January 2008 in equinoXio. Translated from Spanish by Julián Ortega Martínez.
Tags: Álvaro Uribe Vélez, CIA, Facebook, FARC, guerrilla, Hugo Chávez, March against FARC, terrorism, United States
friday 8 february 2008, 1:07 COT
Of course, CIA’s computer controls Colombian’s little brains as I said before. They have tried to control Arab brains, Afghan brains Russian brains, Venezuelan brains, etc, but have failed. But controlling Colombian’s little brains is much, much easier. Tomorrow, CIA’s computer can be used to send all Colombians jumping in mass down the Tequendama Falls and letting them drown in the fetid waters of the Bogotá River making them believe these waters are the elixir of eternal youth.
tuesday 12 february 2008, 10:56 COT
That is B.S.
If the conspiracist said that “Facebook is an instrument of CIA, behind the march of 4h February, against FARC and in favor of paramilitary groups”, what are they going to say now that a march against AUC is organized on the same Facebook “sponsored by CIA”?
tuesday 12 february 2008, 15:31 COT
It means that those who are indignant about the grotesque and open support for Uribism (militarism and narco-paramilitarism) that took place on Febraury 4th, can hack CIA’s computer and take over. After all, there are more decent people than CIA spies or than Uncle Sam servants. Of course, the battle isn’t over. CIA’s instruments of propaganda and disinformation such as RCN, El Tiempo, now equinoXio and others will not sit quiet and wait. They will do as much as there is in their hands to intimidate Colombians and deter them from protesting against the government supported paramilitary assassins. I wouldn’t be surprised if Uribe declared the protest illegal and called the protestors “FARC sympathisers” and put their organizers in the hit list for the next massacres. I wouldn’t be surprised if as in 2003, Uribe again asked his friend GWB to invade Colombia in the same way he invaded Iraq to stop the Colombian people from rebelling against the consolidation of a paramilitary dictatorship in our country. I wouldn’t be surprised if during the days prior to the mass protests, Uribe carried out a false flag terror attack to blame FARC and declare a curfew nationwide. Anything is possible in a country ruled by the most powerful narco-paramilitary Mafia in Colombia’s history and one of the most powerful Mafias in the world.
tuesday 12 february 2008, 17:23 COT
I’d like to clarify something to Tequendamia. equinoXio decided to report on the 4 February march against FARC because it was a story of general and national interest, which would mean an incredible opportunity to show the power of the citizen journalism, providing several and even opposed points of view for our readers to make their own opinions. It turned out to be true.
Therefore, I strongly contempt Tequendamia’s ungrounded and untrue accusations when he claims equinoXio is a stupid “CIA’s instrument of propaganda and disinformation”. Maybe he is unaware of the energy equinoXio contributors have put to denounce the legitimation of paramilitarism by the current Colombian government, as well as our strong opposition to most of Álvaro Uribe’s policies. If we, as most Colombians, contempt FARC as a terrorist organization, it does not mean we endorse AUC or right-wing terrorists. equinoXio does not hold such a Manichaean view of reality. And, the same way we attended the march against FARC doing a citizen journalism work, we will also attend 6 March demonstration in the honour of the victims of the paramilitary and State terrorism violence, despite the attitude of the Colombian government and the remarks by presidential adviser José Obdulio Gaviria, terrorist Pablo Escobar’s cousin.
Maybe Tequendamia should take some of his free time to read our Archives in the Spanish version, so he realizes how wrong he is when he just yells his unfair and somewhat paranoid accusations against equinoXio without any proof or real evidence. Of course, not all equinoXio columnists are Uribe-haters nor old-fashioned left-wingers, because we believe in the freedom of speech and respect and even give space in our site for divergent opinions.
tuesday 12 february 2008, 22:28 COT
You are right about my paranoia. When I was a teenager I used to have dreams in which lots of troops chased me to kill me. In my dreams I always got rounded up and shot, after which my soul flew up over the troops before I woke up feeling very agitated. It has never happened to me in real life, but I know many people in Colombia has lived that in their own flesh., for them is not a nightmare that is over when they wake up as in my case. For those whose beloved ones have been slaughtered or kidnapped it is a constant nightmare that intensifies every time they wake up.
Regarding my “unfair” accusations, we all can be unconscious instruments of propaganda and disinformation in favour of third parties. We really need to be alert.
wednesday 13 february 2008, 19:13 COT
Julián,
Now that OAS secretary, Miguel Insulza, declared that paramilitarism in Colombia doesn’t exist, you guys might need to ponder the wisdom of covering the anti-paramilitary protest. It seems like they are going to protest against a ghost,. Paramilitarim has become a conspiracy theory created by the enemies of Alvaro Uribe. That thing doesn’t exist anymore if it has ever existed at all. It’s official.
friday 15 february 2008, 20:13 COT
Tequendamia, I’d ask you to read more carefully. Insulza said "hoy yo ya no hablo de paramilitares, hablaré de delincuentes" (today I don’t talk about paramilitaries anymore, I’ll talk about criminals); he never said they had never ever existed, so the "conspiracy theory" thing you talk about exists just in your imagination (BTW, if you’re still distrustful because the link I provided is from the Colombia’s presidency website, then talk to someone who had already gone to the press conference; it’s the only thing we have, so take it or leave it).
Still, though he may be right to some extent when he claims the remaining groups are "criminal bands", it’s true that the problem of paramilitarism in Colombia is quite far from being solved. At least he recognizes there are still those bands, who have already and allegedly perpetrated two massacres in 2008. Not as people like Fernando Londoño, who is increasingly unmasking himself as an AUC supporter.
Of course we will cover the 6-M march, as we covered the march against FARC, as I told you before. I must insist that equinoXio does not hold the Manichean view of reality you have. Personally, I’m convinced Uribe is deeply involved with paramilitaries and that someday, somehow, someone will provide the conclusive evidence of that. And of course the mentality of most Colombians, the same which don’t surprise themselves because 25% of the people justify the paramilitaries, should be questioned vehemently.
Nevertheless, you’re way too wrong when you claim, in other comments posted on equinoXio and on your blog, that FARC is still a "peasant guerrilla". Maybe they were a very long time ago, but it’s pretty evident that nowadays they’re a drug cartel and a kidnapping corporation which kills the people they claim to defend. Most of those "peasants" are forced to join, the same way paramilitaries used to do. A so-called "revolution" needs the popular support FARC do not have. They don’t need government propaganda to convince most Colombian people of it. And that’s the sad part of the story. It looks as if we had to choose between a government infiltrated by mafia, with still some honest people, and a bunch of murderers, child abusers, and terrorists.
I hope you don’t keep believing that everyone who denounces FARC crimes is a "paramilitary", as not everyone opposing Uribe is a "guerrilla" or a "communist". I’m pretty upset when you accuse me or other equinoXio columnists of CIA puppets or Uribe lovers, because we’re not either. This said, I again invite you to check out the files of the Spanish-language version and read how we have covered, dealt, and slammed the pro-paramilitary mentality and their crimes. But it does not mean we should close one eye to ignore the atrocities of the self-called "leftists" who keep killing innocent Colombians and harassing people in rural Colombia. If you read ANNCOL, ABP, or other pro-FARC outlets, I’d ask you to read them with the same distrust you read the "oligarchy" mass media. Both hide a bunch of lies within their half-truths and propaganda, and it’s up to you, as every reader, to make your own opinion, forgetting your own prejudices and biases at least for a moment, and discern where the truth is, as we here (try to) do.
saturday 16 february 2008, 4:27 COT
I was just expressing my concern, not in the most articulate manner though.
I am very cynical and paranoid I have to admit. I am really afraid the narco-media may turn the paramilitary into a sort of conspiracy theory created by the left. If they are able to claim that in a country where 23 million people live below the poverty line (and this number keeps increasing) the president enjoys a popularity level of 80% then they are able to claim anything. They got this neo-con idea that those who have the power and control the flow information can create the reality. I mean, reality is not what it is, but what they tell us it is. They honestly believe they are the creators of our reality and we should be grateful for that. I mean, this is really, really scary.
sunday 13 july 2008, 23:45 COT
[…] Nevertheless, no matter if you agree or not with the Uribe administration’s policies, the Operation Jaque provokes admiration and fills with joy all Colombians for allowing the release of 15 kidnapped, and showing the world the disgrace of this degraded guerrilla group, now turned into the best advertising agency for the Democratic Security and Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s second re-election bid. […]