FARC, 1982–2002: criminal foundation for insurgent defeat

Abstract

Recent controversy during the conclusion of peace talks has renewed discussion as to the nature of the effort by Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), to seize state power. FARC presents itself as an insurgency produced by societal imperfections and purports to speak for the marginalized and alienated of Colombia. Critics contend that FARC is a ruthless narcoterrorist organization that has targeted the people. In fact, FARC comes closer to the latter than the former, because its critical decision to privilege criminality for generation of means destroyed execution of a viable people’s war strategy. Ultimately, means devoured ways in such manner as to make ends unachievable. Criminality, though it made FARC perhaps the richest insurgent group in the world during its heyday, laid the foundation for its defeat by ceding legitimacy, and thus mass mobilization, to the democratic state.

Keywords:

• Colombia
• FARC
• insurgency
• terrorism
• criminality
• kidnapping

Notes

1. A large number of works treat this effort. See for example, article by Carlos Ospina in this number of the journal; also Ospina and Marks, “Colombia: Changing Strategy Amidst,” 354–71.

2. See Marks, “Colombia: Learning Institutions,” 127–46.

3. Single best assessment of this strategic decision-making process is Spencer, “The Evolution and Implementation of FARC Strategy,” 73–98.

4. Colombia is well endowed with a variety of minerals, but only in the last decade of the 20th Century did oil exports replace coffee as the dominant (legal) export. The latter had been in top spot at least since 1860; in 2001, it was pushed to third (in export earnings) by oil and coal. Useful is Palacios, Coffee in Colombia, 1850–1970.

5. Sánchez and Aguilera, Memoria de un País en Guerra, Los Mil Dias.

6. See esp. Sánchez and Meertens, Bandits, Peasants, and Politics; also, Ramsey, Guerrilleros y Soldados. Excellent local study is Roldán, Blood and Fire: La Violencia. For background to the explosive violence: Caballero et al., El Saqueo de Una Ilusión; Sharpless, Gaitán of Colombia; Braun, The Assassination of Gaitán; and Green, Gaitánismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular.

7. See Henderson, When Colombia Bled; for La Violencia connection to FARC, Molano, Trochas y Fusiles.

8. This and other issues concerning FARC’s history are discussed thoroughly in Ospina Ovalle, A la Cima Sobre los Hombros del Diablo.

9. Best source presently available on the American role in this process is Rempe, The Past as Prologue?

10. For a partial biography focused on, among others, this early period, see Alape, Tirofijo: Los Sueños y las Montañas; for FARC during this period, Pizarro Leongómez, Las FARC (1949–1966).

11. Essentially, the llanos comprise the entire eastern half of Figure 1 above amazonas (true jungle), which conveniently for orientation has a department indicated with the same name. FARC was concentrated in the southern half of the llanos. Superb treatment of the region is found in four volumes by Jane M. Rausch; most germane to our discussion here is her Territorial Rule in Colombia.

12. See Medina Gallego, ELN: Una Historia de los Orígenes; also Medina Gallego, ELN: Una Historia Contada; for a substantial paired history, Medina Gallego, “FARC-EP y ELN.”

13. The role of geography in fostering Colombian national disunity is a central point made in Safford and Palacios, Colombia: Fragmented Land; for further insightful commentary on the matter (referencing Safford and Palacios), see Coatsworth, “Roots of Violence in Colombia.”

14. For details of the approach, see Spencer and Moroni Bracamonte, Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas, as well as my Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia, 1–55 and 353–67. Following the end of the conflict in El Salvador, interaction of the Colombians (and at times, this author) with FMLN personalities confirmed the details of their training and education in Vietnam.

15. For overview, Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine.

16. Early service in the Escobar organization and later battles against it were central to the rise of the Castaño brothers, Fidel and Carlos, who ultimately became the most powerful figures in the self-defense movement represented, in the first instance, by Castaño’s own ACCU (Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá or Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá), apparently formed in 1994; in the second instance, by the umbrella group of self-defense forces Carlos Castaño headed, the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), apparently formed in the mid-1990s. Though not the subject of this article, the role of the ACCU and AUC was central to events as they unfolded from the mid-1990s to the years after the period under consideration here. For the AUC, in a sense, fought fire with fire, returning FARC’s terrorism with terror of its own, particularly against communities it deemed implicated in supporting FARC.

17. Though not necessarily the best or most accurate work on the operation, certainly the most widely read by English-speaking audiences is Bowden, Killing Pablo. Among the most detailed accounts of the actual mechanics of the Medellín cartel is a volume by Escobar’s brother and administrator; see Escobar, The Accountant’s Story, published under a slightly different title in UK. Useful, as well: Thoumi, “Why the Illegal Psychoactive Drugs.”

18. Copy examined by author decades ago was mimeographed, 41 pages on legal-size paper and titled simply, Informa Central a la Septima Conference [Central Reports of the Seventh Conference]; see also the useful FARC publication, Historia de las FARC-EP (no publications data), which discusses the conferences and plenums from the II Conference to the 25–27 December 1987 Plenum. National Conferences were meetings between the leadership and the representatives of the local and regional groups to develop future plans. Originally designed to be held annually, they became quite infrequent due to practical and security concerns. Decision-making was carried out by the previously mentioned Secretariat and central command, which met formally in Plenums. The advantage for outsiders was that all such sessions were documented and their decisions distributed to FARC units. Such details could be and regularly were captured and analyzed.

19. Throughout much of the period under discussion, major Colombian security force units had access to a ‘Power Point Paper’ titled Conferencias-Plenos, which presented the main conclusions and directives of important FARC congresses and plenums (both regular and enlarged). Reduced over time to virtual boilerplate for widespread, continuous dissemination, the ‘paper’ lost all original identification and publications data.

20. Figures 2 through 6 are Colombian military graphics obtained during 1998–2000 fieldwork and are also reproduced in my “Colombian Army (COLAR) Counterinsurgency,” 77–105.

21. The equivalent of states in the American political system; excellent maps, with numerous links, to include to municipios, available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_Colombia (accessed 29 November 2016). All levels of governance in Colombia have elected officials as a consequence of the 1991 constitution that led to the demobilization of M-19 and EPL. This is important, because officials in most sub-national entities before 1988 were appointed; after 1991 in particular, as noted, they were elected. Ultimately, as will be discussed later in this article, this was to play a powerful role in isolating FARC from those it claimed to represent. In a phrase, FARC lost the battle for legitimacy.

22. ‘Counties’ would be the most accurate English descriptive translation; the figure used is current (it was slightly less during the years under discussion).

23. Though not our subject at this point in the narrative, it was, of course, such assessment which ultimately allowed successful security force action against the clandestine world portrayed.

24. To my knowledge, FARC’s role in the Darien has received no serious media or academic treatment; for Urabá, see Clara Inés García, Urabá: Políticas de Paz; Botero Herrera, Urabá: Colonización, Violencia y Crisis; and Plamondon, Changing Social Relations of Production in Urabá. The latter is of particular interest for its examination of class structure development as a consequence of local, regional, and international forces, with insurgency an important element. The previously mentioned FARC 5th Front makes its appearance in the text on page 10.

25. La Rotta Mendoza, Las Finanzas de la Subversion Colombiana, 46.

26. Ibid., 54.

27. Ibid., 71.

28. For discussion of long-term trajectory, see the benchmark work Catherine Legrand, Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest; for a specific case relevant to later FARC position in the llanos, Alfredo Molano, Selva Adentro: Una Historia de la Colonización del Guaviare; for specific discussion of FARC exploitation within and exploiting the colonization dynamic, Alfredo Molano, “Violence and Land Colonization,” 195–216.

29. For later overview, see especially Cook, “The Financial Army of the FARC-EP.”

30. Of the numerous works available, a number are particularly useful in revealing the intense battle for local security. See especially a trio of works by Romero: “Changing Identities and Contested Settings,” 51–69; Paramilitares y Autodefensas 1982–2003; and (an edited work) La Economía de los Paramilitares. For the two major figures of the paramilitary movement, first and second in commands of the AUC during the period under discussion, see: Aranguren Molina, Mi Confesión; and Glenda Martinez, Salvatore Mancuso, Su Vida.

31. See Spencer, Lessons From Colombia’s Road to Recovery, 24–37.

32. See Henderson, Colombia’s Narcotics Nightmare.

33. See e.g. Luis Alberto Villamarín Pulido, The FARC Cartel. Particularly useful is the detailed assessment visually displayed at page 169. It presents FARC’s funding profile for 1991–1993 and highlights that while taxing the drug trade had emerged as the dominant source of FARC income, kidnapping remained a healthy contributor, both in actual and proportional terms (e.g. $8 million in 1993 or 7.6% of the whole). Drugs, the author notes, continued to grow in importance as, in the aftermath of the major cartels’ downfall, FARC moved beyond taxation to involvement in production and marketing. By 1995, of FARC’s then-62 Fronts, 38 (61%) were active to some extent in the drug trade. That year, captured documents for the seven Fronts in Caquetá alone led to an estimate of approximately $36,780,000.

34. Among the most prominent American memoirs of this period, all available through Amazon, are: Johnson, God at the Controls, which treats the October 1985 kidnapping by FARC of four NTM (New Tribes Mission) missionaries (two on-site and two pilots) in Morichal, Guainia; Chad and Pat Stendal, The Guerrillas Have Taken Our Son; and Stendal, Rescue the Captors, which treats the August 1983 kidnapping by FARC of SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics/Wycliffe Bible Translators Center) missionary (and pilot) Russell Stendal but also, in some depth, the FARC kidnapping (several months before Russell) of their intensely religious (though not missionary) neighbor, Ricky Kirby, both in Caquetá Department; Siino, Guerrilla Hostage: 810 Days in Captivity, which treats the 31 March 1994 kidnapping by FARC of SIL missionary (and mechanic) Ray Rising in Lomalinda itself; and Thomas R. Hargrove, Long March to Freedom, which treats the 23 September 1994 kidnapping by FARC of agricultural researcher Thomas Hargrove outside Cali, Valle del Cauca. In all of these cases, ransom was paid, and the hostages were recovered alive. Nancy Mankins, wife of one Panama NTM kidnapping victim, has also published a memoir, Hostage.

35. The point is well illustrated by the notoriety associated with kidnap victim Patty Hearst’s participation in the string of California bank robberies executed by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the mid-1970s. Though there was propaganda value in the now-iconic image of Patty as ‘Tania’ wielding a firearm in the Hibernia ‘expropriation combat operation,’ 15 April 1974, the point of all such actions was funds not propaganda. For useful discussion of the episode, see Wilmers, “Patty and Cin,” 8, 9.

36. That of Tom Hargrove is of particular value. He spoke Spanish, was a Vietnam veteran with an advanced degree in agriculture (in which field he worked as a local advisor in the Mekong Delta and later in Colombia), and was familiar with the circumstances of Colombian insurgency and of insurgent personalities. He was also able to bring out intact his concealed diary. These factors combined to provide astute and measured analysis of what he details as a horrific experience. He was treated as one might expect from the minimally competent owners of a dangerous pet. His captors understood that he was useless unless alive, but beyond actions necessary to achieve this, concern for his physical and psychological wellbeing did not figure into the process. The personal ordeal created by isolation, restraint, constant movement, and fear, at times deliberately heightened by abusive guards, was peripheral to FARC calculations.

37. Proof of Life (Castle Rock, 2000) established widespread recognition of the term. Much in the film, based upon the kidnapping of Tom Hargrove (see n.34 and n.36 above), has been hyped for dramatic effect. The actual mechanics of establishing ‘proof of life’ – that is, that the victim being ransomed is actually alive – are reasonably well done. Deviating most from reality, according to Hargrove in personal discussions, was not ‘the Hollywood,’ which was to be expected, but the inserting into the film of blatant acts of defiance by the captive to establish a certain moral or even physical ascendance (or simply maneuver space) over his captors. Hargrove emphasized that such actions would likely have resulted in death and tended to misrepresent the sheer helplessness of prisoners in the overwhelming power mismatch experienced by the victim, both in human and physical terms. Colombia itself, in its stunning size and domination by tropical growth, was an overwhelming and formidable obstacle to survival, he noted, which further reinforced compliance with the rules of captivity.

38. For details on the former case, see Kelly, US Army Special Forces 1961–1971.

39. See e.g. a later episode involving two Britons, who were kidnapped on 16 March 2000 by FARC while seeking rare orchids in the Darien Gap: Dyke and Wilder, The Cloud Garden. The particulars are in their essentials in agreement with the American cases of n.33.

40. Política Financiera de las FARC-EP, 79; original is 5 pp hard copy in author possession as extracted from the much larger FARC-EP Documentos, a Colombian military compilation of FARC documents (obtained during fieldwork); my translation (with brackets indicating the sense of the text). The Spanish is: Los enemigos del pueblo y de la revolución siguen siendo objetivos financieros para el movimiento, hacienda previamente la inteligencia politica y económica que es básica para poder alcanzar los objectivos sin crearnos problemas con las masas, evitando inversions que en muchos caso solo generan gastos y grave daño en las relaciones políticas con los potenciales aliados.

41. Ibid., 79, 80; the Spanish is: Al tener un objetivo elegido para hacerle la exigencia económica debe comunicarse al organism inmediatamente superior para que con los datos que suministren, más los que considere necesario solicitor, puedan hacer el análisis del caso y sobre esos elementos se autorice o se impida la ejecución del trabajo.

42. For details, to include transcripts of the intercepts, see Henao Ospina, ¿Asesinados por Error? For the quote, 209.

43. For a particularly poignant, recent case, where the victims had been held more than a dozen years yet were executed with shots to the head and body when their captors feared they were on the verge of rescue, see Bajak, “Colombian Official: Rebels Executed 4 Captives.”

44. During the peace negotiations, several media reports claimed as much as 40% of FARC was comprised of women. There is no convincing evidence that would support such a figure, and 15% is probably more correct, though it is possible that particular Fronts or Bloques reached higher female percentages. My own fieldwork on female combatants in Nepal has sensitized me to alteration of manpower profiles that can occur due to recruiting surges compressed into short periods (e.g. several years) and in particular localities. Nevertheless, that the ‘40%’ figure surfaces regularly as media describe various insurgent groups globally suggests a lack of actual assessment.

45. Hargrove, op.cit. is especially observant and insightful on this matter, noting at one point (page 25), ‘Most are, simply, not very bright.’ This echoes my own experience in the several dozen interviews I have had with FARC prisoners.

46. Carlos Ospina, “Colombia and the FARC,” 161.

47. In my work as a freelance journalist and political risk consultant, I became acquainted with kidnap and rescue operatives working in Colombia who had delivered cash ransoms in excess of a million USD.

48. Política Financiera de las FARC-EP makes this point abundantly clear. Throughout, it exhorts the Fronts, operating under the Bloques, to avail themselves of the ample opportunities available for accumulating the means to see the political project through to its conclusion. Nothing, from ‘the buying and selling of cattle’ to ‘kidnapping enemies of the people,’ to arranging for ‘contributions from the oil, power, and mining sectors,’ is beyond consideration.

49. Figures and calculations were done by author at the time based upon Colombian military order of battle figures.

50. Though I have interviewed female prisoners, I have never encountered a female personal notebook. Worth consideration in examining the lives of FARC combatants is @ Johnny, In Hell: Guerrillas That Devour Their Own.

51. For a discussion of this period, to include the attack on Las Delicias, see Spencer, “A Lesson for Colombia,” 474–77.

52. For a nuanced treatment of the coca-population interface, Ramírez, Between the Guerrillas and the State.

53. See Spencer, “Bogotá Continues to Bleed as FARC Find Their Military Feet,” 35–40. FARC’s own treatment of these years may be found in FARC-EP International Commission, Historical Outline FARC-EP; timeline in text extends to 6 May 1999, which would indicate a publication date shortly thereafter.

54. Held at Melgar (some 90 km south of Bogota), the meeting was small and chaired by the commanding generals of the joint force (Tapias) and army (Mora). Most attendees were COLAR and included division commanders and key staff.

55. Available at: http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/americas/colombia_coca_density_2002.gif (accessed 29 November 2016).

56. For details, see Kline, Chronicle of a Failure Foretold; also, Édgar Téllez, Óscar Montes, and Jorge Lesmes, Diario Íntimo de un Fracaso: Historia no Contada del Procedo de paz con las FARC (Bogotá: Planeta, 2002); for wider context, see Charles Bergquist et al., Violence in Colombia 1990–2000.

57. The most outstanding works on the subject remain those of Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam, especially Chapters 9 and 10 of Section IV, ‘Strategy.’

58. Though few, there are some who challenge this assessment. Not even giving a nod to nuance, they continue to hold that FARC, from first to last, has been an authentic expression of Colombian state imperfections and resultant popular grievances, representing a significant social base. See e.g. Britain, Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia.

59. For discussion of the Philippine case, with figures and maps to illustrate the point made in the text here, see Marks, Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia, 125–202; for comparison of people’s war and foco approaches, 1–55.

60. This statement is accurate, but it is the very complexity of the situation that contributes in no small part to its intractability, with intertwining interests often approaching symbiosis. Of particular interest for the nuanced manner in which it approaches this reality is Gutiérrez and Barón, “Órdenes Subsidiarios: Coca, Esmeraldas,” 102–29. For an equally fascinating discussion, comparing the drug ecosystems of FARC and the Afghan Taliban as they impinge upon ideological project, see Puentes Marín, El Opio de Los Talibán y la Coca de las FARC; as well as Colectivo Maloka, ed., La Economía de las Drogas Ilícitas. Escenarios de Conflictos y Derechos Humanos (Barcelona: Generalitat de Cataluña, September 2009); available at: http://www.gencat.cat/drep/ipau/sumaris/economia_drogas.pdf (accessed 28 February 2017). For FARC relations with the drug trade at this moment in the discussion, Luis Alberto Villamarín Pulido, op.cit., as well as Jesus Enrique La Rotta Mendoza, op.cit.

61. For an effort to portray the horror and anguish inflicted upon victims and their families, see Posada, Colombia’s Kidnapping Industry. Therein, the author uses selected case studies to highlight the terror attendant to having a loved one disappear, the shock for the victim himself/herself, and the toll exacted by unremitting fear at an uncertain fate, greatly exacerbated by often brutal conditions of captivity.

62. Rochlin, Social Forces and the Revolution in Military Affairs, 79 (Table 4.2). The cumulative total is useful in gauging the impact of the war, but in a country of some 40 million the size of California, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, even figures in the hundreds of thousands annually must be used with caution, particularly since final disposition seems to be indifferently studied. There are no refugee camps in Colombia. Indeed, the subject of the displaced (desplazados) produces some of the most abused statistics of the conflict, because the total invariably appears in aggregate rather than annually or in any relationship to final disposition of the individuals concerned. For a solid treatment of the issue, see Stirk, Colombia: Resources for Humanitarian Response. It should further be noted that conflict violence of whatever form was (and is) but a subset of the more horrific legacy and criminal violence that battered the country. In my own fieldwork e.g. I estimated that of the 38,820 ‘violent deaths’ experienced in Colombia in 2000, 3600–5000 deaths were directly a consequence of ‘the war.’ This is not to downplay the impact, when combined with the other factors discussed above, but it does urge caution. A solid discussion of intertwining threads of violence in the country during the years under discussion is Mauricio Rubio, “Es Desbordamiento de la Violencia en Colombia,” 103–71; for details (with excellent maps and graphics) of only conflict-related violence, see Echandía Castilla, Dos Décadas de Escalamiento; for attempt, as part of a larger approach to peacemaking, to examine the manner in which socio-economic-political costs of conflict in Colombia have been quantified, see for their useful data and graphics, Álvarez and Rettberg, “Cuantificando los Effectos Económicas del Conflicto,” 14–37.

63. At this time, as implied in the text, there were no Colombian policymakers who were known to have any particular expertise on matters of irregular warfare. This was also true in the US. Even amongst the military, there was a lack of in-depth knowledge, though various components of the government had endeavored to remain engaged with the theory and practice of irregular warfare, notably the intelligence and special operations communities. The armed forces themselves (specifically, the army) were not altogether different but did not publish the ‘interim COIN manual’ until October 2004; see Headquarters, Department of the Army, FMI [Interim Field Manual], 1–1 to 1–11. The much-discussed ‘COIN manual’ itself did not appear until two years later in December 2006; an official version is available at: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/Repository/Materials/COIN-FM3-24.pdf (accessed 29 November 2016). A ‘government COIN manual’ was not published until January 2009; see United States Government Interagency Counterinsurgency [colored emphasis in original] Initiative, US Government Counterinsurgency Guide. These dates are well past the main events to be considered in this article. It may be noted that I wrote Chapter 1, ‘Overview,’ for the ‘interim manual’ and included Colombian examples in the discussion, having by that time been quite influenced by that conflict. The chapter was reprinted in a number of places, under various titles, notably as “Insurgency in a Time of Terrorism.” It was cited in the ‘government COIN manual’ bibliography. The circle came round when a slightly updated version was published in the journal of the Colombian joint war college, Escuela Superior de Guerra. Its first section is: ‘Insurgency is Armed Politics.’ For the work in its entirety, see “Insurgency in a Time of Terrorism,” 10–34.

64. For general discussion of the situation, Vargas, Las Fuerzas Armadas en el Conflicto Colombiano; for details on composition and budget of the security forces, see an article as notable for its misunderstanding of the rudiments of irregular warfare as for its excellent data, “Fuerzas Publicas: Una Empresa,” 26–35; for linkage between past and present security situation, Tovar, Inseguridad y Violencia en Colombia.

65. Much discussed when it appeared for its frank, brutal assessment of the national situation was the earlier noted Mi Confesión: Carlos Castaño Revela sus Secretos. Similar impact was registered by a Castaño interview given to Kirk, included in More Terrible Than Death. Following his death, Castaño (born 16 May 1965, he was assassinated on 16 April 2004) was succeeded by his second, Salvatore Mancuso, who was eventually extradited to the US; see the earlier cited work by Glenda Martínez Osorio.

66. No subject is more fraught with analytical peril than that of the autodefensas. Yet little serious work in English was conducted on them at the time, even as they grew in a matter of half a dozen years to (apparently) outnumber FARC combatant strength (and dwarf that of ELN). The work in Spanish by Colombian analysts, only a portion of which I have cited earlier, was much better.

67. Lawfare can have any number of plain text meanings, but it is most often applied to the efforts of sub-state actors, both legal and illegal, to use the law as a weapon to impose their will upon others – hence the play on ‘warfare’; see Marks, “Lawfare’s Role in Irregular Conflict.” A growing body of discussion and scholarship is available on the topic, to include a blog (jointly sponsored by the Lawfare Institute and Brookings) that adopts the more expansive definition; i.e. the use of law as a weapon of war (irrespective of user). See: http://www.lawfareblog.com/ (accessed 29 November 2016).

68. See e.g. my assessments: Marks, Colombian Army Adaptation to FARC Insurgency; and Marks, “A Model Counterinsurgency,” 41–56.