The Stupidest Crime?

Jesus Santrich, ex-guerrilla leader and alleged narcotrafficker,
back when he was super cool.

For most Colombians, serving in Congress would be a dream job: Get paid millions to sit around talking, a free security detail and other benefits - and often you don't even need to show up for work. And there's also the widely-believed potential for corrupt side benefits from selling political influence.

But all that was not enough for Jesús Santrich, a leader of the FARC guerrillas who until a few days ago was set to assume one of the guerrilla group-turned-political-party's 10 guaranteed seats in Congress. Like the other ex-guerrilla leaders, Santrich didn't even have to campaign for his seat, which was guaranteed in the peace agreement. (And he wouldn't have gotten it democratically, since the FARC's vote was disappointingly tiny.)

According to Colombian police and the U.S.'s DEA, while getting ready to serve in Congress, Santrich was also scheming to traffic tons of cocaine to the United States. The FARC guerrillas were notorious for participating in the cocaine trade, but under the peace treaty the guerrillas signed with the Colombian government, narcotrafficking was considered a political crime eligible for amnesty. But, according to the allegations, Santrich continued trafficking after the deal was signed, which would be a crime.

Ironically, the alleged narcotrafficking attempt would be a trivial crime compared with the many

A sensationalist newspaper gloats over Santrich's arrest.

outrages the FARC guerrillas committed while Santrich was in charge of part of their radio propaganda. Those included massacres, recruitment of child soldiers, forced displacement of peasants, violence against girls and women, kidnapping and on and on and on. But those crimes are generally being 'punished' with a slap on the wrist.

The FARC have charged that Santrich is being framed. But U.S. and Colombian authorities say that their evidence, including recorded phone conversations, is strong. And it seems very unlikely that the Santos government, which has made peace with the FARC the center of its administration, would want to endanger that agreement.

If, as seems likely, Santrich is extradited to the U.S. for trial and imprisonment, his story will stand out for one thing: immense stupidity.

The case is reminiscent of the story of cartel leader Pablo Escobar's son Juan Pablo, who moved to Buenos Aires and became a successful architect, but allegedly continued using his old narco connections to help Colombian traffickers make deals with Argentine businessmen. Go figger.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The New FARC

FARC political party campaigners on Carrera Septima last night.

Bicycling down Carrera Septima last night I came upon this group of FARC members on campaign.

Men debate while holding FARC flyers.

But let's be clear: These were not the old guerrilla FARC, but the new political FARC: the Alternative Revolutionary Force of the Common People. The same initials as the armed guerrilla organization, and many of the same people, but a whole different nature.

That they have really changed became clear to me when I heard their discourse: It was standard,
boring and political: Lots of promises about equality and vows to improve healthcare, increase equality and improve security.

Call them hypocritical if you like. After all, not long ago, the FARC guerrillas were out there kidnapping and assassinating politicians, driving peasants off of their land, and in general generating all the sorts of problems and suffering they are now campaigning against.

The new FARC will not likely be any more successful than they were in their previous incarnation at accomplishing these goals. However, at least they are now playing the political game instead of tearing their nation apart. In that, the deeply flawed peace treaty at least accomplished a whole lot.

Selling peace and prosperity, under the eye of McDonald´s.

A man, in blue jacket, hugs a FARC senate candidate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Sexual Violence as a Weapon in Colombia's Conflict

Sexual abuses have been in the news not only because of the endless parade of headline-making sex crimes, often targeting children, but also because of revelations of wholesale sexual attacks being used as a weapon of war by Colombia's various armed groups. 

A recent report by the Centro de Memoria titled 'The War Written on the Body' counted more than 15,000 sexual attacks amidst Colombia's armed conflict, committed by armed groups of all types, including the official military. That number, of course was surely a huge undercount, since most such crimes are never reported.

The report included testimonies by women and girls recounting attacks by armed groups, often as punishment for supposed disobedience. One woman, for example, had helped her children escape from being recruited as FARC fighters, for which misdeed the guerrillas gang raped her. Other women were targeted with attacks as warnings to or punishment against their husbands, for example for not paying protection money to the armed groups. 

One FARC leader, Raul Reyes, who was killed in 2008 by a Colombian military bombing of his camp in Ecuador, kept an escort of female guerrillas, some as young as 10 or 11, whom he sexually abused.

A graph shows numbers of reported cases of sexual abuse
related to Colombia's armed conflict. Cases
peaked in 2002 and 2014.

A young girl recruited by the guerrillas described in the Centro Memoria's report how the guerrillas arranged newly arrived girls up in two rows: the virgins on one side, the rest on the other. The virgins were given to the guerrilla commanders for their recreation, while lower-echelon guerrillas had to make do with the others.

Female guerrillas who became pregnant were usually forced to have abortions or had their newborns taken from them.

A conservative politician calls for
life sentences for child abusers.

Sex crimes are also in the news because some conservative politicians are advocating for capital punishment or life in prison for child rapists. That has many asking why the demobilized guerrillas - many of whom committed sex crimes, as well as murder, kidnapping and forced displacement - should get off with little more than a symbolic punishment, and even be allowed to hold political office.

And I also wonder why the wave of accusations (almost all of them certainly true) of sexual misbehavior against prominent men in the U.S. has not spread to other places, particularly Latin America. After all, in a nation like Colombia where many men feel entitled to make sexual comments to women on the street, and where machismo culture is strong, is it credible that much worse things don't happen in the privacy of offices and studios?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Cynicism of Timochenko

FARC leader Timochenco, who created
millions of victims, is suddenly
concerned for them.

Timochenco, the ex-leader of the FARC guerrillas, and now presidential candidate of the FARC political party, apparently has a new mission: to fight for the rights of the victims of Colombia's armed conflict.

That's really interesting, since Timochenco, whose real name is Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, created innumerable victims himself as leader of the FARC guerrillas, who kidnapped, committed massacres, recruited children, forced women to have abortions and drove millions of peasants off of their land during their half-century of existence.

None of which, however, means that Timochenco's concerns are misplaced. In fact, the peace deal between the FARC and the government will mean widespread impunity for both soldiers and guerrillas, some of are eligible for political office despite being guilty of crimes against humanity. Timochenco, for his part, has been sentenced to hundreds of years in prison for myriad crimes. Those sentences will be suspended, however, as long as he participates in the JEP, the transitory judicial structure created to try ex-guerrillas and soldiers. Meanwhile, Timochenco is running for president.

Another group who will get off with a slap on the wrist are ranchers and businessmen who financed

Creating victims: Residents of the town of Bojayá, Chocó
clean up the church destroyed by a FARC cylinder bomb
which killed about 100 people.

illegal armed groups such as the guerrillas and their paramilitary enemies. The payments are known as vacunas, or 'vaccinations,' and opinions are polarized over whether those who made such payments are victims or criminals. In many cases, those who refused to pay off the outlaw groups have been kidnapped or murdered or had their livestock stolen. But many allege that landowners and corporations paid off illegal groups which returned the favor by driving peasants off of land the wealthy desired.

Ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe also appears to have gotten off easy under the court's recent interpretation of the peace agreement. Uribe, who comes from a ranching family and whose father was murdered by the FARC, has been investigated multiple times for alleged links to right-wing death squads which flourished during his time in power. However, as an ex-president, he will enjoy immunity.

Yet, while it is certainly true that the conflict's victims will recieve short shrift, a successful peace process will hopefully reduce the number of victims created in the first place.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

'Money for the FARC, Hunger for the Victims.'

'Money for the FARC, hunger for the victims.'

These folks protested the other day against the peace accord, which includes stipends and other forms of support for the demobilized FARC guerrillas. According to some analysis, the guerrillas will even be able to control much of their ill-gotten money.

There's also something funny about these protesters' signs: They look very professional for something made by displaced victims of the guerrillas - as tho someone else (Uribistas???) were funding this group.

But, putting all of that aside, as well as the argument that a very imperfect peace deal was the best deal possible, the guerrillas did victimize many innocent people, most of them humble ones - and they deserve to be remembered.

'Alan Jara, humanize the unit of victims.'
Jara, an ex-governor who was once kidnapped by the FARC, heads the government's program to help victims of the conflict. 

'The state perpetuates the suffering of the victims.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Fight the Government, Get a Residence Visa

Foreign FARC guerrillas may soon have these.

The news that as part of the FARC guerrillas' peace deal with the government, foreigners in the rebels' ranks will be able to get Colombian residence visas is sure to frustrate many of us foreigners here. After all, we suffered thru round after round of red tape and paperwork, as well as paying fee after fee, to obtain and renew our Colombian visas, before finally obtaining an 'indefinite visa' after 5 years' continuous residence.

Of course, during all that time we had to stay on the right side of the law, and can lose the visa because of criminal misconduct.

So, it seems very unfair that people who have spent years aiding and abetting, if not actually participating in, severe crimes like extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking and even murder, will be awarded visas just because those crimes were supposedly committed for a political purpose - to overthrow that same government which will now award them a visa.

Of course, it's questionable how many foriegn ex-FARC guerrillas will actually want to live in Colombia. After all, their fight was to turn Colombia into a socialist 'paradise', but the country remains decidedly capitalist.

The media estimates there are about 20 foreigners in the FARC, from Europe and other Latin

Tanja Nijmeijer, Dutch citizen and FARC member.

American nations. The most famous of those is Dutch citizen Tanja Nijmeijer, who was part of the guerrillas' negotiating team in Havana, Cuba.

But this absurdity is just one of the smallest of many prices Colombia is paying in order to, hopefully, move closer to peace.

Afterthought: As arbitrary and infuriating as Colombia's visa process is, it was nothing compared to that in Bolivia, where I had to visit the visa office on a near-daily basis for nearly a year, getting everything signed in triplicate and paying notaries and lawyers for this, that and everything. When I finally got my work visa, my job had already ended. More intelligent people just crossed the border every few months, or paid a bribe and got their visa immediately.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Where are the FARC's Million$?

Drugs illegality means fortunes for violent, illegal groups.

FARC leaders have, belatedly, apologized for the many horrors they committed against Colombia's civilians, such as the more than 100 Afrocolombians murdered in the Bojayá bombing, and the 12 deputies from the Valle de Cauca kidnapped and massacred, both in 2002.

But the FARC have never come clean about the whereabouts of the fortune they obtained from extortion, drug trafficking, illegal mining, which could serve to compensate some of their victims, and the peace deal signed yesterday doesn't require them to.

The fate of the FARC's illegally fortune has been one of conservatives' biggest criticisms of the peace deal. The guerrillas historically controlled at least a third, and perhaps much more of Colombia's cocaine exports, according to U.S. anti-drug officials. They also control illegal mines and extort ranchers. But where are those millions?

Historically, Colombia's illegal armed groups have buried their money, invested it in land and

businesses under false owners or hidden in in foreign banks. In 2003, Colombian soldiers found some $20 million in cash buried in the jungle, apparently by the FARC. They blew that fortune on prostitutes, alcohol and fancy motorcycles.

In a few years, expect to hear about ex-guerrilla leaders fulfilling their revolutionary values by buying BMWs and mansions with money of unclear origin,

It's hard not to observe that the guerrillas would have lots less money - and likely caused lots less harm - if cocaine were legal and exported by legitimate, tax-paying businesses.




By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Referendum Lies and Half-Truths

'Yes to peace,' at a rally on Carrera 7.

The peace agreement signed with the FARC guerrillas will be a huge milestone for Colombia if citizens vote to approve it on Oct. 2. Whichever side wins, however, loses legitimacy if it bases its campaigns on lies and distortions:

'Si' Campaign: Pres. Santos claims that 'Colombia's war is over.'

Perhaps Santos forgot that the smaller ELN guerrilla group has not entered negotiations and has even launched an offensive in recent months. And that Colombia has myriad other violent outlaw organizations, including the bacrim and paramilitaries, some of which control territory. A few months ago, the government even authorized the military to bomb criminal groups' campsites. That sounds like war to me.

The peace deal is only one single step towards peace.

'No' Campaign:  The Deal Will Bring Castro-Chavismo to Colombia. (In other words, it will transform Colombia into Cuba/Venezuela.)

This is a tough charge to understand, since the Cuban and Venezuelan economies are so different. Cuba is a communist dictatorship, while Venezuela is still capitalist, albeit with lots of government control and media and democracy under siege.

In reality, the peace agreement is supposed to increase regional participation in decisionmaking and promote land redistribution to poor peasants, but it will not fundamentally alter Colombia's capitalist, free market economy. If it did, can you imagine Washington backing the deal?

'Let's stop this war now!' Well, maybe, kinda.

'No' Campaign: The agreement means that Colombia has surrendered to the guerrillas.

Actually, just the opposite is true. The FARC are a Marxist, revolutionary group whose have fought for more than a half-century to overthrow the Colombian government and replace it with a communist state. By making peace, they recognize their failure and resign themselves to working within the democratic, capitalist system.

'No' Campaign: The deal hands the guerrillas control of Colombia's government.

This claim is absurd. The guerrillas will receive ten guaranteed seats in a Parliament with several hundred members. That'll make them a marginal force, and, given the guerrillas' history of atrocities, other leftist parties will keep their distance from them.

'Si' Campaign:  The Peace Agreement Will Jumpstart Colombia's Economy.

Well, perhaps. Less violence will increase investors' confidence and attract more tourists. It will also open more regions of the country to mining, petroleum and other sorts of development. Colombia will also reduce its security and military expenses. If thousands of ex-guerrillas turn to agriculture or factory work, they will also grow those sectors.

However, the peace deal also means huge expenses, such as compensating victims, removing land mines and retraining ex-fighters. I've seen estimates that Colombia requires US $50 billion, an impossible sum.

'Si' Campaign: The peace deal will be a boon for the environment.

Partly true. The guerrillas - including the ELN, who continue fighting the government - have committed many environmental crimes, in particular blowing up oil pipelines. And drug crops, which the guerrillas tax and protect, cause lots of deforestation.

However, without guerrillas terrorizing ranchers and industries across rural Colombia, expect agriculture to expand and mining and oil industries to invade virgin lands. That will accelerate pollution and deforestation.

'No' Campaign: The deal means impunity for guerrillas who've committed human righs abuses.

This one's true. Guerrillas, as well as soldiers and others, who confess their crimes will serve symbolic sentences, where they'll likely be restricted to a single municipality, of something similar. That's a far-cry from prison time. However, as many have pointed out, as long as the conflict continues, so does widespread impunity.

In short, the peace deal is imperfect, and its results will be mixed. However, it will be a step toward a more peaceful Colombia.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Injustice, Recycled

Extradited paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso.

The New York Times has this long and detailed piece about the light punishments received by many of the far-right paramilitary leaders who demobilized in the mid-2000s and were extradited to United States prisons.

The story makes a strong point: these guys, who may have smuggled tons of cocaine - not to mention ordering massacres, rapes, kidnappings and forced displacements - have gotten shorter sentences than some streetcorner pushers. (Here's ex-Pres. Uribe's response to the story.)

The story, however, is a bit narrow. While the paras' sentences are scandalously short, in the U.S. they did more time on drug charges than they would have back in Colombia for crimes, including crimes against humanity, under the infamous Justice and Peace Law. And, in theory, the death squad leaders are supposed to be returned to Colombia to be prosecuted for their non-drug crimes, altho the Times reports that many have obtained residency in the U.S., apparently as payback for revealing their cocaine smuggling secrets.

As a result, crimes such as massacres, kidnapping, rape and forced displacement, may never be punished at all.

A paragraph from the New York Times story listing some of Mancuso's alleged crimes.

Impunity? Aftermath of the massacre of Bojayá, in which a
FARC missile  landed on the town's church, klling more than
a hundred women and children hiding inside.

But the biggest scandal here, in the eyes of many, is that Colombia is about to do it all over again with the FARC guerrillas. The FARC have also committed horrendous crimes and human rights abuses, if perhaps not on the same scale as the paramilitaries', and under the peace agreement their leaders can not be extradited and will not even go to prison, as long as they confess what they've done. Instead, they'll get 'special detention,' a vague term likely to mean restricting them to a specific municipality.

And FARC members guilty of crimes against humanity, as long as they have confessed, will even be eligible to serve in Congress in one of the FARC's ten guaranteed seats.

None of which is to say that the FARC-government peace deal is not a good thing. However, political leaders should be careful that the FARC deal does not follow the paramilitaries down a path of injustice.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Inevitableness of Impunity

Pres. Santos and FARC leader Timochenko make a historic handshake in Havana, Cuba, with a little help from friend Raul Castro.

'Nobody will sign a peace deal if it means they're going to jail,' Pres. Santos told the nation a few months ago.

He was right, and now he's put his words into action with the signing of a landmark, and perhaps feckless, peace deal with the FARC in Havana.

After the signing, Santos promised the nation that 'the worst crimes' would not be left without punishment. However, by my admittedly superficial understanding of the agreement, it leaves huge openings for only symbolic punishments, such as education and restoration work, as well as near impunity for politically motivated crimes and for those wrongdoers who confess all of their crimes. Following the agreement, media analysts agreed that the great majority of FARC fighters will receive symbolic punishment or none at all.

Who will pay? The FARC destroyed the Iglesia de Bojaá in
2002, massacring as many as 120 civilians hiding inside. 

The agreement stipulates the vague 'restriction of liberty' under 'special conditions' for some guilty of even crimes against humanity. That might mean probation within the limits of the Department of Cundinamarca.

This agreement is probably necessary and perhaps the least-bad deal attainable, at least during Santos's presidency - which is what matters to him. However, it will undoubtedly leave the guerrillas' countless victims feeling raw and violated.

"The dea won't please everybody," Santos said this week.

The agreement's advocates will point out that it doesn't include impunity for war crimes such as rape, massacres forced disappearance and forced displacement. However, the FARC are a main reason why Colombia has one of the world's largest number of internally displaced, commonly estimated at between 4 and 6 million people. Inevitably, the great majority of FARC fighters are responsible for such crimes against humanity, particularly the FARC leaders who set policies and tolerated such atrocities.

But if these men confess their crimes, no matter how terrible, they will be subject only to the vague and malleable 'restrictions of liberty under special circumstances.'

"Impunity sends a very bad message," said Senator Paloma Susana Valencia, a supporter of ex-Pres. Uribe. She asked what effect this would have on other criminals.

"So that there's no repetion, there must be real sanctions," said ex-minister of defense Marta Lucia Ramirez, who also served under Uribe.

The agreement still must pass several hurdles, including being found constitutional, as well as approval in a national referendum. Uribe and his supporters will ferociously and unceasingly denounce the accord, but they don't control the government. However, further guerrilla atrocities or a steep drop in Pres. Santos' popularity could still sink the accord.

And nobody should believe that this agreement will end drug-fueled violence. As long as there's a market for drugs, somebody will provide them, whether they call themselves guerrillas or just plain narcos.

The guerrillas now intend to convert themselves into a political party. How will Colombians respond to the spectacle of guerrillas, fresh from committing war crimes, legislating in Congress? Might this agreement undermine the government's own legitimacy?

Nevertheless, this flawed agreement creates Colombia's best chance in more than a half century to end its conflict, if not to find justice.

The agreement does little for the peace of mind of Colombia's millions of victims. But it will mean fewer future victims, which is most fundamental.

"What's important is that we escape from a violence of more than a half century," said Senator Armando Benedetti, "and that these outrages are not repeated."

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The FARC: Never to Blame

Bojayá townspeople walk thru their church,
destroyed by a FARC bomb.

When the FARC guerrillas apologized late last year for their 2002 massacre of 117 civilians in the town of Bojayá, some thot it marked a milestone in efforts to make peace.

Sure, Bojayá was one of the most terrible single acts in Colombia's half-century of conflict. In May, 2002, guerrillas and paramilitaries were fighting over this small, impoverished town of indigenous people and Afro-Colombians. The guerrillas fired one of their notoriously innaccurate homemade mortars at the paramilitaries, only to have it land on the church, where civilians had taken refuge. More than 10% of the town's residents died.

But if many hoped that the guerrillas' grudging acceptance of responsibility marked a shift in which the guerrillas would admit their innumerable crimes against civilians and accept punishment, permitting the healing of Colombia's war wounds, we've been disappointed.

The best proof is the guerrillas' response to their own bombing on the 22nd of a oil pipeline near

A giant turtle killed by oil spilled by the FARC guerrillas.
(Photo: Noticias RCN)

Tumaco. Presumably, the guerrillas thot of it as an attack on big business and the government. But hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil poured across biodiverse jungle, into the Mira River and along the coastline. More than 100,000 residents of Tumaco, a mostly poor city, were left without drinking water.

What's been the guerrillas' response? Apologies? Offers to aid the long-suffering residents of Tumaco, who only days before were left without electricity after the FARC blew up an electricity transmission tower? The most the FARC would say was that the environmental destruction and poisoning of Tumaco's water were a "non-desired result" of their attack. Their statement quickly shifted blame onto the government for "escalating the confrontation."

(Some observers pointed out that, only days before, the FARC had praised Pope Francis's encyclical about protecting the environment.)

This is only the latest in a long series of FARC crimes against civilians, which include massacres, forced displacement, kidnappings, recruitment of children, rape and the planting of landmines.

In Colombia's long conflict, all sides have committed gross human rights violations. But the fundamental difference between state forces and the guerrillas is that the government has held its own people and and institutions to some degree of responsibility. Not enough, certainly, but some degree.

Two army officers are doing long prison terms for killings, tortures and disappearances committed during the 1985 retaking of the Palace of Justice from the M-19 Guerrillas (several of whose ex-leaders, in contrast, are now in government).

Soldiers and officers are being prosecuted and doing prison terms for participating in the False Positive killings, in which military units kidnapped and killed young men and disguised them as guerrillas in order to win bonuses and time off. And now, higher army officials may be charged because they set general policies which made the False Positive killings possible.

And, the inspector general is considering charges against 9 military officers in relation to a FARC ambush of a military unit in El Cauca on April 15, in which 10 soldiers were killed. The officers may have been drunk the night of the massacre and ordered the soldiers to sleep in an unsafe location.

But if the FARC punished their fighters who launched the bomb onto the church in Bojayá or who bombed the pipeline near Tumaco, they haven't said so.

Until the FARC acknowledge their crimes and accept responsibility - and punishment - for their actions, Colombia is not likely to reach a peace agreement, much less any lasting peace.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Lesson for the Middle East

A FARC guerrilla and kidnappees behind barbed wire.

In 1983, ELN guerrillas kidnapped four executives of the German oil company Mannesmann. The company didn't forget about its employees. It sent representatives who purchased the freedom of the four for a reported $8 million, half in cash and the other half to be paid in social investments in the region (which the company never fulfilled). The quadruple kidnapping may have saved the ELN, which at the time was down to just a few hundred fighters, but survives today with some 3,000.

Annual kidnappings in Colombia declined until
recently, when numbers leveled off.
(Image from Paise Libre)

That crime was far from Colombia's first kidnapping - or its last. Armed guerrilla groups began kidnapping as a business practice soon after their appearance in the 1960s. When the crime proved profitable economically and politically, the guerrillas and common criminal groups accelerated the practice thru the '90s and into the early 2000's. Numbers soared to several thousand kidnappings each year (and many kidnappings are never reported to authorities). Only in the last few years, with government military successes and the FARC guerrillas' promise to stop kidnapping, have the numbers declined.

Still, in 2014 outlaw groups kidnapped 245 during just the first eight months of the year, and probably many more unreported ones. Even if the FARC and ELN guerrillas sign peace agreements with the government and give up kidnappings forever, undoubtedly other criminal groups will kidnap more.

Repeating a pattern? A Japanese man kidnapped
by the Islamic State.

In Iraq and Syria today, the Islamic State is using kidnapping to finance itself and gain a horrific kind of attention. It works for them because many European nations pay millions of euros or dollars for their citizens' freedom. (The major exceptions are Great Britain and the United States.) But that's a devil's bargain: The ransom money only serves to strengthen the terrorists, enabling them to kidnap more Westerners and strengthen themselves further.

The nations paying terrorists for their citizens' freedom should look toward Colombia, where the practice reaped only more kidnappings, and decades of violence.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Anglolandia for the FARC

The people's army? Or the army against the people?

This pro-FARC graffiti appeared this week on the Universidad Nacional's Bogotá campus, and, strangely, it's in English.

A mural in the Teusaquillo neighborhood
portrays a landmine victim. The FARC
plant landmines to protect themselves
against soldiers, but many civilians are
injured and killed by those mines.

But isn't English the language of the United States, the 'empire'? And isn't Spanish the language of romantic revolutionaries, not to mention of the students and professors of the Nacho?

Was this written by a native English speaker? Maybe, but perhaps maybe not. A native, it seems to me, would have written that 'Simon Trinidad and Sonia are examples of...'

Grammar aside, the statement made me think about the foreigners who support Colombia's largest guerrilla group. Mostly, these seem to be young idealists in comfortable places like Sweden and Denmark, who read the FARC's websites and swallow unquestioningly their language about revolution and social justice. These true believers don't bother with the reality, easily available on human rights organizations' websites, about the guerrillas' innumerable atrocities, including recruiting children, massacring civilians with mortars and car bombs, planting land mines, displacing peasants, murdering indigenous people, and on and on.

Those sorts of outrages would never be tolerated in the comfortable, law-abiding wealthy nations where these fellow travelers live and enjoy good lives. However, by supporting the FARC, they implicitly condone such crimes when they are committed against the poor of Colombia.

A FARC motorcycle bomb killed and injured civilians
in the town of Tumaco in July, 2012.

But there's a saying here: 'If you're under age 30 and not a communist, you don't have a heart; if you're over 30 and still a communist, you don't have a brain.'

Simon Trinidad and Sonia, by the way, are FARC leaders imprisoned in the United States.

The people's army? In 2002, a FARC mortar landed on the roof of a church in the town of Bojayá, Chocó, killing some 120 townspeople who had taken refuge in the church from fighting between guerrillas and paramilitaries.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The FARC's Latest Lie

Worth murdering for? The polemical banner, featuring Alfonso Cano.
(Photo: Defensoria del Pueblo via Semana Magazine)

Just days after FARC negotiators in La Habana asserted that the guerrillas have "never perpetrated attacks against the civil population," the terrorist group exposed their own lie.

Recently, FARC guerrillas hung huge banners on indigenous territory commemorating the anniversary of the killing by military bombing of FARC leader Alfonso Cano. Unable to tolerate such disrespect, the FARC killed two indigenous men and attacked a third.

Fortunately, the NASA's indigenous guard was able to capture eight guerrillas, whom they will put on trial and then hand over to Colombian authorities for imprisonment.

Which makes one ask whether the government should even be speaking with murdering, lying, hypocrites like these. But, unfortunately, there's nobody else to speak to to end Colombia's conflict.

Update: The NASA 'court' (a public assembly of hundreds of people) sentenced two of the guerrillas to 40- and 60-year prison terms. Two of the guerrillas captured by the NASA were minors, and were sentenced to being whipped. The FARC issued a statement in which they seemed to blame the NASA for the murders for pursuing the guerrillas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Bandoleros; History thru Rose-Colored Glasses

Fun-filled bandoleros in the Parque Nacional.

In a time not so long ago, in a place not far away, there were people called bandoleros: Some say they were rag-tag bandits running about the countryside robbing and pillaging; others that they were good-hearted Robin Hoods who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

The truth about these criminal groups from the 1940s, '50s and '60s will probably never be clear, and will always depend on the viewer's political perspective: For the wealthy and conservative they were a threat; for the poor, they were a kind of freedom fighters. But, for a theatre troupe performing in the Parque Nacional the other day, the bandoleros were comical, harmless fellows who did nobody any wrong.

I guess such an evolution is inevitable. After all, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and Redbeard the Pirate - all terrors in their own days - are now comic book characters and the laugh-lines on TV sitcoms. Will that happen one day to Colombia's guerrillas and paramilitaries? Perhaps, just as Pablo Escobar, who some say killed as many as 50,000 people, has become a decoration for t-shirts and a TV miniseries character.

Interestingly, the bandoleros have been back in the news recently - even if they haven't been mentioned. In the continuing debate in the Havana peace talks about who is a victim of Colombia's conflict and who isn't, the FARC guerrillas have proposed counting victims all the way to 1930 - decades before the FARC existed and Colombia's current conflict started.

Why do the FARC want to discuss victims who died so long ago? Perhaps to make their own violence appear to be just one more chapter in Colombia's long, violent history; Or, to involve - and blame - the Liberal and Conservative political parties, which carried out the fratricidal La Violencia of the 1940s and '50s. After all, FARC founder Manuel Marulanda was a bandolero before he founded the 'Republic of Marquetalia' which in 1964 gave birth to the FARC guerrillas. Most likely, it satisfies the communist vision that actions (read crimes) are nobody's fault, but inevitable results of historical injustices.

For an organization whose leaders are facing potential prison terms, that's a convenient interpretation.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours