THE FARC-EP’S RELATION TO SOCIAL CHANGE
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2002a: 70–1). Contrary to arguments that the FARC-EP retains collected monies, the guerrilla organization has: crafted its state-making project by helping in channeling funds to public works. The guerrillas have two main sources of funds: private companies such as multinational corporations, national companies, and public enterprises; and state resources devoted to municipalities. Most of these moneys end up in investments in public projects such as vocational schools, road paving, public health, and environmental protection. The taxation mechanisms of FARC, developed and enhanced in the 1990s, are complex because they involve intermediaries such as neighborhood councils (Juntas Accíon Communal, JAC). (Richani, 2002a: 80) As previously noted, the FARC-EP acquires levies which are given to JACs for needed localized development and cultural advancement, not top-down programs as incepted and carried out through NGOs or development agencies. It cannot be said that the insurgency hoards collected revenues, nor does it decide how the funds are to be disbursed to the community. Rather, taxes are gathered by the FARC-EP and passed on to the JAC, where “an elected committee from the locality decides on disbursement and allocation of the taxes collected” (Richani, 2002a: 70). In many cases it is not even the guerrillas who negotiate the tax system, as JACs have taken on a greater role in negotiating agreements with local companies or MNCs (Richani, 2002a: 80–1). This highlights the revolutionary evolution of JACs from mediums of centralized state manipulation to revolutionary organizations aligned with the FARC-EP. Members of the insurgency have even been invited to run for certain positions in community action boards: some have won, some lost (Richani, 2002a: 89). Again, this demonstrates the interrelation that has been formed between the FARC-EP and some JACs, a relationship where the guerrillas are not using their power as a tool to coerce a counter-hegemony, but trying to legitimize power from below. JACs have demonstrated, how, when linked with the guerrillas, rural class consciousness has the potential to transform a society. In short, this provides yet another example of how the FARC-EP is organizing pre-revolutionary models to potentially construct a socialist Colombia. However, why is such information largely hidden from the public? We now address this question by considering the role of censorship through the popular media. THE MEDIA’S STRUCTURAL SILENCING OF COLOMBIA’S REVOLUTION Although it is labeled “the most dangerous international terrorist group based in this hemisphere” and a threat to US national security, there is ironically little known about the FARC-EP’s operations, activities, or ideology (see Ashcroft, 2002; Randall, 2001; Taylor, 2001; US Department of State, 2001; White
