REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL CHANGE IN COLOMBIA - FARC

8 PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE: FROM “DUAL POWER” TO TAKING POWER This chapter reflects upon why the FARC-EP has remained at the margins of centralized power even though it had the military capacity to take power. On several occasions the guerrillas held the capacity to carry out a coup d’état and simply usurp power through the military efficiency of a small collective, as numerous anti-systemic movements, militaries, and state antagonists in Latin America have done in the past. For example, from 1999 to 2003, the guerrillas maintained an average distance of 16 to 50 miles from Bogotá’s downtown (correspondence with Petras, November 26, 2004; see also Simons, 2004: 203–5; Housego, 2003; Petras, 2003: 25; 1999: 32). It would have been more than plausible for them to seize power through one or several major offensives targeting the capital. When asked why this line of attack was not deployed, a comandante told me, “to do so would have gone against the (Marxist-Leninist) ideology of the insurgency.”

A coup d’état enables a select group to consolidate centralized state power.

Potentially effective, as it enables those without power to obtain it, a coup generally negates any broad alignment between the political-military movement of power takers and the exploited. While a new consolidation of power transpires, a transformation of the capitalist paradigm does not, because of a lack of mass class-conscious direct action.1 The FARC-EP has opted to consolidate “political power at the local municipal levels instead of seeking outright military victory,” whereby “political consciousness” rises from the periphery of the city and countryside (Richani, 2002a: 153; Bernard et al, 1973: 326).

This then begs the question; can the FARC-EP establish radical transformation on a national scale? The preceding chapters highlighted how social change has occurred at a local level; however, can similar conditions extend across the whole of Colombia? Is such a feat even possible under current geopolitical conditions? This final chapter therefore weighs the FARC-EP’s potential to move from a place of dual power to state power, and assesses its ability to further challenge the political stability of the Colombian state and the capitalist system itself.

THE FARC-EP’S APTITUDE TO TAKE STATE POWER: THE DIA BOMBSHELL Under the auspices of the Democratic administration of John F. Kennedy (1961–63), the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was established. The DIA’s objective is to “provide timely, objective, and cogent military intelligence”