An evaluation of civilian support for the FARC-EP

transformed into a national political-military social movement illustrating a vision of alternative development through a socialist society via armed struggle (Ortiz, 2002: 130–6; Pearce, 1990a: 283). A growing minority of the FARC-EP are outside the country’s many small villages and towns (Petras, 2003: 99). By constructing a support base, extensive geographical breadth, and an expanding ideological model of emancipation, the FARC-EP has proven the ability to move its revolutionary ethos beyond the countryside.

AN EVALUATION OF CIVILIAN SUPPORT FOR THE FARC-EP

In her book My Colombian War, Silvana Paternostro (2007: 212) wrote that the FARC-EP has “less than 1 percent approval by the population … perhaps the least-liked revolutionaries in history.” These comments were not new, as many have claimed that the guerrillas have very little support from the general public. Such claims are however simplistic, and it could be argued that they are false representations of the realities in parts of the country. Although it is popular to claim there is little support for the FARC-EP, this does not explain why many Colombians choose to keep their political cards close to their chests. There is also evidence of alliances between the insurgents and sectors of the civilian population (Petras, 2003: 24; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001: 90). We now look at support for the FARC-EP, and how the insurgency can be seen as a people’s army. According to Marx and Engels (1976c: 495), a revolution must be backed by those most exploited under the current political-economic system. In 1966, the FARC-EP (and the PCC) stated that “the guerrilla movement is well aware that it alone cannot carry out the revolution” (Pomeroy, 1968: 312). The leadership of the FARC-EP recognized that the insurgency, in its infancy, had yet to form an Ejército del Pueblo. They understood that the support of the people was needed in order to create a true emancipatory society. Only through this process could the FARC-EP “play a decisive role in winning power for the people” (Pomeroy, 1968: 313; see also 310). The simple continuity of the guerrilla movement demonstrates that substantial solidarity has existed at a local level (see Johnson, 1966: 160–3). Contrary to Paternostro’s statement, it has been shown that the FARC-EP gained the most support of any guerrilla movement in Latin America during the 1960s (Paige, 1988: 153; see also Vega, 1969: 120). The 1970s then saw peasants (even those of a right-wing political ideology) showing relative, if not extensive, support of the guerrillas based on the revolutionaries’ integrity and defense against reactionary forces.

Communist guerrillas were fairly well received by the peasants in the central part of the country (south of Tolima, northern Huila and Caquetá, southern Meta, northeastern Cauca, the present-day department of Quindío), and avoided useless deaths and pillage, devoting themselves principally to fighting the Army. The Army, in turn, launched further

operations against other Communist strongholds, Pato and Ríochiquito. The total number of families in these areas was not over ten thousand. The guerrillas lost their permanent bases and had to become mobile. They adopted the name of Armed Forces of the Colombian Revolution, FARC, but did not achieve any notable success. Their leaders had great prestige among the peasants, even in Conservative areas, such as the municipality of Colombia (Huila).

(Gilhodés, 1970: 444–5)

Many of those I spoke with echoed similar claims. They had a common theme: that the guerrillas did not represent or fight for the masses, but that the insurgency was the masses. In no way are the guerrillas separate from the general population (Gibbs, 2008; Kalyvas, 2006; CISLAC, 2001). Areas I visited showed the insurgents living in close proximity to peasants and small producers. Colombian biologist Liliana M. Dávalos (2001: 70) found similar examples of how guerrilla encampments “correspond mainly to frontier and degraded farmland zones of insufficient economic development and near-absence of institutional infrastructure.” In short, the FARC-EP is not differentiated from the peasantry, but rather respectfully inhabits the same environment. Sociogeographical research has shown trends of migration to FARC-EP territories. During the 1998–2002 peace negotiations between the state and the FARC-EP, hundreds of thousands of peasants, small and medium producers, indigenous groups, and Afro-Colombians relocated to FARC-EP-controlled zones, especially San Vicente del Caguán – the center of the negotiations often referred to as Villa Nueva Colombia (Felbab-Brown, 2005: 109).19 Garry Leech (2002a: 78) argued that “many townsfolk enjoyed living in the rebel safe-haven” because it provided a sense of security and the ability to create alternative community-based development projects (see also Villalón, 2004a, 2004b; Clark, 2003: 44). The next few years saw rural inhabitants enter the FARC-EP-maintained demilitarized zone at a remarkable pace. Prior to the peace negotiations, the “zone” had a population of less than 100,000 (Isacson, 2003: 9; Chernick, 2000: 36; see also Hodgson, 1999: A15). By the time the army invaded the region and ended the peace negotiations in February 2002, roughly 740,000 had migrated to the guerrilla-held territory (Wilson, 2003). A further demonstration of the support amongst the rural populations for the FARC-EP was witnessed after insurgent-held territories were temporarily taken by state and paramilitary forces or abandoned as a result of the devastation of the civil war (fields and farmlands were ruined by bombing, agricultural crops being sprayed by defoliants and so on). Stathis N. Kalyvas (2006: 213n.2) found that in areas where this occurred the peasants regularly emigrated alongside the insurgents. Quite literally, the rural population followed the FARC-EP, and vice versa. A US citizen who documented her experience wrote an excellent comparative depiction of civilian relations in FARC-EP and paramilitary-controlled territory.

During my time in Colombia, I traveled through FARC-controlled territory as well as areas controlled by paramilitaries. As an American, going through government or paramilitary checkpoints involves interrogation, searches, intimidation and harassment. Colombians are frequently disappeared at checkpoints. I heard stories of rape, theft and terrorization by government forces, and consistently saw fear in campesino eyes when they faced military officers. My experience in FARC-controlled area was very different. At FARC checkpoints, I was welcomed and never threatened. In rebel territory, the FARC smile and greet you warmly. In return, average Colombian people openly welcome the FARC fighters. The difference from one area to another is evident beyond roadside checkpoints. Colombians – particularly organizers – assume they are watched and followed by repressive paramilitary forces all the time. They are very cautious about whom they will talk to and what they will say publicly. In a coastal area where paramilitaries have a lot of control, no one would speak above a whisper to me about the paramilitaries or the government because the police openly attended all of their meetings. Police–government–paramilitary collaboration is understood as a fact. By contrast, in FARC territory, people speak freely, without fear of reprisal. Talking politics with campesinos and with FARC soldiers, I experienced freedom of speech at a level I don’t even feel in my own country. In addition, the campesinos reported that they felt safer in rebel-held territory. Members of one village told me that the government stopped committing a massacre when a campesino ran up the mountain because they knew that the FARC would be there momentarily to protect the villagers. People in these areas defended themselves with confidence from wealthy landowners who were threatening to push them off their land. They knew the FARC would back them up and defend their right to stay. (Aby, 2006)

Gauging civilian support for the FARC-EP remains very difficult (see Leech, 2005b; Coghlan, 2004: 19; Livingstone, 2003: 204). It is widely recognized that “in Colombia, US military involvement has intensified the carnage and displaced hundreds of thousands of peasants to deprive the popular insurgents of recruits, food and logistical support” (Petras et al, 2005: 68). As these populations are forcibly displaced, the observable level of support for the FARC-EP becomes fragmented and difficult to calculate. If knowledge of a Colombian individual, community, or municipality, that supported the FARC-EP, were released publicly it would be targeted immediately by national and international counterinsurgency forces. This was made abundantly clear to me when I visited with community organizers and small producers in the department of Meta. Many peasants whom I met characterized themselves as somewhat supportive of the insurgency, yet they wished to remain anonymous for fear of “being found out” by state and “state-connected” forces outside areas of FARC-EP control. One of the reasons they wished to remain secret was not necessarily their own individual protection, but rather because they feared that

family members living outside insurgent territory would be in jeopardy if their support became known.

During its initial years of formation, support for the insurgency was extensive, especially in the southwest (Livingstone, 2003: 180; Pearce, 1990a: 60, 167; Gilhodés, 1970: 433, 445; Gott, 1970: 235; Lartéguy, 1970: 143). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the guerrillas had support from “a substantial minority” of the rural inhabitants in many departments of the south. However, some have suggested that these sympathies started to decline in the 1990s (Hylton, 2006: 86). Others deny this decrease and suggest social support rose during the period, as a result of the continued deterioration of socioeconomic conditions and state absence (O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 34; Petras et al, 2005: 105, 113; Moser and McIlwaine, 2004: 42, 138–40). Schulte-Bockholt (2006: 106) claimed that popular support for the FARC-EP grew exponentially for much of the past 20 years as a direct consequence of counterrevolutionary violence and aggression toward the rural population (see also Comisión Andina de Juristas, 1990: 95). He argued that “the strength of the FARC has grown considerably during the 1980s and 1990s, largely due to the polarization of the struggle over land between the local elites in league with criminal groups on one side and the peasants on the other” (2006: 110) At the beginning of the 1990s it was noted that “several hundred thousand civilian activists, overwhelmingly peasants,” were in clear support of the guerrillas, and within a decade roughly 1 million Colombians were in recognizable alliance with the FARC-EP (Petras, 1999: 30; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001: 90). Over the last decade the FARC-EP expanded support because of “the rural crisis and the government’s fumigation campaigns (which led to mass protests in 1995–1996)” (Livingstone, 2003: 208; see also Petras et al, 2005: 105, 113). When asked if the guerrillas helped or hindered the local population one 43year-old campesino from Caquetá gave me an answer that cannot be found in any book, yet spoke volumes of the FARC-EP’s role in the countryside.

The guerrillas are a necessity! … The insurgency lives with the people and has allowed the community to sustain its way of life. The insurgency is a necessity for if we want to change the state the people of Colombia cannot support or employ one simple form of struggle but many forms of resistance; we must have armed struggle, political education and community organization. It is through the FARC that these methods are constructed. The state does not sustain its power through one form but many; therefore, to alter such inequality and exploitation the people of this country must resist and struggle in all forms that the current exploitation holds ground.

For hours this humble peasant reiterated that entire communities have come to support, interact with and exist through a reciprocal alliance with the FARCEP. I found this interesting, for how could so many media soundbites and state reports claim that the FARC-EP has minimal or declining support when so much information, both past and present, proved otherwise?

During an interview with a 58-year-old worker from Nariño (now displaced and living in Bogotá), I was told that any “decline” in support during the 1990s was a calculated response from the civilian population. He described how systemic paramilitary violence fell upon anyone who displayed the slightest antagonism toward state policy and/or the economy. It should be borne in mind that state and paramilitary forces murdered 40,000 in this decade alone (Petras, 2003: 25; see also Petras and Morley, 1990: 163). This figure in some ways “suggests the degree to which the guerrillas were and are deeply rooted among the working and peasant population” (Petras, 2003: 25). Even researchers critical of the FARC-EP have noted that the guerrillas have had the support of many living in regions under insurgent control (Rochlin, 2003: 132–3). The reasons for this are many. After Plan Colombia’s multi-year military push (failed) it was clear, once again, that the guerrillas had “solid popular support” in the south (Mondragón, 2007: 43; see also Weinstein, 2007). The more Bogotá and Washington increased efforts to coercively eliminate support for the guerrillas, the greater that support became (Peceny and Durnan, 2006: 109). Rather than destroying the solidarity through counterinsurgency, civil violence, and counter-narcotics programs, the insurgency’s social base was solidified.

Over the past four decades, the FARC has become a formidable guerrilla formation, accumulating a vast store of practical understanding of the psychological and material bases of guerrilla warfare and mass recruitment – not in a linear fashion but through trail and error, setbacks and advances. Throughout its history of championing land reform and peasant rights the FARC has been able to create peasant cadres who link villagers and leaders and communicate in both directions.

(Petras and Morley, 2003: 101)

Accounts have shown that many social movements groups containing significant numbers of civilians have come to assist the guerrillas in urban and rural locales (Bajak, 2008b; Moser and McIlwaine, 2004: 138–40). These have facilitated the mobilization of civilian demonstrations against domestic and foreign state policies (O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 34; Petras et al, 2005: 92).20 Such activities further the guerrillas’ rapport with rural workers, campesinos, landless peoples, and indigenous nations through mutual cooperation. Former US Special Forces trainer Stan Goff (2003: 78) described how civilian assistance has also provided logistical data on state and paramilitary “composition, strength and disposition,” enabling the FARC-EP to procure decisive victories over state forces.21 Chalmers Johnson (1966: 160–1), a former agent with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) turned influential scholar on issues of unconventional revolutionary conflict, provided a practical account of how a successful guerrilla force must obtain – and retain – grassroots support (see also Wilkinson, 1971: 137–8). Johnson detailed how guerrilla-based struggles evolve over time through alliances with the local population, a progressive change in socio-

political structures, and a final shift from purely positional warfare to open conflict with the dominant system. Based on Johnson’s approach, backing for the FARC-EP is therefore recognizable by its half-century of continuity. Rather than representing a fundamentalist schism, the movement has achieved a “growing ascendancy among the Colombians most affected by the economic, political, and social situation” (Petras and Brescia, 2000: 138). There exist a number of support networks linked to the FARC-EP:

• The aforementioned combatant forces overseen by the Secretariat, who are life-long members of the insurgency. • Militias (milicianos), primarily made up of young men and women between 15 and 35 who are directly trained by the FARC-EP but remain in small villages and medium-sized towns. These groups provide technical and communications services to the guerrillas, informing the insurgents of where and when state/paramilitary forces are or have been, and so on. • Urban militias (milicianos urbana). Somewhat similar to militias, these persons are trained by the FARC-EP and located in the barrios of major cities where they provide logistical support. Both urban militias and militias are free to work with the FARC-EP or leave the alliance (see Gutiérrez

Sanín, 2008: 32n.41); • There has also been growth in “Bolivarian cells,” where civilians and guerrillas work together through the Bolivarian Movement for a New

Colombia (Movimiento Bolivariano por la Nueva Colombia, MBNC): a clandestine political organization formed by the FARC-EP (Brittain, 2005c: 36; FARC-EP, 2000c). • The Clandestine Colombian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Clandestino Colombiano, PCCC22), an independent underground political party located in vast rural locales and certain urban regions (with a significant number of members in various universities throughout the country).23 • Popular militias (milicianos popular), numerous men and women, usually of a mature age, in solidarity with the FARC-EP but remaining in their communities to organize support and communication.

Through first-hand experience Johnson (1966: 161–3) asserted that without local support a guerrilla movement would undoubtedly collapse in a short period. Examples of this have been experienced throughout Latin America, most famously in Bolivia with the death of Che Guevara (Ryan, 1998; see also Salmón, 1990; Harris, 1970). If a guerrilla force is able to sustain itself or expand, it could be argued that this is an indication of external solidarity. Some may argue, however, that for a guerrilla movement to persist is not necessarily an indication of voluntary support, but rather it might employ methods of coercion to acquire backing or recruit members (see Lair, 2003: 94). My own experience suggests that this is not the case with the FARC-EP. On numerous occasions I observed civilians being free to support and work with the guerrillas or peacefully refuse assistance. During a public forum on education, consisting of a few dozen peasants