August 1, 2008

Examining FARC Resistance in Colombia: Not the end of Guerrilla Warfare

by James J. Brittain

In the spring of 2008, three significant blows were dealt to the FARC when not one but two of the insurgency’s most recognizable leaders were killed and the group’s Commander-in-Chief, Manuel Marulanda Vélez died of a heart attack. Echoing official quotes, the Washington Post’s correspondent Juan Forero declared, “Colombians are for the first time raising the possibility that a guerrilla group once thought invincible could be forced into peace negotiations or even defeated militarily. Weakened by infiltrators and facing constant combat and aerial bombardment, the insurgency is losing members in record numbers.” Also relying on government and military sources, one of Colombia’s most popular newsmagazines claimed that desertion and a lack of internal support had caused a devastating decline for the FARC. Even Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez voiced the opinion that the era of organized class struggle through the medium of guerrilla warfare had passed. However, while the death of three of the insurgency’s primary leaders was of great significance, such reports of the FARC’s decline and possible imminent demise are not new.

At the beginning of the 1970s, early in the FARC’s formation, the guerrilla group was dealt a devastating blow when the military launched massive counterinsurgency offensives against specific guerrilla-controlled regions. In 1973, the Colombian state, with the assistance of the United States, launched “Operation Anori,” which destroyed much of the FARC’s military supplies and sections of its leadership. Following these and other counterinsurgency campaigns conducted during the early 1970s, it was documented that the FARC had lost seventy percent of its ammunitions and had as few as one hundred and fifty armed combatants left. Extensive press was given to the FARC’s demise, but in a few short years such assessments were proven to be premature. The insurgency quickly bounced back from the counterinsurgency campaigns and, according to political scientist Daniel L. Premo, was able to “regroup and conduct sporadic actions on an increasing number of fronts” by the mid-1970s.

Meanwhile, E. J. Hobsbawm noted that the FARC not only survived the US-backed counterinsurgency campaigns launched against them in the early years, they “succeeded in maintaining their activity, in spite of the initial errors, in spite of the severe handicap of having to arrange for the evacuation, dispersion and resettlement of a civilian population, in spite of the strength of long anti-irregular experience of the Colombian army, and in spite of the deep political divisions in the countryside … [They] succeeded not merely by tactical and technical adjustments, but above all by a profound understanding of the political base of guerrilla warfare.”

Following the counter-insurgency campaigns under Plan Colombia (2000-2005) and Plan Patriota (2003-2006), premature victories over the FARC were again claimed. As time passed it became evident that the insurgency had not witnessed a decline, but rather experienced a significant influx in combatant growth and attacks against corporate and state infrastructure. Similarly, the FARC responded to the recent impulsive claims of decline by destabilizing Colombia’s most important oil infrastructure facility while defeating entire military battalions.

Between April 29 and May 6, the FARC carried out a coordinated series of attacks that isolated sectors of Colombia’s largest oil pipeline and subsequently halted the production of an estimated eight hundred thousand to three million barrels of oil. In addition, the guerrillas strategically destroyed important transportation routes needed to control the flow of oil and military supplies throughout various departments in the north of the country. And by destroying an essential bridge near Catatumbo in the department of Cesar, the FARC was able to prevent the movement of state and private security forces, thereby keeping existing military units preoccupied. Following the initial offensive, another FARC front near Tibu in Norte de Santander pursued an aggressive attack against security forces guarding the 500-mile Caño Limón oil pipeline—the true target of the attack. Ironically, all this took place just a few short hours after William Brownfield, the US ambassador to Colombia, visited the area and applauded the security situation and economic progress that had resulted from the FARC’s supposed decline.

In response to the FARC’s offensive, the Colombia army’s General Paulino Coronado coordinated a counter-offensive on May 3 in an effort to terminate the FARC attack and resume the flow of oil. The guerrillas quickly defeated the deployed battalion and continued their assault on the pipeline facilities for an another forty-eight hours. Showing that their campaign targeting the Caño-Limón pipeline was not simply a one-time tactical success, the FARC carried out an another attack on an exploitive multinational corporation and state infrastructure when it targeted Colombia’s largest coal mine—El Cerrejón—on the 44th anniversary of insurgency’s inception. On May 27, according to Reuters, FARC guerrillas derailed “around 40 wagons out of the 120-wagon train, carrying 110 tonnes of coal.” While officials tried to downplay the extensive damage caused, it quickly became apparent that the FARC had considerably hampered trading by destabilizing entire export routes.

These are but two actions in which the FARC demonstrated its continued military capacity to respond to both state and private security forces protecting corporate interests. Most interesting, however, was that the coordinated FARC campaigns silenced many officials from both the Colombian and US state. Many have perceived regions of Colombia’s north to be economically secure, while areas of the country’s south are supposed to be at the center of the FARC’s activities. However, the aforementioned attacks demonstrate that FARC support and capacity go far beyond that mentioned in the popular press. As Colombia’s own Interior Minister Carlos Holguin announced, Colombia should not dream or come close to proclaiming a victory over the FARC just yet.

The dominant class periodically employs hegemonic tactics, through both state and media outlets, to portray the FARC as being structurally weakened in the hopes of discouraging both internal and external support for the insurgency. The administration of President Alvaro Uribe has created a façade of general security in a country that has witnessed a half-century of civil war. It has become general knowledge in Colombia that the state has actively under-represented figures and information related to the civil conflict to present a picture of internal stability.

In the summer of 2006, Jorge Daniel Castro, then General Director of Colombia’s national police, stated that 30,944 paramilitaries had taken amnesty since 2003 through Law 975. This number was double that of any figure ever presented by scholars, military analysts or government officials regarding the size of Colombia’s largest paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC). And then, in 2007, President Uribe and Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón were accused of forcing state officials to alter statistics related to issues of internal security and state policy. César Caballero, former director of Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), admitted that the state had, and continues to, manipulate “statistics to make Colombia appear safer than it is, casting doubt on achievements that have made [Uribe] popular both at home and with the US government … the president’s policy is … to maintain the perception that security has improved, no matter what the case.”

An example of such state-enforced disinformation can be realized through a simple evaluation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia. When examining the issue of displacement, Constanza Vieira of Inter Press Service noted that the number of Colombian IDPs jumped thirty-eight percent in 2007. Colombia is now second only to the Sudan for the largest number of IDPs in the world. To put this into perspective, Colombia has over one million more IDPs than the entire Middle-East combined (including Iraq). The state claims that Colombia has roughly 1.9 million IDPs, but this is half the number documented by various domestic and international human rights organizations and research centres.

For example, the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) state that the actual figure of Colombian IDPs is somewhere between 3.9 and 4.2 million. By recognizing these examples of state-based disinformation, one can understand how reports concerning the FARC’s disintegration may also be suspect.

While it cannot be dismissed that in the past few months the FARC has experienced unprecedented difficulties, it must also be understood that, as long as inequitable socio-cultural and political-economic conditions pervade Colombian society, there will exist a population base from which the guerrilla group can recruit. The FARC remain the longest running and most powerful political-military movement in contemporary Latin America with numbers still ranging in the thousands, arguably tens of thousands. Therefore, to buy into any suggestion that Colombia finds itself in a period of increased stability or that the FARC has passed into the annals of history is to adopt a false consciousness of the realities that exist within this Andean country.

As the nation witnesses accelerated levels of inequality, displacement and exploitation, so too will the levels of opposition continue to increase. These are the consequences of instability and the true forum through which people become aware of their class positioning; hence, their subsequent engagement in acts of resistance through more extreme measures. According to political scientist Peter Calvert, political-economic disparity provides “insurgent movements a ready-made mass of disaffected supporters.”

It is accurate to suggest that the FARC is experiencing a period of tactical reformation and withdrawal. But to assess that the insurgency is over lacks an understanding of both guerrilla warfare and the material conditions that pervade Colombian society and its class struggle. To suggest that the FARC has experienced defeat illustrates a failure to understand the right of self-determination through an internal interpretation of revolutionary emancipation. The internal struggle within Colombia is far from over. It will continue to be waged through radical and antagonistic forms. As the United States and the Uribe administration continue to engage in a war against the poor, so too will they, as Hugh O’Shaughnessy and Sue Branford have pointed out, exacerbate and intensify “Colombia’s internal conflict by robbing families of their livelihoods and leaving them with little option but to join the left-wing guerrillas, particularly the FARC.”

James J. Brittain is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada and the co-founder of the Atlantic Canada-Colombia Research Group.

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