For those readers who admire the relentless tenacity and dedication of Ralph Nader at the grassroots level, you will likely be in approval of what he discusses in this forum, as his words are the focus of this review.

After campaigning with people on local issues in all 50 states, he admits to having never seen such high degrees of “resignation, and apathy, and powerlessness” across the nation. In defense of his observation, nearly a decade of neo-fascist rule will manifest those results.

He goes on to contrast his campaign with that of Obama as not having any hoopla, hope or rhetoric; Ralph continues to campaign on the real issues affecting the people in spite of overwhelming odds – he is a champion despite Obama’s victory.

Along the same line and with applause, his lack of hoopla and rhetoric is still so out-of-sync with the media cartel’s disinformation campaign that he was once again ignored by the mainstream. What we have here is a man who refuses to sell out and complacently surrender to the status quo, he is a man based on strong principle who perceives reality for what it is — a sham directed by the controlling institutions of power, of which Obama is just another cog in their finely-tuned machine.

But what do we really know about Mr. Barack Obama? Here we have a candidate who received hundreds of millions in campaign donations by corporate America and Wall Street. Nader sensibly asks something I’ve pointed out many times, “Why are the corporations investing in Obama?” By looking at his voting record it is obvious who he supports with approbation for illegal surveillance, a permanent presence in Iraq with a potential spread to neighboring countries, offshore drilling which he used to be against, an economic bailout lacking oversight and transparency, and so forth. Where is this great change that he has been spewing forth to the public for the past twenty months? It is likely just more of what the public wants to hear, but it’s apparent by voter turnout that they fail to feel the hot air blowing by them.

Part of the problem with Obama, as Nader points out, is that while Obama is pulled to the right by the corporate establishment, there are no demands being put on him by organized groups such as labor and unions to pull him the other direction and thus “make him better.”

While these aspects are certainly important to consider, Nader goes on further to expose who Obama is and who he really represents by reminding us that, “Corporate dominance is so bad that the first black Presidential candidate ignored the poor [during his campaign] . . . 100 million people.” We heard him mention the dwindling middle-class on many occasions, but the poor were undoubtedly left in the margins, too large a demographic to ignore. Some people say, hope, or believe that the new President Elect will live up to his rhetoric once he takes office and move us in a positive direction as a nation.

That though, is like wishing on a shooting star, as Nader confirms, “If you don’t pay attention while you’re a candidate, the chances of suddenly becoming a populist…are very, very slim.” While Nader is a man of action and experience, not just words, who consistently includes the poor constituents in his focus, he has seen too many candidates not pay attention and subsequently create the same results — a completely marginalized demographic that continues to expand in response.

Statesmen like Ron Paul, and even more so Ralph Nader, are quite cognizant of what it means to not adhere to the systematic rules of play. By now, they are also savvy to the repercussions of their dissidence. So long as the corporations are pulling the political strings by lining the candidates’ pockets with green, the duopolistic Republicats will continue to be the corporate choice, as has been demonstrated for decades. As such, there really is no public choice.

Nader supports this idea by asking, “What is left for the American people to decide…under more restrictive circumstances year after year?” It’s an appropriate question to ask, and something not coming from Obama or McCain, as they already know the answer and aren’t being purchased to assist the nation in facing questions as such. Rhetoric and hoopla are what these two servants are paid to maintain.

Just the same, he goes on to answer this succinctly by stating, “Nothing, because there is no powerful organization that turns the most powerful branch of government around — The Congress. Congress is the most susceptible to change.” Are we being stymied with such a response? This isn’t something that Obama or McCain have pointed out in their campaigns, which is exactly why we can entrust it to be accurate. Ralph identifies precisely that the legislative branch of government has been napping and taking vacations instead of checking and balancing the authority of the executive branch. The record shows that Congress has responded to 9/11 in more of a neurotic delirium than the populace majority; giving away our rights on a silver platter to the worst president in that nation’s history and directing US toward fascism.

There is now a lot of ground to be made up, and it won’t happen unless the people make it up themselves. As is customary, no free handouts this time around. Real change that failed to be identified by either corporate candidate in this election will have to be demanded by the people. With the election in the rear view mirror, Nader is now concentrating his energy on helping to do just that.

November5.org is a website (not yet up and running as of this writing) promoted by Nader and his affiliates which is to provide “technical and organizational assistance for organizing Congress action groups.” He admits that they can’t do it alone, that people will need to organize and dedicate their time in order to build a real momentum. He isn’t talking about something only relatively strong like the Obama phenomena or millions of young participants in an unprecedented election. He is talking about activism on local levels, which is much different than spontaneous participation on a national level.

Nader goes on to list ten major overdue changes needed in this country:

1. a living wage

2. full medicare

3. a crackdown on corporate crime

4. public funding and collections

5. getting out of the war

6. demilitarizing foreign policy

7. redirection of corporate subsidies and a bloated military budget

8. public works

9. job creation

10. changing the global trade agreement monstrosity that subordinates labor, consumer and environmental standards

If it looks and sounds like a Nader, it must be Nader. These are some of the real issues facing citizens today, and none of which were being genuinely addressed by the corporate representatives who were propped up for us again in this election. Anyone who is not a member of the elite is prone to be attracted to Nader’s proposals for change, likely affected by one or more of these issues. All the more reason to work together and collaborate as the Sage suggests, and now there will be a medium which facilitates the ease of this orchestration.

The forum proceeds and all three guests present questions and responses that are imperative at this juncture. While their focus lies on the power of locally organized groups, which is the only way to build a movement and turn things around in order to favor the people, Nader stipulates that the one thing missing homogeneously throughout the populace is “a fire in the belly.” He accurately notes the passion of people like Rosa Parks and her lead in the Montgomery bus boycotts, whose inner desire was so strong for change that she acted — strategically. This is the kind of attitude that he claims must be aroused throughout the populace if we are to see a real movement take place.

This review will be concluded with one of the most paramount statements of the forum. As Nader accurately describes, “This is a civil liberties issue . . . it is an important civil liberties battle to break open these two exclusive, reactionary, dominating, marginalizing two parties. They’re snuffing out dissent. They’re snuffing out the competition which in the 19th century brought us the Liberty Anti-Slavery Party, the Women Suffrage Party . . .” As history illustrates, civil liberties have only been inherited by the action of the people, never were they generously granted by the government.

The civil liberties that the nation has had stolen from it during the Bush Regime, are the same liberties that will need to be taken back once again, by the people, and for the people. The only way to overcome the present powers of control is to ignite that fire in the belly, and organize locally. The power still rests in the hands of the people, at least for the time being.

Nevertheless, as the gross effect of present day calamities reveals itself in the near future, denial of mass manipulation via the media and their politicorporate clients will no longer be possible. While it remains unfortunate that so many people are reluctant to think outside the restricted and acceptable parameters set as such by powerful societal institutions, comprehension of this social phenomena is quite clear when one understands the magnitude of control in the hands of those individuals pulling the strings, aka “The Conspiracy Theory”, as the orchestration of popular opinion is skillfully honed like that of a virtuoso.

For most people, the problem with accepting conspiracy theories is that it completely disintegrates the fabric of one’s security blanket, i.e. the belief system established through mainstream culture and media. It goes entirely against the cultivated grain of one’s understanding of the world, and thus reality. The media and church along with our educational system are responsible for the misinformation regarding historical events and thus contemporary perception.

One topic alone is enough to validate the above theory, take U.S. Presidents for instance. Most if not all of us in Usonian¹ society were brought up being taught that our nation’s leaders are all heroic and noble men of principle and integrity. But that is now widely known to be purely a cultural myth which promotes U.S. nationalist pride and a sense of belonging in our society. Free thinkers like Samuel Clemens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal and Howard Zinn among others, began describing history from a perspective not embraced so much by those who had written our contemporary understanding of history, as by those affected throughout history.

Some excellent points of reference for traditionalists on this lesson are President Polk in 1854, and how he antagonized the Mexicans and thus landed nearly half of their nation as an annexation of the U.S. through war and bloodshed. Then there is Hawaii, which was illegally acquired through a corporate venture based on sugar and the subsequent overthrow of the sovereign nation’s monarchy via military force and support from a manipulated U.S. President Harrison and Congress. Moving along, we pass by Cuba and its inevitable U.S. expulsion of the Spanish, and the consequential U.S. occupation of the island in 1898 under the Treaty of Paris and President McKinley.

But the real pioneer of U.S. Imperialism began with good old, lovable Teddy Roosevelt, the man with the largest and most powerful Navy the world had known. He made it a point to exhibit his military muscles on a world-wide cruise of continental coastal areas, arrogantly waving the stars and stripes on every deck – a trek which no doubt made an impression in port cities around the world. And of course, thou shalt not deny that men do not build militaries to let them sit on a shelf and gather dust, they are meant to be used as a tool of force.

In order to avoid historical overkill, if we were to critically examine our government’s involvement of the past 150 years in either publicly known conflicts, or those which were clandestine as is recorded throughout Central and South America, the Caribbean, Iran, Indonesia, basically around the world, we notice that the nation’s military has been continually active with the exception of maybe a year or two immediately following the two World Wars. Based on that, how is it possible that anyone still rationally refutes that our nation has become The Empire, especially when one considers the effect of our economy on the rest of the world as we are witnessing today. Fifteen years ago that was conspiracy talk, today it is a more commonly held understanding.

Our nation has arrived to this point in time on a path which while although calculated along the way, one event at a time, it shares the basic commonality of power as motive, which equates to control. These were not principled acts of integrity, these were acts of greed, but that is not what most of us were taught, and as such the mainstream product confronts a brick wall when it comes to information that is so contradictory to its fabricated belief system.

When we are young, we are encouraged to ask questions, just not ones which contradict the status quo – thus perpetuated. Then one day we are older, maybe a senior in high school or a university student, and hopefully a free thinker who may have been problematic to a degree for certain teachers or the system in general. We begin to expose ourselves to more authors and new information not found in texts approved by the councils of public education. We begin to listen to public radio, study languages and ancient cultures, and target foreign news sources only present in smaller, independent tributaries not yet gobbled up by the megacorps of the mainstream. We travel and experience the flavors of the world for ourselves, for our own personal understanding. In time our realizations contradict what everyone else is being told and thus believing, making us question our independently derived convictions, although increasingly less frequent the wiser we become.

Having said that and bearing nothing which resembles trust in the systems which govern, with patient anticipation the future will unfold, and with that, so must public awareness ascend. Until then, the sheeple can obediently perform their pointless constitutional duty of electing the participants for the traditional changing of the guard; feeling like they have accomplished something special in a meaningless ritual that will lead to more of the same, only escalated as we race up this exponential slope.

While it may sometimes impose inconveniences when resting at night with truth, it certainly beats having to rely on a warm and cozy fabricated lie. Solutions are only devised when a problem is identified, and as such it is imperative that more people begin to accept the truth that the problem with conspiracy is that it runs too deep in circles of established authority. One either comes to that conclusion, or one just goes baaaaack to sleep.

1. See Frank Lloyd Wright.

A couple hours later, a bus burst into flames following a seventh small explosion near the international airport of El Dorado. While inner-city violence was once a common occurrence throughout the nation, the past several years have been quite calm in comparison thus creating a new wave of tension and fear among urbanites.

Commander of the metropolitan police, General Rodolfo Palomino, hastily made his accusation clear about the culprits. His unsubstantiated blame lies where one might expect – on the typical scapegoat known around the world as the FARC, Colombia’s leftist guerrilla group with nearly fifty years of state opposition under its belt. As usual the trend is guilty until proven innocent as one would expect in a country where the rule of law has been absent for so long.

Fortunately, neither the Minister of Defense Manuel Santos, nor the city’s Mayor Samuel Moreno, are as reckless to point the finger of accusation without evidence. Santos justifies his reservation by stating that “the guerrilla group lost control of the capital city’s department some time ago”, and as such he believes it unlikely that they were the actors in this display of aggression. Meanwhile, Moreno confirms that the incidents had nothing to do with the current protest marches being conducted by indigenous groups in the department of Cauca Valley.

So, the question arises, who is the responsible party and what was the objective for these acts of aggression? It is natural to immediately interpret that the attacks were meant to be fairly benign; attention getters so to speak. There exists no doubt that if the intention were to target civilians or achieve wide-spread damage, it would have been accomplished. However, that was not the case with these attacks which leads one not only to speculate the motives, but also to rule out the General’s ignorant and expected accusations based on zero credible evidence and inconsistent FARC behavior.

The timing and coordination of the explosions automatically eliminate the possibility of amateur involvement, while the strategic placement of the bombs indicates a willingness to avoid multiple deaths and thus eliminates the possibility of a group wishing to make a bold statement. The subversive and somewhat benign nature of the attacks therefore leaves an opaque understanding of the culprits and their motives.

After having spent three years living in Colombia, while being cognizant of the government’s unwillingness to negotiate with the “terrorists” (FARC) prior to and in the midst of an attempted third term unconstitutional run for Presidency on behalf of Uribe, it is unavoidable to speculate that this somehow may have been an inside job conducted for the simple reason of jolting the public. With so many eyes of humanitarian groups on Uribe and his government, care must be taken to avoid additional criticism. As such, it isn’t difficult to fathom that yesterday’s events were purely intended to raise tensions amongst the populace while it looks to its leader and his security forces for answers. After all, manipulation through fear tactics has been an effective tool of the governing body since long before the FARC arose from the country’s blood-stained soils. Unfortunately, the truth is often evasive in Colombia.

Despite the historical precedence of the FARC and its habitual kidnapping tendencies, the Colombian media cartels seem to demonstrate a preference for the high-profile variety hostage. While all kidnappings are initially reported in some form or another, only a fraction of these continue to make headlines with the passing of time. Indeed, most captives are lucky to receive follow-up stories of their time in FARC captivity. A select few, however, manage to remain in the media’s spotlight throughout their tenure as prisoners.

Case in point, the most recent high-profile captive who was liberated this past 2 July, Ingrid Betancourt. Throughout her 76-months in FARC custody, Ingrid seemed to be the focus of a perpetual story being run by one of Colombia’s numerous papers, television or radio broadcasts, and the trend persisted internationally. For more than six years, she was unarguably the poster child for FARC prisoners. Her notoriety as a Colombian ex-presidential candidate for the 2002 elections being held captive catapulted her to rock star status which drew both international attention as well as criticism against the government and her captures.

Consistent media coverage of Ingrid’s captivity turned constant as her health began to decline about a year ago. Her fame finally became iconic when a photo of her was released depicting a fragile woman who appeared thinly malnourished and depressed – reports claimed that she was on the verge of death and a letter addressed to her family was made public. Physicians were subsequently brought in to the FARC camp where she was being held in order to evaluate her health and substantiate the reports. In fact, media coverage made it appear that her days were numbered, and until her liberation the world also believed this to be true. Yet on 2 July, Ingrid stepped off the plane in Bogota as a woman who had gained weight and seemed perfectly healthy with a glowing smile. What happened to the frail woman who was on the verge of death? It seems the media overlooked reporting her miraculous improvement in health over the past several months approaching Operation Check.

While estimates range anywhere from 700 to 3,000 hostages being held in custody of the FARC to date, Ingrid appears to have been the only captive who turned ill in the jungle and was thus deemed even more worthy of media attention. It makes one wonder how all the other incarcerated victims have managed to evade illness while in captivity, or if the media simply picks its preferences on which to report. Chances are the latter scenario merits more consideration.

The truth is, not all FARC hostages are created equal. As tourists, security officers, defense contractors, politicians and businessmen are still being held in captivity, it is nearly a sure bet that none of them will ever receive the same press coverage as Ingrid did while in captivity. Even Jhon Frank Pinchao, the police officer who was captured in 1998 and escaped on his own in May of 2007, didn’t receive as much coverage as Ingrid. The ex-prisoner consequently wrote a book to share his nine-year ordeal with the public.

All the media frenzy over Ingrid raises suspicions as to the motives of the press and its supposed adherence to fair reporting. Analyzing Ingrid’s capture by the FARC on 23 February 2002 reveals even more absurdity. While on her presidential campaign in 2002, Ingrid was warned in advance by the Colombian government, the military and police forces not to enter the southern, demilitarized zone (DMZ) of Caqueta in order to pursue her campaign. She was repeatedly advised not to campaign in the DMZ, but nonetheless their warnings went unheeded. Lack of cooperation from the government and military to fly Ingrid into the DMZ at her request brought the candidate to decide that ground travel into the department was her only option, despite the known risks. After the last security stop before entering Caqueta, she was kidnapped by the FARC. Somehow, it would become the government’s responsibility to liberate the stubborn politician who apparently knew better than her advisors.

Like a child who gets burned playing with fire despite parental warnings, Ingrid’s decision as a severe critic of the FARC to enter the DMZ resulted in a difficult lesson to learn over the course of the next 76 months. She, however, would not be subject to biding her time alone without media coverage as so many captives are forced to endure. Contrary to the majority of hostages being held by the FARC, Ingrid’s victim role took on a new level of media coverage that surpassed any other hostage and resulted in her eventual liberation.

While there are demands from France, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba and on around the world that all remaining hostages be set free, the media have seemingly traded in their Colombian jungle captive for the French cosmopolitan, debutante variety. For now, the public will be receiving their news reports on Ingrid from France, and a new star will eventually be born in Colombia for the media cartels.

Colombia’s Marxist guerrilla group, las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been misunderstood and underestimated since its germination. Even today they are mistakenly labeled as the sole offenders and primary cause of violence in the country, as Colombia and its armed forces, along with U.S. assistance, continue attempting to extirpate them.

This notion of the FARC, while common around the world, contradicts reality. Violence in Colombia was a regular occurrence long before the FARC arose from the country’s blood-stained soils. In fact, during the past half millennium, “war torn and oppressed” is the most accurately succinct description for civil society in this country of extreme contrasts.

When dissecting Colombia’s internal conflict, the objective should be to develop a comprehensive understanding, even it if juxtaposes mainstream imagery. Awareness as such begins by realizing that the majority of people affected by the conflict are the impoverished indigenous communities, rural farmers, and common folk. However, their accounts of the violence are rarely printed or reported, an important point to keep in mind.

Information that is traditionally reported are testaments by the government, military and national police force. This is the news that makes its way around the world, and this is what produces popular perception. In fact, personal accounts that contradict this news, often surfacing weeks or months later, rarely reach the public here in Colombia, let alone around the world.

In order to have a more integral and impartial understanding of Colombia’s Marxist revolutionary group, one must examine the socio-political climate at least two decades prior to their inception. By doing so, it is clear to see that a particular social impetus was the cause of this revolutionary effect.

When viewing a time-line depicting the events, one also notices that Washington’s involvement in this Latin American paradise has been incessant since shortly after WWII. That preliminary involvement was initially rationalized to fight communism which was sprouting in the backyard.

So, who were the supposed communist elements in Colombia in 1948? Well, on 9 April of that year, only a day after meeting with Cuba’s “Fidel Castro at a conference of anti-imperialist student leaders,”¹ the country’s most publicly supported populist leader and presidential candidate of the people, “Dr. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, was assassinated in Bogota’s downtown center at roughly 1:15 p.m.”² The capital city and national provinces were quickly destroyed after erupting into absolute chaotic rebellion.

The supposed patsy of that day, Juan Roa Sierra, was found by the infuriated mob in a local store, removed from the establishment, beaten to death, dragged through the streets and finally put on display in the city’s center. All the while, neither the government nor the armed forces did anything to stop the resulting civil violence. On the contrary, they set out against the enraged mob. Since then, that day has become famously known throughout the country as the Bogotazo, at the cockcrow of an era notoriously called The Violence.

It’s quite relevant to point out that Dr. Gaitan was a genuine populist, estimated to have had more than 80% of the populace’s support – a sure winner for the coming elections of 1950. He was also a member of the Colombian Liberal Party, courageously hoping to overturn the oligarchic stranglehold and implement social programs for the common people; education, health care, infrastructure development and centralized resource management were a few cornerstones of his campaign.

The entrenched rulers of the oligarchic class however, likely found it difficult to accept the occupation of the House of Narino (Presidential Palace) by a people’s president like Gaitan, as they certainly didn’t share his social interests. The country’s history consistently demonstrates this dominant, plutocratic attitude since the curtailing of the Independence Wars against Spain in 1848.

The insurgency organizes

What then became of that impetuously black April afternoon in Bogota? Some of the people who supported Dr. Gaitan and his political ideology became known as Gaitanists. In the department of Tolima, neighboring Cundinamarca of which Bogota is the capital, these Gaitanists took up arms against the inveterate system. One member of this guerrilla group was Pedro Marin, commonly known as Manuel Marulanda, or Tirofijo (Sureshot).

By 1950, the fledgling, Gaitanist guerrilla group of peasants formed ranks in the countryside with fighters from the Social Democratic Party (PSD). This group would gain momentum over the next sixteen years in the defense of peasant-proletariats. Marulanda would go on to officially name this group the FARC, which he then presided over, in 1966. He would assume this position until his recent death, reported to have been this past March 26, 2008.

The origins of the FARC are rooted in the soils of socialist ideology. Contrary to popular belief, their inception had nothing to do with drugs. The core of their doctrine sought to establish overdue land rights for the peasants. Along with this they promoted the development of unions within the controlling sectors of agricultural big business, which was becoming monopolized and yet ever more oppressive by the national and foreign oligarchs of the day.

The FARC originally functioned as a “regional structure of social warfare, of individual and collective survival”, and eventually became “a setting for the building of real local power.”³ This is the course they maintained throughout the 1970’s. However, since the 1980’s, with the emergence of cocaine trafficking and counter-insurgent, state-sponsored paramilitary troops to contend with, their ideological roots began to wither somewhat.

Cause and effect are often unavoidable and inherently universal principles. As such, if the governing body decides to abandon or abuse the people in favor of power and profit, the people will likely resort to their own measures. This is precisely what happened after the Bogotazo. Thus, conditions were optimal for a group like the FARC to sprout in response to calculated, systemic corruption which had been oppressing the less affluent portion of the population since Spanish colonial times.

This is the communist force that Washington intended to uproot while in vegetative growth, yet they somehow failed to succeed. Today, forty-odd years into its commemoration, the FARC still stand their ground. Over the decades they’ve been labeled as communists, as narcotraffickers and today as terrorists. And though at present they are estimated to be weakening, they nonetheless continue to exist as an armed opposition to be reckoned with.

Resistance as such helps Washington justify its gracious annual donations to the Colombian government of roughly $700 million dollars in US taxpayer’s money under Bill Clinton’s Plan Colombia, which has only sustained the internal conflict, poisoned the environment and produced the highest internal human displacement figure in the world. In fact, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reveals that even Iraq, at nearly 2,000,000 internally displaced people, still fails to fit the crown.⁴ Although this constitutes imperative data to consider in achieving our initial objective of developing a comprehensive understanding, we shall postpone any further analysis of this anti-terrorist/anti-drug program for another article.

Redefining the conflict’s perpetual scapegoat

Taking into account the historical origins of Colombia’s primary guerrilla group is a requisite for any degree of comprehension apropos of the conflict. However, by no means is this to suggest that the FARC are exempt from having committed illegal and atrocious crimes over the decades. Nor is this to indicate that they should continue to be granted impunity as numerous paramilitary and guerrilla forces have already been fortunate to achieve under President Alvaro Uribe’s transparency-lacking Justice and Peace Law of 2005. This paper seeks not to validate the FARC’s immorality, but simply to reveal for the reader a more accurate depiction of Colombia’s conflict relevant to this group.

Let us now proceed by establishing some parallels and deviations between the two previously mentioned groups. Paramilitaries are organized civilians developed militarily to act as, or assist, regular military troops. The reference mentioned in the previous paragraph coincides with this definition.

The FARC, on the other hand, are not a paramilitary group. They are classified as guerrillas, like Castro’s revolutionary players, combating against the military and their paramilitary associates. So, it has been guerrilla groups like the FARC, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and M-19 that throughout the years have held up arms against the Colombian government, its army, national police and paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Force (AUC).

Aside from the inaccurate assertion of many Colombians and others in foreign circles that comfort themselves by exclusively condemning the conflict on the guerrillas, it would be naive to believe that the FARC are the sole culprits in this condemnable chaos. Observation from Amnesty International contradicts the blind-eyed and wide-held belief completely by stating that “although all parties to Colombia’s internal armed conflict – the security forces, paramilitaries and the guerrilla – have systematically violated human rights and international humanitarian law, the paramilitaries have, in recent years, been responsible for most of the killings of civilians, “disappearances”, and cases of torture, while the guerrilla have been responsible for most politically-motivated kidnappings.”⁵

Reports such as this aren’t any more reassuring when attempting to construct a comprehensive understanding of the conflict, because in essence the scenario has just become even more complicated with additional factors. Unfortunately though, that is Colombia’s conflict in a nutshell, a monumentally complex, socio-political quagmire.

Just the same, if one sincerely aims to arrive at a more realistic awareness regarding this country’s internal conflict, stereotypes of the Marxist guerrilla movement and preconceived notions of its rebellion must be abandoned in order to see the real picture. The contemporary reality of massacres, torture and other human rights violations are indeed not dominated by the FARC, as popular opinion has been intentionally and irrationally shaped.

The majority of these violations, rather, are by a dominate force and its associates, whose concentration of power permeates the country’s social, economic and political realms. One has to look no further than the Colombian government to identify the principle agitator. That may read like a bold claim, but the majority of rural Colombians with whom this writer speaks concur nearly unanimously.

In an interview conducted in 2002, Noam Chomsky shares some of his personal experiences, while in Colombia on a humanitarian agenda to the militarily active department of Cauca, which confirm this reality. In response to a question establishing that the Colombian government claims it’s caught between a guerrilla insurgency and a paramilitary army, neither of which it can control, Chomsky responds by stressing that “both international and Colombian human rights organizations now attribute the large majority of atrocities to paramilitaries, who are so closely, and so visibly, allied to the military that Human Rights Watch calls them the ‘Sixth Division,’ alongside the five official divisions. There’s overwhelming evidence of intimate connections and cooperation, both from ample personal testimony and published reports of the major human rights organizations, which are detailed and informative. The proportion of atrocities attributed to the military/paras has been steady over the years: about 75%-80%, with the military component declining as atrocities are ‘farmed out’ to the paras in ways that are familiar elsewhere.”⁶. This doesn’t constitute acceptable information that either the US or Colombian establishments care to have the global public contemplating around dinner tables, as it contradicts la carte du jour.

Conclusion

By reflecting on these latter diagnoses from Amnesty International and Chomsky, previous assumptions of the FARC as the “lone Marxist group” being the sole conspirator of terroristic violence in Colombia, hereby begin to fade and lose credibility. This is especially true when comparing information released by the government and mainstream sources, with that which one would expect to be more reliable and objective data supplied by humanitarian groups and intellectuals, whose commitment to compiling accurate information is not subject to imposing forces. Personal testimonies of peasants who have been caught in the crossfire weaken those assumptions even more.

In order to develop a more accurate understanding of the FARC and Colombia’s conflict, one must look beyond the biased headlines, the nightly 6 o’clock cover stories and back-page snippets of the dominating media sources, to the wellspring of alternative media. If that fails to suffice, an excursion to the country itself will provide plenty of opportunity to discuss the issue with those directly affected. This is the most forthright manner to change perception while grasping the reality of the FARC as participants in Colombia’s conflict.

1. Hylton, Forrest; Evil Hour in Colombia; 2006, p40.
2. El Tiempo, 9 April 2008.
3. Pizarro Leongomez, “Revolutionary Guerrilla Groups”, in Bergquist et al, eds, Violence in Colombia: Historical Perspectives, p181-182.
4. International Displacement Monitoring Center.
5. Press release, “Colombia: The Justice and Peace law will benefit human rights abusers,” Amnesty International, 12 September 2005.
6. Noam Chomsky interview with Justin Podur; Cauca: Their fate lies in our hands, 12 July 2002