Though negotiations have been going on for years, recently there has been cautious hope in Colombia. Of the countless communist groups in the country, the only real threat to peace that remains under arms is Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). However, that is about to change. Within sixty days, the FARC will have to disarm and disband. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos agreed to a deal on Sept. 23 for long-lasting peace with the FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, better known as Timochenko.
In the deal, the FARC said they would stop the kidnappings, murders and displacements of Colombians, as well as agree that a final settlement will be worked out by March 2016. The photo of Santos and Timochenko shaking hands next to Raúl Castro — who mediated the deal — will be a permanent fixture in Colombian history textbooks for years to come. This deal represents a long-overdue step toward peace in South America, as well as the imminent end of Colombia’s largest terror group.
I can still remember when I arrived in Miami from Venezuela in 2001. The first thing I did was look for other Hispanic kids in my classes. Back then, there seemed to be just Colombians and Cubans in the area. From my new Colombian friends I learned a lot about my once-neighboring country. Bogotá, the capitol of Colombia, was cold in the morning and at night, their currency was called pesos, their empanadas and arepas were basically rip-offs of ours (okay, I might be biased about that). However, there was something more shocking than my discoveries regarding the weather: all of the Colombians I was meeting at my pricey private school were refugees.
You may have seen the new show “Narcos” on Netflix — if not, you should. But if you have, you might think that those guys were pretty awesome. In reality, though, when the Medellín Cartel chose to go to war with the Colombian government, they really went to war with its people. You might also have missed the importance of the communist guerrillas in the whole scheme of things. While the narcos were bad for Colombians, the communists were much worse. Their violence was responsible for the Colombian refugees that I was meeting in Miami.
Colombia has been rocked by communist guerrillas since the 1960s. The vast, heavy Amazonian forests with canopies that completely cover the ground are the perfect place for “guerrilleros” to hide and carry out their insurgencies. Over the years, there have been a few different communist guerilla groups, but none are more notorious than the FARC. If that name doesn’t bring fear to your heart, it’s probably because you’re not from South America. The FARC are renowned guerrilleros that have been fighting their brutal civil war for more than half a century. Their reputation for long-term kidnappings, which often take years to resolve, is well known in the Andes region.
At first, the Colombian government failed to defeat the FARC because for years the group had support from the local peasants who had been neglected since anyone could remember — and the forests made them untouchable. This occurred during the Cold War when the Soviet Union funded and supplied communist revolutions worldwide. With cash, supplies and safe hiding, FARC became almost impossible to dislodge. To add to their funding from the Soviets, the FARC also used its knowledge of the forest and force of arms to grow coca for the narcos. Then, they began kidnapping rich Colombians for ransom.
The astronomical profits brought on by drugs made FARC almost impossible to destroy. The Columbian army supplemented its initial failure to effectively combat the FARC with the support of right-wing vigilante groups — such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia — which became as feared, criminal and brutal as the FARC itself. The Colombian people were caught in the middle of the war between the two terrorist groups.
Since that first time that I walked into school and gravitated towards the Colombian kids, much has changed. Colombia got rid of most of the narcos and the guerrilleros that had earned the country a reputation as one of the most dangerous in the world. Now, Colombia is known for being an incubator for high-tech in South America, for the beaches of Cartagena, for their emeralds and for the fact that they bounced back from the abyss. As Santos and the FARC sign the agreement to finally end revolutionary communism in Colombia, the flowers seem to be blooming for the rich, beautiful country and the wonderful people that live there.
