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The announcement last September 4 of the creation of a new FARC armed guerilla surprised the Colombians who thought they had turned the page of a painful story. Will this new dissidence, which divides and questions, find the necessary resources to consolidate and become an important player in the armed struggle? This is what is happening right now as tensions increase between Colombia and Venezuela. Interview with Frédéric Massé, specialist in Colombia.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army "Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo" (FARC-EP) generally called FARC, were created in 1964. Since that date, they have been the main communist guerrillas involved in the Colombian armed conflict until the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 . They then demobilized, surrendered their weapons and created a political party of the same acronym, Revolutionary Alternative Force of the Common , the legal Farc party. On Wednesday, September 4, the number two FARC and former negotiator of peace agreements in Havana, Ivan Marquez, surrounded by other historical guerrilla figures, announced in a video (probably shot in Venezuela) the rebirth of the FARC , as well as the creation of a clandestine political movement, the Bolivarian Movement for New Colombia.
RFI - Frédéric Massé, you analyze for years this Colombian history, what are the motivations of this new formation of the FARC ?
Frédéric Massé - This new formation of the FARC, which we call the dissidents, is a little different from the dissent proclaimed even before the end of the peace negotiations. In this new formation, you have FARC heavyweights like Ivan Marquez, number two, Jesús Santrich (former leader, FARC representative in the Colombian peace process in Havana) and El Paisa, who was the commander for more than two decades of the main elite force of the FARC, column Teofilo Forero. They are senior FARC officials who took part in the peace negotiations, who were officially demobilized and who one day disappeared after abandoning the peace process. They accuse the Colombian government of having betrayed the peace agreements. They use the alleged betrayal of the implementation of peace agreements by the government to justify the resumption of arms. This position provokes a number of debates within the FARC itself, because a large part of the FARC including Tymoshenko , the number one (Rodrigo Londoño, demobilized, now president of the party Farc legal) are not at all on the same line .
These people, who had been missing for some time, were suspected of being in Venezuela. This was confirmed with the video in which they say they want to take up arms to defend the revolutionary principles, the Bolivarism of the 21st century and not to betray the historic cause of the FARC. These are claims that can be found in other peace processes: for example, with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other guerrilla movements. There have often been groups that, in the name of historical legitimacy, were resuming the weapons of dissent by claiming a historic line.
In the context of the current tension between Colombia and Venezuela, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused his Colombian counterpart Ivan Duque of " maneuvering to trigger a conflict " on the pretext of a return to arms of the FARC. Is there an instrumentalization of Colombia behind this new FARC initiative ?
The Venezuelan government accuses the Colombian government of wanting to maneuver, to exploit all this. I do not know if the Colombian government is completely clear or has any intention behind that, but the fact is that Ivan Marquez and his acolytes have in a video announced wanting to take up arms, so in this case we can not accuse the Colombian government to be behind, to be at the maneuver for having forced or to be able to instrumentalize this guerrilla.
How will this new formation prevail within the FARC ?
This guerrilla warfare will no doubt be confronted with a number of internal problems. Two or three months before the signing of the peace agreements, there were the first dissidents. They were originally 200 to 300 to officially announce that they would not lay down their arms. Then this dissent increased as the peace agreements were implemented and especially after the FARC was officially demobilized and had to surrender their arms to the United Nations. Subsequently, this dissent increased further due to a number of problems, delays and setbacks that occurred during the implementation of the peace agreements.
Moreover, this dissent was believed because of or because of a number of veterans who had the ability to recruit new fighters, because they had money, and because they are present in areas where they there is no real alternative. So little by little, this dissent, which started with 300 people, was estimated a month or two between 1500 and 2000 [individuals], but the leaders of this new FARC formation were not part of it.
This dissent does not look very favorably at the arrival of these people who were their commanders. We know that there is already a problem about who will order. Who will be in whose service? The Colombian government says it has intercepted a number of communications that go in this direction. The first dissidents are reluctant and do not look forward to the late arrival, according to them, of these FARC leaders who refuse, according to them, to implement the peace agreements. So we will probably have, in some specific areas where the first dissidents were relatively well established, a problem internally internal struggle among dissidents FARC.
A few days ago, a candidate for municipal elections was murdered along with four people who were with her in Cauca, very south-west of the Venezuelan border. Can this event be linked to this new FARC configuration ? Does this mean that they are able to operate throughout the country ?
Apparently there is a link. This attack took place in northern Cauca. This is an area where indeed, since the signing of the peace agreements, a number of dissident groups of the FARC had appeared. They were largely linked to the Mexican drug cartels, and since almost the beginning of the peace agreement, it was known that the situation in that region was going to be very complicated.
On the Pacific coast, near the Ecuadorian border, in the Nariño Department, another dissent also appeared. There was a famous dissident named Guacho , known to have been the cause of the killing of several Ecuadorian journalists and was later shot dead by the Colombian public forces.
You also have in other regions, in Putumayo, Caqueta, Meta, in the south of the country or on the border with Venezuela, a relatively strong dissent. In the interior, in Antioquia department, in the north of the country, in the Bajo Cauca antioqueño region, you have a slightly new dissent, but the difference between old and new dissidents is not always obvious.
In some areas, you have early dissenters and others who have attached to Ivan Marquez. For example, in the Bajo Cauca, among the dissident leaders, there is one who was part of the FARC and who is attached to Ivan Marquez: we can therefore think that the war of the leaders will take place. So the geographical distribution is quite similar to the FARC's [location] before negotiations and the early dissidents. What we do not know is what influence this new group federated by Ivan Marquez might have in certain regions where early dissenters were not necessarily very present. We do not really know, but as always in Colombia, geography and alliances are moving and you will probably have a number of pressures, dynamics that will move the lines.
Ivan Marquez's group said he would not practice kidnapping as in the past. Is the drug going to be the guerrilla's main resource ?
The downside to this statement is that indeed they said they would no longer practice kidnapping, but at the same time they announced that they would ally themselves with the National Liberation Army (ELN) , the second guerrilla of the country which has become today the number 1. Now, the guerrillas of the ELN have not officially announced that they would stop sequestering people. So we could be faced with some inconsistency.
How to announce the stop of the kidnappings and to associate with another guerrilla group which, he, practices these kidnappings? Although this new dissidence FARC announced that it would no longer resort to kidnappings, however it said that it would use the extortions of companies or different economic powers.
The financial resources available to these dissidents are roughly the same as those available to the FARC. Namely drug trafficking, with obviously in some regions a larger share for drugs than in others. For example, in Nariño, Catatumbo, Caqueta or North Cauca, early dissidents are known to have formed alliances with Mexican cartels, and drug trafficking is an important part of their resources. .
The other major resource of guerrilla groups and other illegal armed groups, over the past decade, has been illegal mining activities. Mining regions such as North Cauca Antioquia, South Bolivar or Chocó benefit directly or indirectly to these armed groups. In the mining areas they control, they levy a revolutionary tax, the " vacuna " as they say in Colombia (the vaccine), as the FARC did with drugs.
The armed groups also intervene directly in the traffic as well as with the gold traffic at the Venezuelan border. What is relatively new is a fairly strong presence of these dissident groups in Venezuelan territory where they participate more directly in the production of illegal gold in the famous "mining arc" in Venezuela. An area that has become a kind of "no man's land" from which large quantities of gold, coltan, diamonds, which benefit many armed groups, but also the Venezuelan government and the entourage of the president Maduro.
So finally you have a cocktail that is generally always the same: the percentage of these resources varies by region, but it is an almost capitalist rationality. Depending on the "risk-opportunity" ratio depending on the region, we are more in drugs or in gold or in other activities. It was also mentioned recently that dissidents could be involved in the smuggling of gasoline from Venezuela.
In conclusion, since the announcement of Ivan Marquez, a large majority of civil society, politicians, FARC leaders who followed the peace agreements and guarantor countries, have condemned this statement of Ivan Marquez. It would seem that there is a united front against these statements, but one of the questions is whether this new guerrilla has the resources to consolidate and part of the answer, but only a part of it depends of course on what will happen in Venezuela.