By: Mary Patterson
DePaul Student
Columbian Chicagoans and their supporters marched Monday, Feb. 5th to protest the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Columbia, or FARC http://www.colombiajournal.org/farcphotos.htm. Michigan Avenue was the site of the protest, which attracted around 260 participants of all ages and races.
The Communist Party created FARC, a terrorist organization according to the U.S, Columbia and the E.U, in 1964 to act as the party’s military arm. Today its members number around 8,000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7217817.stm
but popular support has drastically declined.
“There are people who think they’re [the FARC is] still fighting for our country,” Chicago protest organizer Paola Sanchez said, “but that’s not true. We are here today telling the whole world that the FARC is not the people’s army, that we reject their actions and that we want freedom for all the people they have. We want peace for Columbia.”
Responsible for the deaths of four Americans since 1999 http://www.tkb.org/MorePatterns.jsp?countryCd=CO&year=2004 and the kidnapping of hundreds of Columbians from all walks of life, FARC has attracted a lot of bad press in the last decade.
Sporting rain boots and heavy overcoats, protestors braved the cold, rainy weather to display the blue, red and yellow of the Columbian flag and display posters that read, “We Need Help From U.S! FARC Are Terrorists!” and “No More Kidnapping!”
Sanchez, who recently immigrated to the Windy City from Bogotá, decided she wanted to coordinate the Chicago protest after visiting a facebook group called, “Un Millon de Voces Contra FARC,” or One Million Voices against FARC http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/farc.htm. She contacted the creator of the group, Columbian resident Oscar Morales Guevara, who encouraged her idea.
Henry Moya, another Columbian resident of Chicago, describes how the popularity of Guevara’s online community sparked the idea for the protests. “In less than four days 40,000 people had signed up,” he said. “And within that group, we decided to talk about let’s do something and that’s how the rally came up.”
Less than one month later, Sanchez and Moya stand beneath the steps of the old Water Tower, surrounded by those they have moved to action. “It’s something we’ve only been making [planning] for two weeks,” said Sanchez. “Sending e-mails to everyone, contacting all the people and, well, we did it.”
Sylvia Arvelaez, another Chicago FARC protest organizer, hinted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187165,00.html Jan. 10 remarks during his State of the Union address had pushed Columbians to band together against FARC.
“There were political events that sparked anger in a lot of people,” she said. “Political figures outside of Columbia have asked the international community to take away the terrorist title for the FARC.”
“The FARC are not terrorists but armies with a legitimate political posture,” Chavez had stated http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/2005/time100/leaders/100chavez.html.“We respect them… I ask the European Union that their label of terrorists be erased.”
Avoiding alienating Columbians who support Chavez’s political ideology http://home.vicnet.net.au/~dmcm/, Arvelaez said, “It’s not meant to be a political march. However, political figures outside of Columbia have asked the international community to take away the terrorist title for the FARC.”
Arvelaez, Moya and Sanchez’s ultimate goal is to convince the FARC to release all hostages. Since this is unlikely, given the group’s record, the three organizers simply want to gain as much support against FARC as possible. At worst, they know the headlines they’ve made with the protests around the world will reach the FARC hostages in Columbia, as the entire camp listens into the same radio report each week http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLOMBIA_FREED_HOSTAGE?SITE=NJMOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.
Moya explains bringing the hostages hope is the purpose of the letters he, Arvelaez and Sanchez are passing around for protestors to sign. “This is a letter that’s going to be sent to the hostages to say, ‘Hey we didn’t forget about you. We know your situation,’” said Moya. “We’re hoping that by doing these types of things, we’re going to gain your [the hostage’s] release.”
Chicago’s march concludes dozens of FARC protests around the world. “We already had [marches] in Poland and yesterday we had Tokyo and Australia,” said Sanchez. “It has been very successful. We are very happy.”
Multimedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Colombia_Rebel.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ingridbproofoflife.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FARC%2C_unidades_2005.png
http://www.colombiajournal.org/farcphotos.htm
Sources:
Paola Sanchez - http://www.paolasanchez@colombiasoyyo.org
Henry Moya - 773-278-0466 - hamoya@aol.com
Sylvia Arvelaez - http://www.sylviaarvelaez@columbiasoyyo.org
New York Times Online
“3 Kidnapped Americans Killed; Columbia Rebels Are Suspected”
March 6, 1999
CNN Online
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9903/05/colombia.bodies.02/
“Kidnapped Americans found shot to death on Columbia-Venezuela border”
MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
MSNBC Online
Article only available through cached search
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:g8XTYJ0Zs0AJ:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22769534/+Chavez+calls+on+the+EU+and+US+to+stop+labeling+FARC+‘terrorists’&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us
Human Events.com
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24455
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7217817.stm