FARC? Terrorists?

by | Mar 4, 2008


Richard Gott in the Guardian may well be right that the Colombian government’s decision to bump off two FARC guerrilla leaders a mile inside Ecuadorian territory was “a political decision taken by the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, to end the peace process orchestrated by Chávez”.  But I’m bemused by his line that

Ever since 9/11, the United States has requested the Colombian government to refer to the Farc as a “terrorist” organisation, a word also now used by the European Union. Yet the Colombian guerrillas are the most long-lasting of all such movements in Latin America, long pre-dating the current obsession with “terrorism”.

Pictured below: Elvia Cortes, in a necklace bomb.  FARC demanded a $7,500 ransom, which they didn’t receive; shortly after this picture was taken, they detonated the bomb.  I struggle to place this in the “freedom fighter” category, as Gott apparently does…

Elvia_Cortes

Author

  • Alex Evans

    Alex Evans is founder of Larger Us, which explores how we can use psychology to reduce political tribalism and polarisation, a senior fellow at New York University, and author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017). He is a former Campaign Director of the 50 million member global citizen’s movement Avaaz, special adviser to two UK Cabinet Ministers, climate expert in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and was Research Director for the Business Commission on Sustainable Development. Alex lives with his wife and two children in Yorkshire.

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