"Marxist guerrillas are fighting back history"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

New York Times, July 25, 2000

Colombia's Rebels Keep the Marxist Faith

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUÁN, Colombia, July 22 -- The dream of a
Marxist-Leninist revolution remains improbably alive amid the rolling
cattle pastures and steamy coca fields of southern Colombia.

Guerrillas in crisp, starched fatigues wear Che Guevara buttons, strum old
leftist jeremiads on guitars and pledge to bring Yankee imperialism down to
defeat once and for all. Three portraits of Lenin grace the press office of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in this boisterous
small ranching town, including one of the founder of the Soviet Union
petting a kitten. The pitted roads that run through the countryside are
spruced with signs that read "No more torture" and "No More Gringo Military
Advisers."

Marxist guerrillas in nearby Central America laid down their arms years
ago, and those in neighboring Peru have been nearly annihilated. As former
guerrillas serve in the parliaments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay and a
Socialist serves as president of Chile, the left has remodeled itself as a
moderate, democratic force throughout South America.

But here in Colombia, Marxist guerrillas are fighting back history, pushing
around an established army, battling a right-wing paramilitary force and
drawing the United States into a growing military role.

"I haven't read the book, but I have seen the movie, and we are like the
last of the Mohicans," said Comandante Alfonso Cano, a 52-year-old member
of the seven-man secretariat than rules the FARC, the largest and oldest of
several guerrilla groups still operating in Colombia. "There is a theory
that socialism is dead and history ends with capitalism. But have the
people's problems ended? No. With globalization, there's more poverty than
ever, and a crisis is coming."

Complete article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/072500colombia-marx.html


Louis Proyect

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