That Dutch FARC woman

[MarxSchmarx]

There is a Dutch woman named Tanja Nijmeijer who has apparently been involved in the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, for you reactionaries) for several years. Here's a story about her by the "Paper of Record" in the US and A:


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/americas/29colombia.html?ref=americas

What do OIers think of this woman? Is she a misguided idealist, or is she able to pursue her class struggle in Columbia in a way she could not dream of in the Netherlands? What was it about life in Holland that was missing for her?

[Skooma Addict]

From briefly skimming that article I would say that she looks like a misguided idealist.

[Robert]

I don't know what her problem was, but my guess is she was bored and felt guilty about being born lucky. It bothers me that she didn't leave when she realized this:


Throughout her writings, she touched repeatedly on a theme that seemed to vex the rebels themselves: whether they stood for anything anymore, having evolved from their idealistic origins into a force that comfortably financed itself from the drug trade and survived by kidnappings, extortion and the forced recruitment of children as combatants. If she stayed with these thugs voluntarily, knowing the above, I've got zero use for her.

And thank you for the article, especially this:




SIMILAR tales of adventurers from wealthy countries who move to Latin America to assist armed revolutionary movements rarely end well.
For instance, New York’s Lori Berenson finally emerged this week (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/americas/27peru.html) from 14 years in Peruvian prisons for aiding a plot by the Túpac Amaru rebel group. Before that there was William Morgan (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12914205), the Ohio-born gunrunner who fought with Fidel Castro (http://www.nytimes.com/info/fidel-castro/?inline=nyt-per) before being executed as a traitor when the Cuban Revolution began eating its own.

[Dean]

I don't know what her problem was, but my guess is she was bored and felt guilty about being born lucky. It bothers me that she didn't leave when she realized this:

If she stayed with these thugs voluntarily, knowing the above, I've got zero use for her.
Unfortunately for you and the rest of the idealists, whoever you have "use for" is completely irrelevant.

The working class revolution won't be ideal. It will be a bloody mess with plenty of innocent victims. Just like any war.

It's not a pretty world and defining your activity in society on narrow idealist lines will get you nowhere.


And thank you for the article, especially this:

What, the fledgling regime executed a self-proclaimed "anti-communist"? Who would have guessed it!

[Sankofa]

I don't know what her problem was, but my guess is she was bored and felt guilty about being born lucky. It bothers me that she didn't leave when she realized this:

If she stayed with these thugs voluntarily, knowing the above, I've got zero use for her.



:rolleyes:


Q: Some human rights organizations claim that the FARC recruits children, sometimes forcibly. How do you respond to these accusations?

Reyes: I think there is disinformation there, because those who join the FARC are between 15 and 30 years of age, that is the norm. Nobody younger than that joins. The FARC never forces anybody to join, it is completely contrary to our safety regulations. Why would I give a weapon to someone that has been forced to join and then tell him he has to be my bodyguard? The guard is going to make me pay right there with that weapon. It never happens. This is disinformation from these organizations. What happens to cause this disinformation? In many cases there are boys and girls that join and then later, for one reason or another they decide to leave. Life here is very hard, one must be disciplined. Perhaps they had family that they couldn’t see, a son or a daughter, or a boyfriend, or a girlfriend. Or they thought that this struggle would be easy and then they aren’t willing to sacrifice so they leave. If they are youths, I’m referring to those under 20 years of age, then in many cases they are going to say that they were forced to join in order to defend themselves against the repression of the police, and also in many cases of their families.

Then there are cases in which there are those who want to fight in the guerrillas but many times their parents do not want them to join because the father wants to have his son tat home and the mother wants her daughter there. They do not want them to join. But they persist and join the guerrillas, they flee from their houses and appear at our guard posts. It so happens that they join the FARC voluntarily. But many times when they leave they lie to their fathers and mothers and say that they were forced to join and the fathers and mothers believe them. And later, if the authorities conduct an investigation, the parents say that their son or daughter was forced to join and then that information is collected by Amnesty International or others. But I reiterate, it is not the policy of the FARC to recruit children or to enlist anybody by force.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-75336Z?OpenDocument

Las FARC are far from narco-traffickers, and in fact, it's the United States government and the CIA that have openly admitted in court that they sold cocaine to U.S. citizens to fund their war against communists in Nicaragua.

Google: Iran-Contra


Prior to U.S. direct intervention within Colombia by way of Plan Colombia, levels of coca cultivation consistently hovered at 40,000–50,000 hectares (1986–1996). With Plan Colombia, coca levels dramatically increased. During the peak of Plan Colombia (2001) levels reached a historic high of 169,800 hectares. While a slight decline was witnessed in 2002–2003, current estimates suggest that coca cultivation is again on the increase. In fact, what has occurred in Colombia’s narco-industry is a partial monopolization of coca processing, production, internal domestic distribution, and international trafficking by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)—the principal paramilitary organization. The AUC openly admitted that it principally financed its counterinsurgency troops through the Colombian narcotic industry. Roughly 80 percent of paramilitary funding comes from drug trafficking.10 The reality of Clinton’s Plan Colombia is that the paramilitary forces—indirectly trained by the United States and supported by the Colombian army—now control the drug industry. The FARC–EP, often accused by U.S. propaganda of “narcotrafficking,” is merely involved in taxing revenededoras, those who purchase the leaves from the peasants.11 At most some 2.5 precent of all coca cultivation in the country is indirectly connected to the FARC–EP.12 Though the façade of a war on drugs was somewhat useful for a time, the U.S./Colombian counterinsurgency was weakened as the falsehood became evident. Therefore the aligned governments of Bush and Uribe moved toward an armed campaign against the insurgency’s support base in the people under a new rubric, the “war on terror.”

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905brittain.htm


Q: What is the significance of the Para-politics scandal for democracy in Colombia?

Raul Reyes: The para-politics scandal is the result of many years of the existence of drug trafficking in Colombian politics. Drug trafficking money circulates at every level of the government, in all the apparatuses of the State, all the governmental institutions. Drug trafficking has carried various presidents to the presidency. But aside from the money for presidential candidates, the money also funds congresspersons in the House and the Senate. Many judicial processes are also bought with drug trafficking money. Drug trafficking money has also penetrated inside the police, inside the army, inside the DAS, the SIJIN, that is to say, inside all the components of state security. The president is compromised with this money. This money is also found in industry, in commerce, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the chemical industry, in all of these.

For these reasons the situation in Colombia is serious. Here in Colombia, it is true what some say about it being a narco-democracy. I believe there is a narco-state, a narco-economy, but there is also a great hypocrisy in the Colombian political establishment because they sell the story that they are fighting drug trafficking. They go to the United States to ask for support to fight against drug trafficking. And they go to the European Union to ask for support to fight against drug trafficking. They organize forums and seminars about the fight against drug trafficking when they themselves are the drug-traffickers and the beneficiaries of drug trafficking. This is an extreme degree of hypocrisy, no?

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-75336Z?OpenDocument


On May 12, 2000, according to an official U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration document obtained by The Nation magazine under the Freedom of Information Act, Colombian police intercepted a parcel sent from DynCorp's Colombia offices to its air base in Florida.

Colombian authorities discovered two small bottles of a thick liquid in a package which, when tested, was found to be laced with heroin worth more than $100,000. When authorities discovered the name of the company responsible for shipping the heroin they turned the results of the 'narcotest' over to the Immediate Reaction Unit, which then set into motion prosecution procedure 483064. However, the heroin bust remained a secret for more than a year until The Nation began its investigation and now it seems the evidence has simply disappeared.

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia78.htm


A private jet that crashed last year in eastern Mexico and was found to be carrying more than 3 tons of cocaine was also used by the Central Intelligence Agency for clandestine operations, the Mexican daily El Universal reported September 3.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3745.shtml

[AK]

Why do I always read FARC as FUUUUUCCCKK?

I'd say she's given up on Holland; despite that - from what I've seen - the left seems to be quite large there. Either that or she decided class war wasn't coming to the Netherlands anytime soon so she might as well go to Colombia.

[Nolan]

If she stayed with these thugs voluntarily, knowing the above, I've got zero use for her.
Gee, she said all that about them and they haven't killed her or even expelled her. :rolleyes:

It's the New York times, they could character assassinate George Washington if they wanted to. It wouldn't be hard.

And yes, all the crocodile tears about the FARC being in the drug trade (yet to be proven, much less proven that the organization as a whole condones it) are just that. The CIA is the biggest drug cartel in the world.


And thank you for the article, especially this:

Yes, the guerrilla army was made up of all types of rightist mercenaries. It goes without saying that they didn't stay alive long.

[Robert]

Unfortunately for you and the rest of the idealists, whoever you have "use for" is completely irrelevant."Completely" irrelevant? It isn't even marginally irrelevant. MarxSchmarx specifically asks the OI'ers (that's me) what we "think of this woman." Capiche?

But I'm glad you mention idealism. I'd say some of you comsters have an idealized appreciation for FARC. Don't you remember a year or so ago when the military rescued that kidnapped woman, Ingrid Betancourt (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1819862,00.html), and 15 colleagues from 6 years of captivity in the jungle? What was the justification for that? Kidnapping, I mean.

Note that this article also references FARC in the drug trade. You reckon Time magazine in on the conspiracy to cast FARC in a negative light, too? Actually, I wonder why you guys even bother to dispute their drug trafficking; if kidnapping is okay by you, what's the big deal in selling a little powder?:lol:

[mosfeld]

Interesting discussion. Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but its COLOMBIA not Columbia, which is a state in the USA.


There is a Dutch woman [....] Columbia


Either that [...] Columbia.

Anyways, Colombia is the epicenter of revolution in South America! Viva FARC-EP!

[Wanted Man]

I'd say she's given up on Holland; despite that - from what I've seen - the left seems to be quite large there.

And what have you seen? You're completely wrong.

Anyway, I think she took a pretty brave decision. If people decide to make that choice, that is entirely up to them. But it's certainly something that I would never do, and would discourage others from it. Anyway, the recent updates on the situation are pretty funny, considering that they completely smash the claims of "experts" that Tanja was killed by the FARC for expressing doubts about them in her diary. Still, these "experts" seem unlikely to shut up any time soon. For instance:


Liduine Zumpolle, a Dutch human rights activist and one of the authors of the new book on Ms. Nijmeijer, thinks that, over all, she regrets her decisions. “Tanja joined the FARC with romantic ideals in mind, and now she is trapped,” she said.

(...)

In a haunting part of the documentary “Closing in on Tanja” by the filmmaker Leo de Boer, Ms. Zumpolle, the rights activist, and Ms. Nijmeijer’s mother, Hannie, travel to Colombia and try to make contact with her on a radio channel received by the guerrillas. They give her instructions on an escape route. Silence follows.

“We don’t know,” said her aunt, Ms. Dubbelink, “if she heard that appeal.”

This "human rights activist" is especially ridiculous. She's nothing but a friend of the Colombian government who gets driven around in armoured limousines with bodyguards of the intelligence organisation that is responsible for thousands of deaths. She's a complete caricature, being shown in the limousine, on the phone, cursing people out for no reason like she is the fucking queen of Colombia. The radio thing is pretty funny. Maybe, just maybe, Tanja would not need elaborate instructions to "escape" if she wanted to, and it's all a wasted effort.

Also:


Before that there was William Morgan, the Ohio-born gunrunner who fought with Fidel Castro before being executed as a traitor when the Cuban Revolution began eating its own.

That's pretty funny, considering that the guy continued to run guns to anti-Castro guerrillas almost immediately after the revolution. Sounds more like he was just some mercenary who got killed on the job.

[Raúl Duke]

From what I read, the article describes an initially misguided idealist who later became disillusioned but soldiers on in las FARC.