[News] FARC Women in Colombia and the death of a rebel leader

[Anti-Imperialist News]

FARC Women in Colombia and the death of a rebel leader

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16941

March 22, 2008 By Terry Gibbs

In the pre-dawn hours of March 1, 2008, the 
second-in-command of Colombia’s oldest and 
largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed 
Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) and 
21 other rebels were killed by an army incursion 
into their jungle camp located two kilometres 
across the border with Ecuador. It is the first 
time in the decades-long civil conflict that the 
Colombian military has been able to kill a member 
of the FARC’s seven-person central command and 
the cross-border strike brought Colombia, Ecuador 
and Venezuela to the brink of war. Eight months 
prior to his death, I had traveled to one of 
Reyes’ jungle camps with my partner and colleague 
Garry Leech. It was a rare opportunity as few 
North Americans had met face-to-face with Reyes 
during the last six years. We not only met Reyes 
in person, but also gained insights into guerrilla life.

Reyes, who was chief negotiator for the FARC 
during the failed peace process (1998-2002), was 
known as a hardliner. He refused to accept a 
peace agreement that did not include social 
justice. This necessarily implied a 
transformation of Colombia’s political and 
economic structures­a process not welcomed by 
either Colombia’s elites or Washington. Colombia 
has been enmeshed in a civil war for over 40 
years and while a small minority have benefited 
from its vast resource wealth, a majority of the 
population lives in poverty. The FARC are 
battling against the U.S.-backed government and 
its right-wing paramilitary allies, calling for 
an end to U.S. imperialism and a redistribution 
of wealth. Reyes was the international voice of 
the guerrilla group and he spent a great deal of 
time working to build international solidarity.

At the time of our departure from Colombia’s 
capital, Bogotá, we had only a vague idea about 
the specifics of our two-and-a-half day journey 
to the remote guerrilla camp. Our trip began with 
a one-hour flight to a small city in southern 
Colombia. After a night in a hotel, we journeyed 
for two days on two buses from high in the Andes 
Mountains down into the Amazon rainforest. One of 
the bus trips lasted over nine hours, five of 
which took place on harrowing and meandering 
mountain roads dropping off into cavernous 
valleys. While the views were stunning in all 
their green majesty, I was too terrified for much 
of the journey to venture a peek out the window. 
My fellow travelers found this distinctly 
amusing. There were several bends in the road 
that required the bus to grind its way through 
fallen rocks or running water. To add to the 
terror, our driver appeared to be in a rush, 
heading into many of the curves with the 
determination of a Formula One race car driver.

At one point on the second day, as our bus 
approached a river, we recognized the spot where 
we were told to disembark. It is here that we 
were to rendezvous with our guerrilla contacts. 
While we waited, a local woman in the solitary 
house beside the river served us cups of strong 
black coffee. We were able to make out a shadowy 
figure in the distant trees talking on a 
hand-held radio. After about twenty minutes, two 
young women in civilian clothing, one of them the 
figure in the trees, approached and informed us 
that they would be taking us down the river. We 
traveled in a dugout canoe that was powered by an 
outboard motor for approximately two hours. After 
stopping to pick up gasoline and four large 
planks of wood, we continued on our journey. Our 
river trip terminated at a seemingly arbitrary 
spot along the riverbank. Equipped with rubber 
boots and ponchos, we disappeared into the Amazon 
Rainforest on a narrow muddy trail. The two women 
insisted on carrying our backpacks in addition to 
the two six-foot long, heavy planks of wood each 
of them carried on their shoulders. With seeming 
ease, they made their way along the winding, 
hilly trail, while Garry and I struggled to avoid 
falling, and to keep apace with our guides.

Nightfall came during our hike and we were soon 
surrounded by darkness except for the dim glow of 
our small flashlights, which were pointed 
downwards at all times as per the instructions 
from our guides. After an hour of hiking, we were 
greeted by a fully-uniformed guerrilla armed with 
an AK-47 assault rifle. There was a brief 
conversation between this man and the two women. 
He remained at that point on the trail when we 
resumed our trek. We passed several more 
guerrillas over the next few minutes and each of 
them greeted us with a nod of the head. And then, 
appearing suddenly out of nowhere, the carefully 
constructed wooden structures of the camp became 
visible through the trees. At one end of the camp 
we saw a bright light perched over a table where 
a middle-aged man sat at a laptop computer. It was FARC commander Raúl Reyes.

After a brief introduction, we stood there for a 
few moments in an uncomfortable silence. How does 
one kick-off a conversation with a guerrilla 
leader? Commander Gloria and three other female 
guerrillas joined us. We all dined on a supper of 
fish, potatoes and vegetables, which led us into 
a friendly, but rather surreal, conversation 
about our favourite types of food. We were told 
that this was a good week to visit because they 
had managed to secure some decent food supplies. 
Sometimes they have little more than bananas and beans to eat.

The mood became light and we gradually felt 
comfortable enough to explain why we had come. 
While Garry was there to interview Reyes himself, 
I sought to interview women guerrillas. As part 
of my research exploring the role of women in 
social transformation, I wanted to understand how 
and why these women had become guerrillas. After 
an animated discussion about world politics and 
revolution, Reyes told us we could begin our work 
the next morning. We were led to our bivouac, 
which contained planks of wood to serve as a 
mattress and a tarpaulin draped overhead to 
protect us from the tropical rains. I lay in our 
bed thinking about Zen masters and their ability 
to sleep on anything. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

It was 4:30am when I was awakened by the mild 
buzz of hushed voices. I attempted to focus my 
eyes in the darkness. From my bivouac I could see 
the faint glow of small flashlights pointed 
downwards as guerrillas dressed themselves. I had 
made two trips to the “washroom” during the night 
with a guide, so I felt confident that I could 
find my way back there alone without armed 
accompaniment. The morning air was grey and heavy 
with damp. Donning my rubber boots and poncho, I 
made my way along the wooden pathway trying to 
recognize at exactly what point I had turned 
right during the night. I didn’t want to end up in the male washroom again.

I returned to the centre of the camp as streaks 
of light from the rising sun began to penetrate 
the jungle canopy. I watched the guerrillas in 
nearby bivouacs efficiently folding everything 
from their tarpaulin to bed sheets. It was the 
kind of exercise that reminded me of my mother’s 
stories about the disciplined life in London 
during World War Two. After a few moments of 
activity, there were neat, identical piles of 
tightly wrapped cloth in the corner of each 
“bed,” and not one bug or fleck of dirt was 
visible. Within moments the sleeping areas were 
abandoned as the group fell into formation in the 
large meeting area to receive their orders for 
the day. Meanwhile, Garry and I spent a good half 
hour doing a less than stellar version of the 
guerrillas’ morning household chores. We were 
then called to breakfast, which we ate with Reyes 
and Gloria. We were joined by two young female 
guerrillas who were on kitchen duty and an older 
guerrilla named Gladys, who has been with the 
FARC and living in the jungle for 32 years­longer than any other woman.

Many think of Gladys as a mother figure, but not 
your typical mother. She is responsible for the 
camp’s communications centre and could be seen in 
her bush office disseminating information via 
radio. She has been in combat many times over the 
years. Gladys has known nothing but life in the 
FARC since she was a teenager. The FARC was her 
family and she spoke with great pride of her 
commitment to building a new Colombia where the 
poor would have a voice and the wealth would be 
shared equally. Despite being hardened by decades 
spent in the jungle, tears were visible in 
Gladys’s eyes when I asked her how she kept going 
after all these years. “I believe in what we are 
doing, in the revolution, in social justice,” she 
said. “The vision of a new Colombia keeps me going.”

While the FARC has been criticized for its 
violations of human rights, particularly 
kidnapping, targeted assassinations, and its use 
of notoriously inaccurate home-made mortars and 
landmines, some analysts have suggested that it 
is a mistake to simply dismiss the group as a 
criminal or terrorist organization­as the 
Colombian, U.S. and Canadian governments have 
done. Carolina, who joined the FARC more than 10 
years ago, explained that she became involved in 
the guerrilla group because “I liked the sound of 
the objectives it was fighting for: defending the 
interests of the people, the struggle against 
imperialism, against discrimination, for a 
radical change in the structure of the government.”

On the afternoon of our first full day of 
absorbing camp life, we were eager to bathe and 
change clothes. Even in this activity, we were 
struck by the efficiency and order of the camp. 
Everything happened at a specific time and in a 
specific way. Even when bathing, we were 
integrated into the rebel order of things. We 
were pleasantly surprised by the “bathroom,” 
which thankfully was situated far from the 
“toilets.” It consisted of a warm pool in a free 
flowing river with an adjacent primitive wooden 
structure in which one could get undressed and 
wash clothes. The fact that the male and female 
guerrillas strip down to their underwear and bath 
together was at first intimidating, but it soon 
became apparent that nobody was fazed by it. We 
entered the water in our underwear and washed 
both our bodies and our clothes before exiting, 
drying off and donning clean attire. Each 
guerrilla had two uniforms and they kept both 
themselves and their uniforms immaculately clean. 
While bathing, everyone engaged in light 
conversation, telling stories and jokes. After 
watching Garry floundering with soap and his 
muddy trousers on the laundry table in the 
running stream, one of the young male guerrillas 
tried to teach him how to scrub the stains from his pants.

We were free to roam the camp during the three 
days we spent with the guerrillas. We observed 
the rebels receiving commands, doing their chores 
and spent many hours simply sitting and chatting 
with them when they had free time. Not only did 
the guerrillas treat us with great respect, but 
they also appeared to treat each other that way 
too. I took these opportunities to get to know 
some of the female guerrillas. I was focused on 
finding out why these, mainly young, women had 
decided to live this dangerous and harsh life in the jungle.

It is evident that some women in Colombia have, 
for various reasons, decided that armed struggle 
is the only way to overcome state repression and 
the structural problems of poverty and 
inequality. Women make up more than thirty 
percent of the FARC’s 16,000 fighters. 
Furthermore, they now constitute approximately 
forty percent of mid-level commanders in the 
rebel army. At the same time that these women are 
succeeding in shifting the gender dynamic within 
the structures of the traditionally 
male-dominated FARC, they are also fighting to 
dramatically change the country’s political, economic and social structures.

Many of the female guerrillas talked about the 
culture shock of joining the FARC, not only 
because of the difficult conditions in which 
rebels live, moving constantly in jungle terrain 
and living in fear of attack, but because of the 
extreme contrast between the role of women back 
in their communities as compared to that in the 
rebel camps. Many female FARC members come from 
traditional peasant communities where the 
hierarchy of the family and the subordination of 
women in the household are deeply entrenched. So 
for most of them, the FARC has provided a 
liberation of sorts from traditional obligations 
and a recognition of their broader capacities as women.

FARC women and men share equally in cooking, 
cleaning, guard duty and combat. Many guerrillas, 
both male and female, pointed out that 
discrimination of any sort is met with sanctions. 
As one guerrilla stated, “Here, we women say that 
a woman is not just for sexual 
exploitation­having kids, washing, cleaning and 
sweeping. We have to strengthen our own goals, to 
be someone in this life.” Another female 
guerrilla pointed out, “Here we have rights and 
responsibilities to live up to. A woman can find 
herself leading 50 to 60 men, just as a man can. 
She can give classes in politics and military 
strategy, and she can lead a team into combat. 
It’s great to see women commanders exercising their authority.”

The principal issues related to gender that FARC 
women identified did not differ significantly 
from those highlighted by other Colombian women 
engaged in non-violent political activities, 
although the language of the rebels reflected a 
Marxist orientation. Many political women who 
have not taken up arms identify poverty, 
inequality, displacement and political corruption 
as important issues. FARC women, however, speak 
also of U.S. imperialism and capitalist 
exploitation. And while many other women, 
particularly peasants and residents of the 
country’s poor urban barrios, tend to frame their 
politics in the very immediate struggles for 
rights, food, water and land, the FARC women were 
clearly working towards a socialist society, an 
overthrow of the existing capitalist order.

While we are well aware of the fact that many see 
the FARC as “terrorists,” our experiences in that 
particular camp made evident the complicated and 
multifaceted nature of Colombia’s war. The 
guerrillas we met were ideologically committed, 
respectful, hard working and surprisingly gentle 
in their manner. And I speak here not only of the 
women. While we observed the guerrillas engaging 
in military-like activities, we also saw them 
participating in a cultural show­singing and 
reading poetry. They watched the news every night 
on the camp television and then discussed 
political events. Once a week they had a “movie 
night,” sometimes they viewed historical films 
about Colombia or documentaries made by the FARC, 
at other times it was more traditional Hollywood fare.

There were many hidden surprises in the camp. 
Commander Gloria liked to wear make-up. She was 
Reyes’ right-hand person and his partner. One got 
the sense that she oversaw a great deal of the 
day-to-day chores in that camp and it was clear 
that, despite her sense of humour, she could be 
tough and uncompromising. Many of the young women 
also wore make-up and liked to dress-up for 
cultural shows and poetry readings. Living 
moments of “normal” seemed key to morale in the camp.

I spent a great deal of time with a young 
guerrilla named Ana. She insisted on braiding my 
hair and showed me how to handle her AK-47. I 
found it hard to reconcile her warm personality 
with the assault rifle, and a strange sadness 
overcame me as I listened to her stories. On the 
morning of our final day, as we prepared to leave 
the camp on the long journey back to Bogotá, Ana 
asked me if she could keep a photo of my 
fifteen-month-old son. I thought it an odd but 
endearing request. FARC women have given up the 
idea of having a family of their own in order to 
engage in the revolution. But as Commander Gloria 
told me, “We do not lose our femininity because 
we are guerrillas. It is important to remember 
that you are a woman as well as a guerrilla.”

As I sit here writing these reflections on that 
visit to the jungle, I think of Gloria, who was 
killed alongside Reyes in the Colombian army’s 
recent attack on the camp. I also wonder if Ana, 
Gladys and the other female guerrillas I got to 
know for a brief moment were among the other rebels killed that fateful night.

Terry Gibbs is an assistant professor in the 
Department of Political Science and director of 
the Centre for International Studies at Cape Breton University.





Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20080323/f0870b3b/attachment.htm>