The conflict of violence in Colombia stems from a long, almost 6 decade problem, between the liberal and conservative parties. The problem began around 1948 after the tragic assassination of the candidate for the liberal party Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. This incident triggered a series of events in Colombia that led to the formation of “Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia” or in short terms “Las FARC”.
Picture of members of Las FARC which show the way they dress and the guns they operated with.
The creation of this revolutionary organization resulted in an estimated 8.2 million Colombian citizens that were part of this group (Willingly or forced) during its entire existence. The goal of the group was to take power of government through violent means: killing innocent people, kidnapping and extortion of political figures, terrorist attacks in major cities and small towns.
Video of the methods used by Las FARC
The Process That Put an End to A Long War…
Gloria Rojas is my mom, she is 40 years old and she lived through most of the conflict of Las FARC in Colombia. In her story there are things such as attacks on cities in which she lived, deadly threats to her mother (my grandma), the kidnapping of family members of people she knew, and more.
Gloria begins her story by giving some context, “Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, in short Las FARC, are a radical group that were part of the communist party of Colombia; Their ideals and motives were inspired by Marxist ideas and the Cuban Revolution which was led by Che Guevara.”
Image of Che Guevara
She continues by saying “There were many instances where the Colombian government tried to come to terms with Las FARC but all of them failed due to the tense negotiations and extreme conditions to put arms down.”
“The conflict was at its peak in 2008, the attacks in the country were getting more and more intense and were happening more often and it wasn’t until a new president stepped in that things changed.”
Juan Manuel Santos, the president that singed the peace process
Gloria went on to give few details about Juan Mamnuel Santos, “He was elected in the year 2010, I remember voting for him back when I was in my mid 20’s. He was the president who made the famous peace amendment with Las FARC. It wasn’t until the end of his first term and beginning of his second term, on November 24 of 2016, that he got the deal done with leader of the guerrilla Rodrigo Londoño, alias “Timochenko”. The whole process took place in Cuba with Noruega and Cuba as mediants.”
Moment in which President Santos and the leader or Las FARC shook hands to seal the peace act
Gloria’s Personal Experiences with Las FARC
Now Gloria will talk about what she went through during this time period of constant violence in the country. She starts off by talking about what happened with her mother, “I don’t know if you ever knew this but “la guerrilla” threatened your grandmother at one point. Since she was the head of one of the largest pharmacies in our town she was asked to give money and information on political figures of the area (my grandmother, also named Gloria, had many connections she made through her job and the pharmacy she worked in was located in the center of the town and the pharmacy was located right in front of one of the political building).
She follows with, “She refused to do said things obviously and she had to contact the police of the town to scold her for some time. However “la guerrilla” did not stop there and one day, when you were just a few months old, they threw a grenade to the store that was adjacent to the pharmacy and “mami” (my grandmother) was almost hit by it; She had came into the pharmacy just a few minutes before it the grenade detonated.” She closes this incident by stating, “After the grenade situation they left your grandmother alone and never contacted her again”.
In this part of the interview Gloria will talk briefly about the kidnapping of people she knew, “The Uncle of a friend of mine from back in High School was involved in politics and he was running for Mayor. He had been involved with politics for a big portion of his life and his political views did not aligned with those of Las FARC and that was the reason why one day he was kidnapped and he was never seen again sadly”
Image of how kidnapped people where kept by Las FARC
At last, Gloria concludes with a few terrorist attacks she experienced in her life, “I know you remember this even though you were just a little boy at the time; the bombings that happened in the outside of our town where “la guerrilla” would implant bombs on petroleum pipes, the explosions were very loud and they would mostly happen late at night or very early in the morning, I remember always waking up scared running to your room to make sure you were ok and than me, your dad and you go up to the terrace to see what had happened and we would see a huge fire and a lot of smoke in the distance. These attacks happened very often and I remember there was one year in specific which it happened at least once every month, it was very bad”
Now she will finish by talking about the closest attack she experienced, “This also happened around the same year where the bombings were constant. This attack was even televised in the news; The time “La guerrilla” threw a bomb to the local police station of the town which was just a few blocks down to where I worked at the time. There wasn’t many deaths thankfully but it was a big attack that made me feel very unsafe because as I said, it happened just 2 or 3 blocks to where my job was”
Video of the police station attack
Adding on to this attack, Gloria worked in one of the Banks of the town and she was the Manager of said bank, Banco BBVA. The reason she felt unsafe after the attack on the police station was because the bank could have been the next target since it was an important building.
By Santiago Rojas Diaz
Works Cited
Arango, Andrés Pastrana. “Atentado Farc en Orito, Putumayo.” YouTube, 31 December 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvbrJpZ31_o. Accessed 9 January 2024.
“Guerrillera grabó, paso a paso, un ataque de las FARC.” YouTube, 13 August 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg87DnGZ–o. Accessed 8 January 2024.
Padinger, Germán, and Íngrid Betancourt. “Historia de las FARC en Colombia: del conflicto a la desmovilización.” CNN en Español, 28 June 2022, https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2022/06/28/cual-es-historia-farc-colombia-orix/. Accessed 8 January 2024.
Watts, Jonathan, and Sibylla Brodzinsky. “Che Guevara era closes as Latin America’s oldest guerrilla army calls it a day.” The Guardian, 25 September 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/farc-che-guevara-era-closes-latin-america-guerrillas. Accessed 9 January 2024.
“Who are the Farc?” BBC, 24 November 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36605769. Accessed 8 January 2024.