"No more kidnapping. No more lies. No more murders. No more FARC."
Hundreds of Colombian supporters gathered in Government Center on Monday to join in an international protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), calling for peace and an end to the guerrilla group with a 44-year history of violence in Colombia.
An estimated 4.8 million people turned out for the 387 events in Colombia and hundreds of thousands of other demonstrators marched in 165 major world cities. Many wore white T-shirts to symbolize peace or waved flags of red, blue, and yellow to support the Colombian cause.
Facebook played a key role in the event's international networking. Organizers from I Am Colombia used the site to send out invitations and created the global group, "A Million Voices Against the FARC," uniting over 275,000 students and concerned youth activists around the world in only a month.
Since its inception in 1964, the FARC has been linked to the deaths of over 30,000 civilians and is currently holding 750 hostages in inhumane conditions, including three U.S. citizens. Protestors in front of City Hall demanded that the FARC "take responsibility" for what it has done and emphasized the need for true "democracy" in Colombia.
"We vow to defend life, the truth, and peace," said Rafael Acosta, coordinator of the Boston chapter of I Am Colombia. "We are against the violence of the FARC, and it's time [they] listen to our voices."
Protestors both young and old cheered and applauded as Acosta spoke of the potential for a Colombia "without the FARC." Somber Colombian songs played in between speeches and some gathered to sing and dance. Signs waved to remind demonstrators that Americans are also victims of the FARC.
"That's what's so beautiful about the culture," said Lorena Lopera, A&S '08, a Colombian native who joined in the rally on Monday. "There are no generational boundaries."
After a minute of silence to honor the FARC's victims, Acosta stopped to thank those at the protest who were not Colombian for joining in the "solidarity of the cause."
Alex Lozano, CSOM '08, agreed. "I'm here to support the Colombian government and President Uribe," he said. "We need to show the international community that we are against the FARC if we want to spark an intervention."
Today, the FARC are most notably connected with drug trafficking, kidnappings, and mass violence in Colombia, but the group has long ceased to be considered "revolutionary," said Sarah Beckjord, a professor in the Hispanic studies department at BC.
Beckjord, who worked as a journalist in Colombia during the country's political turmoil in the '80s, says that the FARC initially formed in the wake of an extended conflict that began in the late '40s, known now as "The Violence."
In hopes of ending conflict, liberals and conservatives formed the National Front in 1966 to jointly govern Colombia.
Over the next 16 years, control of the presidency alternated every four years between the two parties. Every time power changed hands, jobs were at stake, which only led to more violence.
At the same time, land ownership was being consolidated. The FARC was the "military arm of the Communist party," while around the same time other paramilitary forces united as "private vigilantes" to protect stakes in private property, Beckjord said.
"The Colombian government has not had a strong state for many years," she said. "And it's hard in international terms to portray the conflict."
Over the last 10 years, Beckjord said, increased military pressure has led the FARC to respond by taking more hostages, many of whom are high-profile democratic progressives who are trying to solve the very problem the FARC makes them a part of. But standing up to the FARC is a "delicate international situation" because the group controls "huge swaths of territory" in Colombia, leaving many lives at stake, Beckjord said.
The international movement on Monday raised some criticism on this front, as many thought that hostages still imprisoned by the FARC could be endangered by the voices of protest. Others expressed concerns that the protest had been backed by the Colombian government and paramilitary forces, Beckjord said. Many Colombians wanted to protest not just the FARC, but all forms of violence in the country.
Violence is so much a part of the Colombian tradition that professional violentólogos study the history and implications of the country's deep-seeded conflicts. Beckjord said that there has been much confusion abroad about the issues of violence in Colombia, which has very painful for Colombians. One of the goals of the international protest was to correct misunderstandings about the current state, and it is a big step in the current government's ability to articulate its problems, she said.
Lopera and many other Colombians praise President Uribe for standing strong on his platform against the FARC. Now, Beckjord said, Colombia needs to "reestablish its integrity" with a justice system that will hold wrong-doers accountable and protect recently created democratic processes.
"It's important to get things right so the circle of violence doesn't continue," she said.
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