"Some of us are here because we were fighting for
ideals. Others were fighting for the daily bread for their wives and children."
REUTERS
Tuesday, 26 October 1999
Jailed Colombia rebels fight on behind bars
By Karl Penhaul
BOGOTA -- Marxist guerrillas chant a revolutionary anthem in the
yard of Colombia's largest prison, standing to attention under a huge banner
of rebel icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara proclaiming "Onward to victory! Motherland
or death."
Every morning just after dawn, scores of rebels, some armed with concealed
pistols, hold a military parade and grueling exercises-just like their
comrades in secret camps in the jungles and mountains of this war-torn
Andean nation.
For Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, prison
is another "trench" in their long-running uprising in which more than 35,000
people have died in just the last 10 years. They refer to themselves as
prisoners of war and vow they will never surrender in the fight to topple
the state and usher in a socialist regime.
"At this moment we consider ourselves prisoners of war. We're
members of an army that is fighting outside the rules of the constitution
and outside the rules set by the ruling classes," Yesid Arteta, 39, head
of the FARC's six-man ruling council in Bogota's notorious La Modelo prison,
where some 200 guerrillas are held, told Reuters in an interview.
"Jails are new trenches in the struggle. We maintain the classic
structure of a revolutionary movement and a people's army in prison," added
the former law student, who was a high-ranking commander of the FARC's
feared Southern Bloc fighting division at the time of his arrest in 1995.
Arteta joined the Communist Party youth wing (JUCO) at 14 before entering
the FARC, Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel army with an estimated
17,000 combatants. He was sentenced to 10 years in the chronically overcrowded
La Modelo, which was designed for 2,700 inmates but now holds some 4,700.
No control over jailed rebels
The government has rarely permitted press interviews with Arteta or other
jailed FARC leaders, in an apparent effort to draw a veil over their demands
for special political status. But prison guards concede they take no action
against the rebels' politico-military organisation in captivity. "You will
hear subversive speeches and see rebel propaganda. There are a lot of things
that go on behind these walls that the authorities have no idea of," a
senior prison guard said.
Huge murals of the FARC's supreme commander, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda,
and the late Jacobo Arenas, a leading rebel ideologue, adorn the cellblocks.
Bulletin boards carry news of rebel units' battlefield successes and details
of the slow-moving peace process the government initiated with the FARC
in early January with no advance ceasefire deal. To ward off unwanted interference
from wardens or the threat of attack by right-wing rivals, the FARC posts
round-the-clock rebel guards, armed with pistols smuggled into the penitentiary,
in passageways leading to guerrillas' cells.
A small library is packed with works of Marx, Mao and Lenin and a list
of rules is posted in FARC-dominated cellblocks to remind fighters they
must rise at 4:50, take part in morning exercises, avoid drugs and alcohol
and continue their education in classes offered by prison authorities or
fellow inmates.
Beyond La Modelo's bars and razor wire, FARC chieftains are pressing
ahead with stop-and-go peace talks but stress they will not compromise
on core demands for radical redistribution of wealth and an overhaul of
state economic policies.
They have repeatedly warned they will try to seize power by force if
the talks fail.
FARC demands prisoner exchange
In tandem with those talks, Marulanda has insisted some 450 FARC rebels
being held in prisons across the country must be released. To press demands
for a prisoner exchange, FARC units have captured more than 350 police
and soldiers in dramatic victories over the last two years in Patascoy,
Miraflores and Mitu-remote garrisons in the south and east.
The security force members are held in secret jungle camps where they
run the risk of malnutrition and tropical diseases such as malaria. Last
month five police escaped from their captors in Vichada province but were
caught several days later and apparently shot at close range, sparking
public outrage.
So far, the government has balked at exchanging prisoners, arguing the
guerrillas have not been jailed just for political crimes such as rebellion
and terrorism but also for human rights violations such as murder and kidnapping-the
latter used by the FARC to raise funds.
Officials say freed prisoners will return to rebel ranks and fuel the
insurgency that U.S. military officials warn is threatening the stability
of the entire region and could see the FARC take power within five years
if it is not checked.
In an effort to break the deadlock, Congress is debating a bill to allow
President Andres Pastrana to release guerrillas, provided the FARC first
free all military captives and civilian kidnap victims-a deal the rebels
seem unlikely to accept.
"This bill only makes sense within the framework of the peace process,"
Zulema Jattin, head of the Peace Commission in the lower house of Congress,
told Reuters. "Under Colombian legislation these people (jailed guerrillas)
are not prisoners of war but people who have broken the law," she added.
Hearts and minds campaign
Under strict terms of international humanitarian law, prisoner of war status
applies only to those captured in an international conflict, not in an
internal war. But Arteta is convinced FARC leaders, who have already won
wide-ranging concessions in preliminary stages of the peace process, will
also succeed in negotiating a prisoner exchange.
"We're fighting on a platform based on gaining political power for the
immense majority of Colombians," Arteta said. "Manuel Marulanda has proposed
to the three branches of power the need for an exchange of prisoners of
war. We have every reason to believe that reason will win out."
As the merits of the exchange are disputed in the halls of power, jailed
FARC fighters embark on a hearts-and-minds campaign to win converts to
their clandestine political organisation, the "Bolivarian Movement for
a New Colombia."
A rebel committee hosted a huge celebration this month on the anniversary
of the death of Argentine-born Guevara. It sent roast suckling pig for
the 4,700 inmates and hundreds of visiting relatives and laid on bands
to play north coast accordion tunes, folk songs, 1960s protest music and
rap.
"One way or another, by fair means or foul, we will pull down these
walls. We're not here out of choice but from necessity," Jorge Bernal,
alias "Robinson," another of the FARC leaders in La Modelo, shouted from
an impromptu stage atop a latrine block.
"Some of us are here because we were fighting for ideals. Others were
fighting for the daily bread for their wives and children."
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