March Against FARC (Update)

Background from the Financial Times;

During his eight months as a hostage of Colombia’s Farc rebels in 2002, businessman Gustavo Muñoz knew that he would be executed the moment the Colombian military intervened.

“They used to practise my execution every fortnight,” he said. “I knew exactly who would do it if the military attacked.”

Mr Muñoz says Colombians are now more concerned about the 4,000 people held illegally by the Farc, other left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and common criminals.

Thousands of Colombians are on Monday expected to march in repudiation of the Farc and its practice of kidnapping, in a demonstration organised through Facebook, the social networking site. The organisers claim the protest will be one of Colombia’s biggest, demonstrating a growing indignation with the kidnappings.

“Some on the left used to argue that it was justifiable . . . that they needed to do it to finance the struggle for social transformation,” says Olga Lucia Gómez, whose País Libre charity helps victims. “You don’t hear those arguments anymore.”

So I decided to add my voice to the millions worldwide from here in DC.

I was really surprised that an ad hoc organization put together such a large demonstration in such a short period of time. It was just three weeks ago that Kate emailed me about contacts for getting permits for the demonstration. Most of the organization was done on Facebook and crossed generational lines as you can see from the photos. It really was a study in modern organization. My compliments to Laura Busche for herding all of these cats for the media and the participants.
There were a few thousand people, mostly Colombians from what I could tell, gathered in the chilly drizzle of Freedom Plaza, just a few blocks from the White House;

The theme of the demonstration was to show opposition to the Armed Revolutionary Front of Colombia, a Marxist terrorist organization that has been murdering innocent Colombians for forty years.

Many of the people at this rally are refugees of the conflict in their country between a democratic government they elected and the Marxist narco-terrorists of FARC. This is a YouTube of Laura Busche, the main organizer of the event explaining the demonstration in English and Spanish.

Aside from the hundreds of Colombians being held hostage for ransom (that’s how FARC finances it’s anti-government operations in addition to drug dealings) there are also three Americans being held hostage for propaganda purposes. The Colombians at the rally demonstrated for their release, too.

Many of the signs the Colombians carried were specific about who are the enemies of democracy in Colombia. For example, this one about Human Rights Watch, which ignores the atrocities of FARC while pressuring the Congress and Bush Administration on supposed Human Rights violations of the Uribe government.

This one speaks for itself;

“[Simon] Bolivar dreamed of a great Colombia, not a terrorist Venezuela”

This turns out to be the author of Padre Hoyos Blog.

Here’s a YouTube video of the crowd singing the Colombian national anthem. They began their demonstration by singing the US national anthem, though. Another YouTube video of the crowd.

Try as I might, I couldn’t find any Communists or Socialists on the periphery of the protest like they are at so many others. There were no Code Pink showboats trying to steal the show. There were no Bushitler signs, no signs that called for us to end our war against some nebulous brown people or to release prisoners from invisible camps. It was a genuine outpouring of contempt for FARC and a call for the hostilities to end against the Columbian people.

Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective has a worldwide round up of the international demonstrations today. We bumped into each other taking pictures in Freedom Plaza today so I’m sure she’ll have less Anglo-centric view of the event when she gets her pictures posted.

Gateway Pundit has amazing pictures of the huge crowds in Colombia. Daniel at Venezuela News and Views has pictures of the march in Caracas.

UPDATE: I was anonimously sent this YouTube link to very well done video record of the event in DC. Pictures and videos of the event in Toronto at Correo Canadiense.

Category: Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, Protests/Rallies, Society, Terror War