Fighting Mad
Why Women Turn to the FARC -- and How the FARC Turns on Them
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/author/anne-phillips> Anne Phillips
June 4, 2012
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137672/anne-phillips/fighting-mad?pa
ge=show> Article Summary and Author Biography
The Colombian government and FARC have agreed to stage a cease-fire in their
decades-long battle next week, during which FARC plans to release hostages
that it has held since 1998. Washington and Bogotá should use the
opportunity to restart talks and seek a negotiated end to the insurgency.
In the summer of 2009, during a lunch with a retired colonel of the
Colombian army, I asked about his experiences fighting female members of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an insurgency that has
plagued the country since the mid-1960s. Although the colonel did not say it
was official policy to shoot women first during a firefight, he hinted that
any sensible soldier would do so. Women, with their "Kamikaze-like"
mentality, he said, were the most deadly combatants.
When I met "Athena" earlier this year, I found out why. In 1997, just before
her 13th birthday, Athena became one of the rare women to join the
organization. By the time she deserted in 2005, however, she estimates that
female membership had grown to at least 40 percent. Recent Colombian
government statistics, along with those of Colombian-based nongovernmental
organizations, estimate current female membership to be between 30 and 40
percent. Although there are few cases exactly like Athena's -- she achieved
a relatively high rank during her time with FARC -- the reasons she joined
up, and the trials that followed, are common.
Twenty-eight years old today, Athena is barely over five feet tall, compact,
and attractive. Her body is never fully relaxed. Even when she sits down,
her light eyes scan her surroundings. She always appears at the ready. She
grew up with her mother, an older brother, and two younger sisters in an
impoverished rural town. She does not describe her home life before she
became a militant as abusive, although her brother regularly beat her
whenever she "misbehaved." (Misbehavior included her refusal to obey
commands to perform random demeaning tasks.) After one such beating, Athena
ran away, and within a few weeks of her arrival in a neighboring village, a
"kind, old man" named Paco approached her, offering "protection and fun" if
she would come with him to la finca (the farm). Had he been making his pitch
to a boy, he probably would not have played up physical security. Generally
speaking, FARC recruits boys with the promise of a motorcycle, a cell phone,
and cool clothes, all of which will help them get girls.
She ceased caring about her future or about dying. So she volunteered for
close combat assignments, ready to kill or be killed.
After two weeks at FARC's farm, Athena realized that, for all the fun and
protection it seemed to offer, she was not free to leave. But at that point,
she says, she did not care. Back home, her mother was "cold" and had done
nothing to prevent her brother's beatings. Further, no one had ever given
Athena ice cream before, as the militants on the farm had, let alone the
chance to be part of a family that promised gender equality.
So Athena joined the rank and file of the frente ("front" in Spanish) that
controlled the area. Frentes, of which there are approximately 30, are
subgroups of the bloques ("blocks"), which operate in seven distinct regions
of the country. Between 1997 and 2001, the first half of Athena's tenure
with FARC, they were on the offensive. The insurgency capitalized on the
lack of state presence in rural areas; towns without access to law
enforcement, social services, or passable roads were there for the taking.
The Colombian soldiers and police dispatched to remote areas were largely
unfamiliar with their surroundings and undertrained in counterinsurgency
tactics. Casualties were many, and hundreds of confirmed civilian deaths
were recorded.
With the turn of the millennium, the tide turned, too. In 2000, the U.S.
Congress and the Clinton administration signed off on Plan Colombia. In
addition to funding humanitarian efforts, human rights initiatives, and
economic development, the $1.6 billion aid package paved the way for the
United States to proffer millions of dollars in military equipment and
training to support Colombia's efforts against insurgencies and the illegal
drug trade. At the beginning of 2002, the United States provided helicopters
that gave Colombian armed forces a newfound tactical advantage over FARC,
whose encampments were nearly impossible to locate or access through the
impenetrable cover of mountainous and jungle terrain.
In the many meetings we had over the course of five months, Athena never
discussed the specific military tactics of her front. However, she was
candid about her day-to-day experiences. At first, she welcomed the sense of
familial belonging and order that came with being in the group. Speaking
with lingering respect for the routine, she told me that she awoke at 4:30
every morning, made up her leaf-and-wood cot, ate the first of three daily
meals of rice and beans, and helped clean the camp. At 10:00, "school" would
start. Adults would teach FARC's cause along with Colombian history as it
related to their revolution.
After an hour lunch break at noon, it was time for physical readiness and
arms training. During Athena's early days, new recruits practiced handling
arms with wooden poles; there were not enough firearms to go around. (Today,
FARC is far better equipped. In addition to support from sympathetic foreign
regimes, the group generates funds from cocaine trafficking and illegal
mining activities.) At 6:00 PM, the guerillas convened to talk about FARC's
mission, sing farenas (pro-FARC folk tunes), and discuss any tactics that
had been used during the most recent engagement with Colombian military or
paramilitary forces.
It took Athena a while to open up about the camp's nighttime activities,
specifically her duties as a sex slave. Most female recruits, regardless of
age, are forced to service male guerillas in an effort to maintain morale
among the male troops and avoid the security risk that comes with the men
venturing into town to consort with civilians.
After three years, Athena's commanding officer apparently realized that her
intellect and communications skills could serve him more effectively if she
assumed a position other than the missionary. "You joined the cause to
become a revolutionary," Athena recalled him saying. "If you want to be a
prostitute, why not go back to your village, where at least you will get
paid?" That taunt was particularly vicious, because no female member could
choose to trade sex for better food or medicine, let alone to just go home.
At any rate, in 2000, when Athena was 16, she stopped being a sex slave and
was promoted to director of propaganda for her front. In that role, she was
in charge of creating messaging strategies, including developing radio
shows, authoring leaflets, and mingling with the local villagers.
When Athena was first recruited, she had known nothing about Marxism or
communism. She could not find the "imperialist empire" (the United States)
on a map. But as a 16-year-old director of propaganda for her front, she
came to embrace the FARC doctrine. It lauded Che Guevara's revolutionary
theories (without necessarily following them), condemned Colombia's
"oligarchy-serving" democracy, and vilified the United States as a poisonous
capitalist influence. Athena enjoyed talking to the people in the villages
that her frente controlled, encouraging them to see FARC as their champion
and recognize the group as the only "legitimate" authority. No doubt the
AK-47 she carried enhanced her persuasiveness.
Athena's promotion to propaganda director also included an invitation to
join her front's inner command circle. At the time, she was one of only a
few females who had ever reached this level. Her Venezuelan-sourced combat
fatigues, assault rifle, and new position among the decision-makers were
empowering. She recalled feeling that FARC's promise of gender equality had
finally become a reality, and that her male superiors saw her as their
equal.
Then she got pregnant. The father was a lower-ranking combatant who was
transferred to another front and never learned of Athena's pregnancy.
Recalling the experience for the first time in the several meetings we had,
Athena fought to maintain her composure. She continued to look me in the
eye, but tears rolled down her cheek. She related how, at six months, a FARC
"doctor" induced labor and performed a vaginal extraction. Her baby boy was
born alive but soon died. "It was an execution," she said. Later, when
Athena found out that the "doctor" had been killed in combat, she secretly
rejoiced. "My child was the son of two revolutionaries. How could a fellow
revolutionary do something so horrible?"
The ordeal left Athena shell-shocked. Her family had betrayed her, but she
did not want to believe it. The pain from the physical trauma eventually
subsided, but the emotional anguish did not. Although there are no official
statistics on forced late-term abortions, other former female FARC members
tell similar stories. When I asked Athena why the group treats its female
comrades in such a way, she said that, looking back, it had essentially been
a troop-retention strategy. The experience was so dehumanizing, she said,
that she ceased caring about her future or about dying. She felt dead; FARC
owned her completely. She volunteered for close-combat assignments, ready to
kill or be killed.
Yet during encounters with the enemy, Athena found herself losing focus,
imagining each adversary as someone's son. The bouts of empathy enraged her.
She would remember her murdered son and resent her duty to kill another
woman's child. At the same time, she wanted to believe that there had been
some purpose to her forced abortion. Moments of doubt threatened her sanity.
Over time, she trained herself not to feel loss or compassion. She spoke to
me of an incident in which she "proved" that she had rid herself of all
feeling: Her closest confidant, a young man in charge of making improvised
explosive devices blew himself up with one of his explosives. "I remember
looking at his remains and thinking, All that's left is una libra de carne
-- a pound of meat," she recalled. "He was here and now he's gone -- y qué?
So what?"
But then, in a strange twist of fate, a fellow female fighter approached her
in desperation. The woman had gotten pregnant by a commanding officer and
wanted to escape. The woman feared for her baby's life. Presumably, Athena
was the only person in a position to help her, since she was the only woman
with access to the safe in which the front's money was kept. She also had
"influence" with the logistics man who tracked all the current FARC
positions in the immediate area. The pregnant woman pleaded with Athena,
arguing that they both deserved freedom and another chance at a life. Athena
says that moment "woke her up." Although she was doubtful that either of
them would survive an attempt at desertion, she agreed to formulate a plan.
She took about $200 from the safe and slept with the logistics man in
exchange for information.
In the pre-dawn hours of a mid-August day in 2005, Athena and her pregnant
companion fled the insurgent camp on foot, each heading for a different
destination because they would move faster on their own. For three days,
Athena ran through the jungle, enduring torrential rains and blistering
heat, only to arrive at the outskirts of a village where a man recognized
her as a FARC member and turned her over to the local Colombian armed
forces.
Athena was sick with a parasite infection, famished, and dehydrated. She was
sure that the Colombian army would rape and execute her. She remembered
thinking, "Whatever they will do they will do." So she refused to answer
questions. After some time, a sergeant entered the room where she was held.
She braced herself for the worst. But something else followed. The sergeant
looked at her and said, "You look a lot like my daughter. In fact, you two
could be sisters. How long has it been since you've eaten?"
Had it not been for the sergeant's compassion, Athena says, she would not
have trusted the government's offer to enter her into its demobilization
program. At the age of 21, she accepted and was transferred to a safe house
in a different departamento ("state") where no one would know her. Athena's
stay in the Casa de Paz ("House of Peace") was challenging, but she received
job training, counseling, and funds with which she transitioned to the
"reintegration" phase of the program. The Colombian government's statistics
show that between 2003 and 2011, more than 53,000 insurgent and paramilitary
combatants have been demobilized (11 percent of whom were female). Current
Colombian government estimates suggest that fewer than 8,000 FARC members
remain active.
Today, Athena is pursuing a technical degree. She is married and has a young
son. She often thinks of the pregnant woman who inspired her to flee; she
never learned her fate. Although she has cooperated with the Colombian
government since her demobilization and is grateful for her chance at a new
life, Athena worries that the Colombian government will never serve the
poor. She questions whether the recently approved free-trade agreement
between the United States and Colombia will benefit el campesino -- the
common farmer. That said, when I asked Athena what one should tell a
13-year-old girl who sees joining FARC as a means toward empowerment, she
was adamant: "Dígale que el mensaje es una mentira." Tell her that the
message is a lie.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/files/images/Anon-Farc-411.jpg
FARC rebels pose with a girl holding a weapon in an undated photo
confiscated by Colombian authorities. (Reuters)
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Received on Mon Jun 04 2012 - 18:32:12 EDT
