The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been active for 50 years, terrorizing the Colombian countryside and perpetuating the country’s violent illegal drug trade. Naturally, the Cuban government has chosen to harbor their leaders, who have released a very special Marxist rap video to celebrate their anniversary.
“In this video, we reflect on the difficult situation lived through by the Colombian peasant, which many of our members were before joining the ranks of the FARC-EP. Stories like that of Guerrilla Commander Miguel Pascuas, the protagonist of this video, are many,” the group writes on their website. Pascuas was a founding member of the FARC and a known drug dealer and terrorist for which the United States is offering a $2.5 million reward. Pascuas is currently taking refuge in Cuba and appears in this video.
Along with Pascuas, other prominent FARC terrorists contribute to the video, which alleges to have “a message of optimism” given current peace talks in Havana between the Colombian government and FARC terrorists receiving asylum from the Castro dictatorship. Providing lead non-rap vocals is Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch terrorist with an extensive history of setting bombs, burning buildings, and conducting mass kidnappings. Nijmeijer was indicted by the United States in 2010 “on seven counts of terrorism and weapons charges arising out of [her] participation in the hostage-taking of three American citizens in the Republic of Colombia.” She also lives in Cuba.
Also featured in the video are Cuban rap outfit Cuentas Claras (Clean Dealings) who decry democracies as “a circus they call government” and claim it is the Colombian government, not the FARC, that desires that they “keep killing each other.”
The video ends with the sentence, translated into many languages: “Support the peace process in Colombia.”
The FARC have recently begun shifting their propaganda outfits to target young people, masking their violent message in rap music and tenuous claims to support peace in Colombia. Last December, the FARC even released a cheerful “Christmas greeting” to warn that peace negotiations would not mean a dissolution of their militia or the end of violence.
The FARC’s reign of terror created a situation in which one Colombian citizen was kidnapped every eight hours between 1996-2005 and resulted in thousands of deaths over decades. The FARC’s influence in the Colombian countryside has greatly diminished in the past decade, however, thanks to a combined effort by former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, the CIA, and the Bush administration to use counterterrorism initiatives employed against al Qaeda in Latin America. The group is currently in talks with the Santos administration to negotiate a peace agreement.