The Fall of MarquetaliaFrom Guerrilla Movements in Latin America
by Richard Gott, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd. 1970
The proliferation of leftist political groups, largely inspired by the Cuban Revolution, and the fact that many of them were taking advantage of the disturbed situation in the countryside to begin guerrilla movements of their own, forced the government - doubtless under United States pressure - to consider the task of 'cleaning up' the independent Communist republics. 1 Had the political rebellion against the National Front ever reached the dimensions of Castro's fight against Batista, the peasant-held areas of Marquetalia, Sumapaz and El Pato would have provided an indispensable refuge from which major guerrilla campaigns could have been planned and launched.
From the very beginning the National Front had made efforts to improve conditions in the areas that had been most subject to the violencia. The Communist writer, Alberto Gomez, has explained the technique
The Lleras Camargo government (1958-62) pursued a dual policy towards the guerrilla areas. On the one hand, measures were taken towards what was called rehabilitation of the 'zones affected by the violence'. The key elements of this policy were infiltration of the peasant areas by means of credits for promoting production and housing, and a lavish dispensation of promises. Rehabilitation was selective and aimed at winning the political support of sections of the peasantry, especially the ex-guerrillas and their leaders, or at least neutralizing them. On the other hand, districts whose population continued to regard the government with distrust were denied economic aid. The local organizations in these areas were persecuted as before and many of their leaders, especially ex- guerrillas, were murdered. 2
However, as a New York Times correspondent put it, 'the apathy lends to the government's efforts to mount an anti-violence campaign something of the effect of an egg-beater working without an egg'. 3
During the course of 1961, the government uttered violent verbal threats against the independent republics, and at the beginning of 1962 the army's Sixth Brigade was given orders to attack Marquetalia. According to the account by the veteran Communist leader, Gilberto Vieira, the operation was mounted with 5,154 soldiers, 1,154 NCOs and 189 officers. The units had all had special training in anti- guerrilla warfare. 4
This initial attack was not very successful. The peasants chalked up a number of victories and captured quantities of ammunition. At the same time, in the cities, the Communist party and the MRL organized a solidarity campaign with the peasants of Marquetalia which forced Lleras Camargo -now at the end of his period in office- to withdraw the troops. For a brief moment Marquetalia appeared to be safe.
Nevertheless during 1963 the army made probing movements into the peasant-held areas, and on 1 January 1964 Lleras's successor, Leon Valencia, announced that the government had decided to destroy the republics before the end of the year. 'Operation Marquetalia' began on 1 May, and involved some 16,000 soldiers - almost a third of the Colombian army.
Colombia was the first country in Latin America where the United States began to put into action the new anti-guerrilla strategies that had been evolved during the first years of the Kennedy administrations. Gilberto Vieira has left an account of the stages into which the strategy was divided
Phase one preparation and organization Once the troops have been trained in antiguerrilla action, spies are sent into the area and informers recruited. For this purpose, 'civil-military action' is organized, in which the army appears under the guise of a benefactor, bringing presents to the peasants (clothes, medical supplies, American food from Care and Caritas), medical and dental services, bridge-building, roads and schools.
Phase two. A larger-scale programme of psychological action is then put into operation, using the factor of surprise. Measures are taken to control the civil population. This is the first stage insetting up a blockade of the area.
Phase three. The next operations try to isolate the armed rebel groups in order to destroy them.
Phase four The armed rebel movement is systematically divided, using psychological techniques. Advantage is taken of internal splits, resulting from political differences, the ambitions of the leaders, human weaknesses, or mistakes by the guerrilla command. This is an attempt to win over those who would be likely to carry on the guerrilla struggle.
Phase five The final stage is he economic, political and social 'reconstruction' of the zone of operations, using the American aid that was previously used to destroy the area.
The first stage of 'Operation Marquetalia' -civil-military action- was an encircling and reconnaissance movement. But hostilities broke out. The army tried to close off a vast circle, and what had been a self-defence movement immediately turned into guerrilla warfare.
After a series of clashes, the Colombian and Yankee strategists perfected what they thought were shock tactics. They thought they were so effective that they invited Colombian and foreign war correspondents to come and watch. 5 A large-scale airborne operation was mounted using a lot of helicopters. The object was to cut off the guerrilla command's retreat and to destroy it. An entire army was transported by helicopter at tree-top height to a place close to two peasant huts where the guerrilla commanders Marulanda and Yosa lived with their families.
Naturally the place was guarded and the guerrillas suffered no losses. They retired as planned into the mountains. The government, the general staff of the army, the Colombian bourgeois press and
Yankee publications like Life made a great deal of this, calling it 'A Defeat for the Reds in the Andes' and 'The Final Occupation of Marquetalia'. But the struggle was only just beginning.
The guerrillas fortified their impressive mountain stronghold and the army began to count its dead. 6
Another Communist, Alberto Gomez, has tried to explain - with some difficulty - why the fall of Marquetalia was a victory and not a defeat
We never expected the self-defence zones to be impregnable from the military standpoint. On the contrary, the possibility was foreseen that they might fall into enemy hands. At the same time, however, we regarded them as a base for a future movement, centres of a popular armed movement....
The test of a policy is practice. Marquetalia was a test which proved the correctness of our policy. The army threw the full weight of modem weaponry and its experience in anti-guerrilla warfare against it. But Marquetalia, too, had prepared for guerrilla warfare. It was not simply a matter of resorting to arms on the spur of the moment, for the leaders of the area were well acquainted with past experience, had made a study of the success scored by the enemy, and from the outset were guided by a clear-cut concept of guerrilla war.
Before the aggression, Marquetalia itself had not been a zone of military action. But the work done earlier by its leaders in peripheral areas had laid the groundwork for the subsequent operations....
The peasant population of Marquetalia was not left to the mercy of fate either before or after the invasion. At no time, however, was it proposed to have the women and children accompany the guerrilla detachments, or to burden these detachments with the peasants' livestock and personal belongings. The evacuation of the families was planned in advance so as to leave in the zone only those able to bear arms. The families were taken to neighbouring areas where they played an important role in rallying support for the fighting men....
A plan of hostilities was worked out in advance. The army found itself facing detachments subdivided into groups operating both inside and outside the traps laid by troops. The guerrillas engaged the government forces the moment they entered the zone. Although the army eventually occupied Marquetalia, it encountered minefields and ambushes everywhere, suffering telling losses under constant harassment. The guerrillas soon moved into mountainous and jungle country. The government forces now lost contact with them, while the guerrillas had the enemy's every move under observation. Although the army occupied the central part of Marquetalia, it could not cordon off the entire 5,000 sq. km. area, and the initiative in the choice of the battlefield passed over to the guerrillas. 7
Nevertheless, in spite of the Communist ability to see a new victory in every major defeat, the fall of Marquetalia must be accounted a major loss to the revolution. And it was not just Marquetalia. Once this stronghold had been reduced, the government proceeded without much difficulty to wipe up the other zones where peasant leaders had held sway for so many years. Rio Chiquito and Guayabero fell, and finally, in March 1965, the New York Times announced that government troops had 'smashed the thirteen-year- old Communist Independent Republic of El Pato.... Warplanes and helicopters airlifted several battalions of infantry and national police detachments into the region to seize strategic spots and mopping-up operations are now in progress.' With the fall of El Pato, the 'independent republics' were no more than a memory.
They were probably doomed to failure in any case. As with Viota, they would have grown fat and comfortable with the passage of time. Their prospects of growth were strictly limited. But once the army had flushed the peasants out of their homes, they became more of a menace to the stability of the state. Uprooted, they had nothing to do except to pursue the guerrilla road, and in the process their demands became more revolutionary.
The Colombian Communist party, more by accident than by design, now had a real guerrilla movement on its hands. Over a number of years they had encouraged hundreds of peasants to believe in the infallibility of the party. Yet these same peasants had been chased from their homes as a result of following the party's directives, and the party leaders had to do some quick thinking to explain to the faithful what had gone wrong. First they blamed the ultra-leftists of the MOEC for having created the illusion that the army could be defeated
From the beginning of the struggle in 1964, the guerrillas were aware that the enemy was now stronger and had practically unlimited resources.... The party pointed to the need to renounce the old views concerning popular armed struggle and to put an end to braggadocio and shortsightedness which had cost us needless sacrifices. These warnings were correctly understood by the armed peasants.
There were, however, revolutionaries who argued (and some still do) that the Communists were overestimating the enemy's strength, exaggerating his possibilities, which they claimed made for passivity on the part of the masses. But experience has shown who was right. 8
Then, more logically, the displeasure of the Communist hierarchy fell on the government itself. Alvaro Delgado, a member of the Central Committee, in the course of an article lauding the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, pointed out that
The armed struggle now being fought by our people is not of our making. The possibilities for legal struggle were not exhausted when the peasants were forced to take to arms. It was the anti-national government that, alarmed by the vigour of the independent peasant movement, mounted an offensive against them. The armed struggle was forced on us by the enemy, and the peasants under out leadership responded to the challenge without hesitation. It is the class enemy who is blocking the way to legal, democratic political struggle. We are fighting for democratic rights because the regime is constantly whittling them down. We do not tell the masses to make the supreme sacrifice in all circumstances. We tell them that they must organize and fight for power, that the fight will be long and arduous, and that at one stage or another it is likely to entail armed struggle.
It is a not a question of out wanting or not wanting armed struggle. The facts are that we have to fight. We cannot choose or decree the form of struggle. The Colombian Communists are not committed to the existing state of affairs any more than they are committed to any specific form of struggle. We employ a variety of forms, not because we like variety, but because the practical battle of the masses and the people's unity are developing on this basis. 9
On 20 July 1964, after nearly three months of fighting, the peasants who had retreated from Marquetalia under the leadership of Marulanda found time to pause to draw breath. They convened a guerrilla assembly, and drew up a far reaching agrarian reform, calling for the confiscation of the large estates and the free distribution of land to the peasants. 10
As a Central Committee member, Diego Montana Cuellar, a somewhat maverick figure within the Columbian Communist party, later explained
Such a proclamation did not spring from an isolated group of purely local significance, but from the most advanced organizations of the Communist party. It was the fruit of long and patient indoctrination of peasants who had been violently dispossessed, and who found political expression in these organizations. This historic event marked a qualitative leap forward in the revolutionary process the passive concept of mere self-defence was left behind. 11
At the end of September 1964, a further conference was held bringing together all the guerrillas and self-defence detachments operating in southern Colombia who had been expelled from their independent republics by the army. This conference established the Guerrilla Block of the South - a loosely united movement of dispossessed peasants carefully watched over by the Communist party.
This conference, in its resolutions, declared that 'five months after the first stage of the offensive against Marquetalia, the mobile guerrilla units achieved complete victory over the government's anti-guerrilla tactics'. And it added, optimistically, that 'the revolutionary armed action movement, which has adopted tactics based on mobile guerrilla operations, is an invincible movement capable of standing up to the far superior forces of the enemy, witness the situation in Marquetalia where the peasant detachments are fighting 16,000 government troops'. 12
But even though the peasant guerrillas had 'sprung from' the Communist party, this did not provide them with much advice on how to conduct a guerrilla war, Throughout 196 5, the guerrillas of Marulanda and the other survivors of the independent republics were notably quiescent, with the result that Debray, writing later in the year, was outspokenly scornful of the Colombian Communist party's revolutionary achievements in recent years
Today, self-defence as a system and as a reality has been liquidated by the march of events.
Colombia, with its zones of peasant self-defence, and Bolivia, with its zones of worker self-defence, constituted the two countries in which this conception acquired the strength of a line. These two 'nuclei of subversion' were, within a few months of each other, liquidated by the army Marquetalia, in southern Colombia, occupied in May 1964, and the Bolivian mines invaded in May and September 1965, after tragic battles. This double defeat signifies the end of an epoch and attests to the death of a certain ideology. It is necessary that the revolutionary movement should once and for all accept this demise. 13
Diego Montana Cuellar replied
The sweeping statement that the occupation of Marquetalia by the regular army means the defeat and death of the armed struggle in Colombia is a false appreciation of the different stages of 'self-defence' and a wrong appreciation of the time factor. At the very moment that the essay Revolution in the Revolution? was published (in January 1966), comrade Marulanda's forces had changed over to mobile guerrilla tactics and were striking the heaviest blows ever received by the Colombian army. The passive concept of 'self-defence' could be criticized up to 1964. After the organization said 'Now we are guerrillas', there surely does not exist in the whole of Latin America such a firm, serious and experienced guerrilla force. 14
Later, in 1967, Diego Montana Cuellar was to resign from the Communist party on the grounds that it did not give enough emphasis to the guerrillas, but as the conclusions from the Tenth Congress of the Colombian Communist party, held in January 1966, seem to show, the Colombian Communists' position was in some respects more favourable towards guerrillas than, say, that of the Venezuelan party. But although the form of words was different, enthusiasm for the armed struggle among Colombian Communists was in fact hardly more developed than among the Venezuelans. 15
The Tenth Congress emphasized that the guerrilla struggle in Colombia had preceded the development of a revolutionary situation. The Communist party had felt that it could not 'stand by and watch' while 'waiting for a revolutionary situation to mature'. 'Armed aggression' had to be met by 'guerrilla resistance'.
Nevertheless guerrilla resistance was not the most important factor in the revolutionary process. 'Mass struggle' was more crucial in the eyes of the orthodox Communists.
With the blessing of the Tenth Congress, the guerrilla bloc of the south held a further conference in April 1966 and decided to set up the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC) - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The reason for giving what had been an armed peasant movement a name which turned it into a guerrilla movement arose from the need of the Communist party to appear more revolutionary than it really was in the face of opposition from other left-wing groups. In an article by an orthodox Communist discussing the foundation of the FARC, one can detect an almost frantic concern to appear revolutionary and to prove that the Communist party dominates the revolutionary scene in Colombia
Colombia is the scene of a life-and-death struggle. In the centre of this struggle is the guerrilla movement headed by FARC and its headquarters. The united military-political leadership of FARC follows the line of the Communist party as set forth in the decisions of its central bodies. To meet the requirements of the revolutionary process in our country, the Tenth Congress of our party centralized the leadership of armed action in the rural localities. The leading positions in the headquarters of FARC are held by such tried and tested fighters as Manuel Marulanda Velez, Ciro Trujillo, Jacobo Arenas and Isauro Yosa, all members of the Central Committee of our party. Our combat planning, based on the decisions of the inaugural conference of FARC, takes cognisance of both the concrete situation and the general situation in our country. It is not by chance that 48 per cent of the delegates to the Tenth Congress were peasants, some of whom have been waging armed struggle since 1950. It can be said that the revolutionary armed struggle in our country is largely the result of the work done by the Communists. 16
But when interviewed by L'Humanite in June 1966, the secretary-general of the Colombian party, Gilberto Vieira, maintained
Our party ... nevertheless considers that there is no revolutionary situation in Colombia as yet. It does not consider armed struggle in cities because such a struggle can be little more than a series of isolated events accomplished by little groups.... The guerrilla struggle is not actually the principal form of battle. 17
Footnotes:
1 According to the Communists, a CIA report in 1960 'listed these districts and stressed that it was up to the government to abolish them with utmost speed' - see Lopez, 'New Stage in Guerrilla Struggle in Colombia'.
2 Gomez, 'The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia'.
3 New York Times, 9 January 1963.
4 Gilberto Vieira, 'La Colombie A l'heure du Marquetalia', Democratie Nouvelle, July-August 1965.
5 A rare occurrence. in Peru in 1965 no correspondents were allowed into the battle zones, and in Bolivia in 1967 military details of the anti-guerrilla campaign were hard to come by until the final weeks.
6 Vieira, 'La Colombie A l'heure du Marquetalia'.
7 Gomez, 'The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia'.
8 Lopez, 'New Stage in the Guerrilla Struggle in Colombia'.
9 Alvaro Delgado, 'The Working Class and Labour Movement in Colombia', World Marxist Review, September 1967.
10 For the 'Agrarian Programme of the Guerrillas of Marquetalia', see Appendix Five.
11 Diego Montaña Cuellar, 'Los problemas estratégicos y tácticos de la revolución en Colombia', Punto Final, No. 47, 30 January 1968.
12 Quoted in Gomez, 'The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia'.
13 Regis Debray, Revolution in the Revolution?
14 Diego Montaña Cuellar, 'Los problemas estratégicos y tácticos de la revolución en Colombia'.
15 For a chapter from the central report approved by the Tenth Congress, see Appendix Six.
16 Gomez, 'The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia'.
17 L'Humanite, 3 June 1966.