Jacobo Arenas
Jacobo Arenas (died August 10, 1990) was the "nom de guerre" of Luis Morantes, a founder and ideological leader of the FARC-EP ("Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejercito del Pueblo").
Marquetalia Republic
Initial Activities
He was sent by the Colombian Communist Party as a political activist in order to help organize existing self-defense and guerrilla units in a rural enclave during "La Violencia" (1946/1948-1953/1958), Arenas soon met Manuel Marulanda and eventually they both became the two top leaders of the FARC, after the fall of the so-called "Marquetalia Republic" in May 1964 during a massive Colombian Army offensive.
Memories of Marquetalia
Jacobo Arenas later wrote a book called "Diario de la resistencia de Marquetalia" ("Marquetalia Diary"). The book includes a chronicle of the events of the fight between the guerrilla fighters and the soldiers of the Colombian army brigade.
Life in FARC
Guerrilla Organization
As an intellectual cadre, Arenas organized a largescale educational program to educate the early FARC guerilla fighters, as most came from low income peasant families with limited previous educational background. He had studied Marxist-Leninist theory and with extensive knowledge of Communism he was able to improve the organic structure of the guerrilla group in order to better suit a revolutionary movement.
In jungle and rural areas under guerrilla influence, Arenas was able to organize schools to educate both local inhabitants and guerirlla members in ideological and practical matters. At the time, he considered that most Communist movements in the world did not teach the ideology to their members properly, and thus did not deeply study books such as "Das Kapital" ("The Capital", often known as the "Bible of Communism") and other works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. These schools had their own teaching methods and in some respects the more developed courses could theoretically approach college levels in certain specific areas of knowledge.
According to some FARC opinions and unofficial outside estimates, it is believed that, as a consequence of the schools originally organized by Arenas, the level of ideological education within the FARC's leadership and the more veteran guerrillas could allegedly be of a very high standard, comparable to that of other Communist organizations in the world. It has been speculated that it could surpass the level of Cuban ideoligical education, though no specific comparisons nor structured academic analyses have been conducted in order to prove or disprove this.
Influence of the Cuban Revolution and Che Guevara
The 1959 triumph of the Cuban revolution, greatly influenced revolutionaries all over the world and even in Latin America. This had been among the influences of the Colombian Communist Party's strategy of sending promising Party cadres such as Luis Morantes to organise the Liberal and Communist peasants in its areas of influence, in a manner akin to how Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Ernesto Guevara ("Che" Guevara) helped organize Cuban revolutionaries. After the fall of Marquetalia and the formation of the FARC in 1964, the ideas of Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution influenced Jacobo Arenas in his work as the ideological leader of the group. The death of Che Guevara in October 1967 was interpreted by the FARC as a display of revolutionary sacrifice, one that was held as an example by Jacobo Arenas and other guerrilla ideological figures.
Guevara's ideas came to be held as the correct revolutionary path in Latin America by Jacobo Arenas and his FARC comrades. Guevara's written works, such as Guerilla Warfare, Message to the Tri-continental and the Bolivian Diary were closely studied and appreciated by Colombian guerillas and are usually still kept as handbooks. Photos or images of Che Guevara, as well as political propaganda slogans such as "Che, the hero of Latin America", are prominent among FARC ideological teaching schools and media offices inside and outside Colombia, sometimes to a greater extent than those of other Communist leaders and theoreticians.
Seventh Guerrilla Conference
Arenas is credited with allegedly being the main figure behind the FARC's 1982 Seventh Guerrilla Conference and a contemporary "Strategic Plan", which would have outlined a series of goals and steps that would organize the FARC into an "Army of the People" (the initials "EP", Ejército del Pueblo, were adopted during this Conference) capable of potentially seizing power sometime in the 1990s, explicitly combining both the illegal and legal forms of struggle (organically implementing a traditional Marxist and Communist strategy termed "the combination of all forms of struggle"), as well as the political and the military aspects of their group.
Forming of the Patriotic Union (Colombia)
In 1984, under terms of a ceasefire with the government, the FARC formed the Patriotic Union (Colombia) (UP). This political party was originally led by Manuel Marulanda's longtime friend and then FARC's second-in-command, Jacobo Arenas, who was also initially selected as the UP's presidential candidate for the 1986 presidential race, while still remaining an active FARC member. During this time, the FARC was accused of continuing to execute a reduced number of armed operations as well as extensive kidnappings during the ceasefire, which created tension during the ongoing negotiations. Arenas and the FARC claimed that most of such armed operations were in response to Army activities and perceived provocations.
Arenas officially resigned his UP positions after the series of events that followed the 19th of April Movement's November 1985 takeover of the Colombian Palace of Justice (a building which then housed the Colombian Supreme Court). He continued to be an influential figure in the FARC after his resignation until his natural death in 1990.
Death and Aftermath
Importance to FARC
The death of Jacobo Arenas in August 10 1990 was considered a major blow to the FARC, as he was one of the persons responsible for transforming the FARC from a small guerilla force to a belligerent rebel army.
Arenas' son, apparently known as "Francisco Arenas", would have continued to be a member of the FARC after his father's death.
Alfonso Cano subsequently became Arenas' replacement as ideological leader of the group throughout the 1990s and some believe that he might become the next leader of the FARC-EP.
FARC's Jacobo Arenas Front
His son Francisco Arenas eventually would have led the "Jacobo Arenas Front" mobile column, named in honor of his father, and according to an Europa Press report, he would allegedly have died in combat with the Colombian Army in August 2004 [1].
Since February 2005, the "Jacobo Arenas Front" has played a significant role in the renewed series of FARC military operations in the southwest of the country against the security forces of president Alvaro Uribe's government, coming after a period of what was considered as either a temporary halt in operations or as a necessary strategic retreat on the part of the guerrillas, in part as a response to a massive U.S. government-backed military offensive known as "Plan Patriota" taking place in the southeast of Colombia, according to different analysts.
This guerrilla unit has participated in different military activities, such as a recent attack on the municipality of Toribio in the Cauca department on 14 April 2005, where four people were killed and 23 injured, together with the displacement of many of the villagers as the fighting in the general area continued intermitently for about a month.
External links
Reference
- Diario de la resistencia de Marquetalia, Jacobo Arenas, Ediciones Abejón Mono, 1972