Pedro Antonio Marin and FARC

Submitted by fyl on 27 May, 2008 - 08:13.
Marin's death is bringing forth a lot of less than balanced information about him, FARC and Colombia in general. Of everything I have seen so far, this LA Times article seems to present a clean picture.

It is neither pro-FARC or anti-FARC as far as I can see. It just presents enough history of both FARC and Marin to allow you to fill in the blanks.

Formed by Marin with 48 other fighters in 1964, the FARC slowly gained influence in remote mountain and farm areas by performing judicial and police functions that the weak Colombian state had abdicated, political economist Jaime Zuluaga said. Marin stayed in the shadows during his 44 years as leader, rarely giving interviews and emerging in public only during the abortive peace negotiations with former President Andres Pastrana from 1999 to 2002.
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Judicial functions?

Submitted by mjt on 27 May, 2008 - 21:28.

The article doesn't highlight the judicial or police functions; it is not clear why the author is so vague in this regard. FARC was founded by members of the Colombian Communist Party; when assuming controls Marin was a party member, as were the other main contributors. They were not some other thing, then later a thing that adopted communist ideology. It twists reality to posit, as the L.A. Times author does, that "Although the FARC later adopted a communist ideology and hierarchy, Marin's initial aim was to protect his family and other peasants from marauding Conservative Party gangs..."; maybe another hagiography in the making. There is/was no shortage of verifiable FARC information before his death, and there isn't now; the question is really how much of this information some newspaper reporters choose to ignore. There might be a lot of gray areas for the political ethicist, but the historian shouldn't have any trouble.