Colombia expert and former Pax Christi worker Lidwien Zumpolle says at least three Dutch citizens are directly involved with the FARC guerrilla movement in Colombia. She claims the FARC are also recruiting in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Greece. Her remarks follow publication in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo of extracts from the diary of a Dutch woman fighting with the FARC. She is known as "Eillen", but turns out to be ex-student Tanja Nijmeijer who joined the FARC four years ago. Her diaries were found by the Colombian army in a rebel camp which had been abandoned in haste.
Tanja first went to Colombia in 2000 on a Danish tour aimed at introducing people to Marxist experiments in South America. She was so enthusiastic that she returned in 2002 and joined the FARC. She was given the code name Eillen and, according to her diaries, was put to work as a translator, although occasionally she was involved in fighting and on one occasion even worked as a commandant's bodyguard.
Recently, although she still believes she is doing the right thing, she has become increasingly homesick and fed up with the FARC "at least this unit" and with communal living.
The publication of her diaries could put Tanja in real danger. It's hard to predict how the FARC will react. She may be punished for her negative comments, although it is highly unlikely she will be killed or, conversely, since she still remains fundamentally loyal to the FARC, they may even see her as a credible potential representative and PR person for the movement.
- 21 July 2006: I'm obsessed with train stations. I often imagine I'm in the station in Groningen, Amsterdam or Utrecht. I buy a coffee or some chips and get on board…. I almost forgot the big news: two comrades have AIDS, and there may be more. No one here uses contraceptives. The girlfriend of one of them has no idea what it means. She told me the news with a big grin and her boyfriend seems totally unconcerned. Another girl, who used to have a relationship with the man, is really worried.
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23 July 2006: I really feel like calling home, but it can't get a chance. The army is in the village now. I don't think there's anywhere I can make an international phone call. After Marloes, I think I'm beginning to lose Elle too. Only mum writes me the occasional angry letter. I don't understand, I thought things would improve after she visited me here, but it's getting worse. I feel awful, Jans. I miss my family. I miss you. I miss my country. But maybe I'll be sent abroad in a year or so. Perhaps to Europe.
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23 August 2006: I managed to ring home! But I didn't get permission beforehand and now Frits is mad at me, but I don't care. It was wonderful to hear their voices. Mum started crying and then Dad did too. Now I just have to patiently wait from my punishment. Everyone can ring home, except me. Isn't that ridiculous. Maybe they'll leave me behind in the jungle forever or maybe they'll send me on a foreign mission after this little disobedience. Actually, I don't want to, it doesn't interest me. I might have a new boyfriend, a commandant. He is 30 years old and very special. Maybe it'll work out between us.
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(No date): Dear Jans, we've been sitting here for three days, waiting to shoot down a helicopter that sometimes flies over. I'm beginning to think that it'll never fly past. I've still got the same boyfriend but I'm beginning to fall in love with someone else. I wish you were here to give me some advice, Jans. I just don't think I'm capable of staying with one man to any length of time. If I'd stayed in the Netherlands, I'd have left a trail of broken relationships behind me.
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25 August 2006: That damn helicopter just won't fly over. It's so annoying. I've no idea how long we're supposed to wait for it.
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2 November 2006: The chief has fallen for a girl with big tits. But it appears she brought some venereal disease with her. The chief says the government sent her to in order to infect and weaken the rebel leaders.
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24 November 2006: I'm tired, tired of the FARC, tired of people and tired of living in this commune. I'm fed up of never having anything of my own. All of this would have a purpose if you knew what you were fighting for. I don't believe in it any more. What sort of rebel movement is this? Only a few people have money or cigarettes or sweets and the rest of us have to beg for a share, but you know the higher-ups will just be nasty and say no. It was exactly the same four years ago when I joined, nothing has changed. A girl with big tits and a pretty face can totally undermine a unit that has worked together for ages (...) I don't know if I'll ever get out of this jungle (...) I want to get out of here, at least out this unit. But you know that you're a sort of prisoner here (...) It's not the FARC so much as this unit.(...) but had enough of all that blah blah blah about being a Communist (...) all the commandants are corrupt, traitors, and rabble-rousers and traitors. They've got no sympathy if someone delivers any criticism. I wish I was in a fighting unit (...) But I don't want to leave here, just want to walk, laugh, fight and buy things without any problems. I'll speak to Karel.
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(No date): Dear Jans, there's a party today. But of course the commandants and their women have had their own private party. It's so corrupt. And now all the lower ranks are allowed to drink whatever the head honchos couldn't manage to pour down their throats yesterday (...) Yesterday that idiot Margaret offered me some sweets. That bitch had a great big bag of sweets. I felt so humiliated. A woman who is with one of the commandants is in a totally different class. They have privileges and they give orders. But they also have to produce children.
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12 June 200?: Dear Jans. (...) I was stupid enough to criticise one of the commandants and yesterday I was publicly humiliated. I don't care. I'm used to the FARC's hypocrisy (...) I'll keep on criticising them (...) People here just aren't capable of being objective, they're not capable of self-criticism.
(first published in El Tiempo)
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* RNW internet translation (imm,jc)
Tags:
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Tiempo
Just me,
24-01-2008
- Colombia
Unbelievable what this RETARDED named "Jacinto" wrote.... I am a Colombian who had experienced like, for ever, the terrible effect of constant violence.... it is just incredible that people still believe in the "messiah" that is going to save us, or worse, believe in being the Messiah... check out how great Germany's messiah was (Yes the H man). Can't they understand and see the manipulation??? can't they see that, those psycopaths play victims to gain simpathy??? As wolves disguised like sheeps... A REAL VICTIM, DOESN'T BEHAVE LIKE A REBEL... THE STRONGEST CRY OF THE VICTIM IS HIS/HER SILENCE....
Communism.... I just got a BIG LAUGHTER OUT OF THAT...
WAKE UP PEOPLE.... WAKE UP!!!
jacinto,
23-10-2007
- USA
The guerilla movement is strong in Colombia because massive inequality exists. There would be no need for Revolutionary people's movements if inequality, poverty and hunger existed.
That said, I'm almost sure that the "diary" is a fabrication by the Colombian authorities. Yes, it is fake. Even if the authorities show the diary is is likely a fake. Learn about how the US military uses dis-information campaigns to fool people. Plan Colombia? I think so. Anyways, after the steady failure of 'free'-market, capitalist policies, many are learning socialism is the only viable alternative. With so many millions forced to flee Latin America towards the US, Canada and the EU, who will be left to defend the rights of the "people of the south?"
Ruben,
16-10-2007
- Spain
The FARC was born like a movement of self-defending farmers in the 1960s. They arose because as farmers were removed from their farms. The farmers were initially of the Liberal Party, that is to say, of the same party in which Uribe militated, the present president. Soon, during the Frente Nacional (1958-1974), they completely changed into an armed movement, and have always maintained to the necessity of an Agrarian Reform and a change of the government of Colombia, form an excluding minority, that some call oligarchy, to one a democratic one.
They criticize the present constitution of 1991, born out of the peace accords with the M-19, another urban guerrilla that now it is in the opposition like a legal political party, the Alternative Democratic Pole. The minority that governs Colombia supports a cruel and effective trident: the political bipartisanism, the Catholic Church and the Armed Forces. And now it is romped in the ‘Parapolítica’.
The drug traffic and the interference of the USA (Colombia Plan, Patriotic Plan, massive Fumigations with Glifosato) that affect so much to the government of Uribe is the fuel of this conflict that now lasts more than 50 years. In the 1980s FARC entered a process of peace with President Betancourt and formed a legal political party, UP (Unión Patriótica).
Ronald,
15-09-2007
- Colombia
I have been here since 2000 and am well aware of most of the FARC's hypocrisy and needless violence. I had no idea that the Communist philosphy involved kidnapping innocent civilians in order to generate income for the "good of the people." This is such a beautiful country and has so much to offer (beaches, mountains, ancient culture, etc) but the danger of the FARC guerrillas is actually putting this country back. Bogota is a beautiful city with world-class restaurants and service that can rival most cities in the world. Why do people not understand that the influx of tourists, business travelers, diplomats, and foreign corporations is for the good of the country and boosts its economy? The irony here is that Eillen speaks of the Commander's girlfriend having sweets that she lacks. Doesn't this contradict communal living? And what of the shooting down of the helicopter? The perpituity of violence in this world continues because of people like Eillen. I submit that people like her cause so much pain and violence in this world and specifically Colombia. If only these European recruits will wake up and realize what a farce the FARC is and how harmful it is to the Colombian people. It is sheer arrogance that they think they can come in here and "help" our country. Stay away, please. That's how you can help--stay home. And if you do decide to make the mistake of coming over here to die, then I look forward to the day you realize what a calamity you've gotten yourself into.
Santiago,
08-09-2007
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBqaIREZJY
Javier,
06-09-2007
- Spain
My family lived 25 years in Colombia and we decided to come back to Spain due the threat from FARC's guerrilla. We had 200 people working for us and FARC did not think we were creating jobs, they only saw that kidnapping someone from our family they can get some money. FARC are systematic attacking productive infrastructure and that is really the reason because people on the country are poor. Do anyone thinks that using violence, drug dealing and kidnaping a country will reach social and economic development?
PJ Allen,
06-09-2007
- U.S.A.
Oh, dear. Being a communist revolutionary is squalid, and communists are hypocrites, corrupt, and incapable of objectivity: the scales have fallen from my eyes. Well, write your commissar all about it,Tanja, darling. [Comrade Tanja, to make an omelette, a few eggs have to be broken. Yours. The joke is on you, babe.]
Marc,
05-09-2007
- South Africa
What is a lovely young Dutch babe like Tanja Nijmeijer doing rotting away in the Colombian jungle? Well, it all starts at university when impressionable students start getting silly ideas about how they can make a difference in some far-flung dustbowl on the other side of the planet. The unfettered liberty of higher learning, it seems, is too much for some and they fall prey to inverted reason, self-loathing and a strict diet of Marxist dogma.
Before they know it they are winging their way across to any of a long list of best-avoided locations, at their own expense of course. Soon they discover that in return for the occasional bowl of gruel and the strange bondage of isolation blended with a “cause”, they are nothing but the commandant’s mattress. Nothing new, but in this case I hope Tanja makes the most of it with a decent book and documentary contract, because otherwise four years is a lot of wasted time.
Carol,
05-09-2007
- Colombia
Well, is still someone who thinks the FARC and ELN are not terrorists? Are you people still going to support these murderers by selling t-shirts and giving them money? They don't have any arguments or ideology. Please, don't support them, they are killing, kidnapping, raping, selling drugs, extorting our countrymen, our kids, our good people. Please, support all the good Colombian people, we are more than them. Thanks.
karl,
05-09-2007
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The worst conflict in the humanity history is led by the FARC in Colombia, the assassinations in last years are hundreds of thousands (more than Vietnam war), the kidnapping and drug business are the most important incomings for this terrorist group. They move hundreds of millions dollars per year, they have no ideals, only money ambitions, they wash the European young people brains with social ideals and fake promeses of a change for an entire country, but now you can see the reality... Don't let your sons or friends go to Colombia to support this conflict, they will be killed and returned in a plastic bag. Colombia is a pretty lady and FARC is a deadly cancer inside her.
