The Marxist-Leninist League of Colombia
In 1977, the Chinese press began to report activities of the Marxist-Leninist League of Colombia, which was publishing a periodical, Nueva Democracia. That organization sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Chinese party acclaiming the holding of the 11th CCP National Congress, and congratulating Hua Kuofeng on being elected Chairman of the CCP Central Committee.[295]
The League also sent a letter to the Chinese Central Committee in September 1977, commemorating the first anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death. It said, “Please accept the feeling of deep revolutionary memory cherished by the National Direction of the Marxist-Leninist League of Colombia and its cadres and militants for Chairman Mao Tse-tung, a great teacher of the proletariat and the peoples, on the occasion of the first anniversary of his passing. On the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of Chairman Mao Tse-tung we incline our combat banner with deep emotion and grief to honor his memory, resolve to march forward forever in the light of his brilliant thought, and are determined to study his wise teachings and apply them to our revolution.”[296]
Arturo Acero was referred to by the Chinese press as the Political Secretary of the Marxist-Leninist League of Colombia. Daniel Premo suggested that Acero’s organization was in fact the Partido Comunista de Colombia-Marxista-Leninista) under another name.[297] However, this seems unlikely, since the League sent a message of congratulations to Hua Kuo-feng on becoming Mao’s successor and on the defeat of the Gang of Four,[298] whereas the PCC-ML was reported as labeling the Three Worlds Theory as “revisionist,” and siding with the Albanians against the Chinese.[299]
The Popular Liberation Army
In its July 1965 congress, the Partido Comunista de Colombia-Marxista-Leninista announced its intention to launch a guerrilla war. Establishment of “at least two new guerrilla forces” was described as its “most important task.”[300]
This primary emphasis on guerrilla war as the road to power contrasted sharply with the position of the pro-Moscow party. It also had guerrillas in the field, but did not put primary emphasis on them. In February 1970, a leader of the pro-Moscow party, José Cardona Hoyos, wrote that although the PCC thought “the armed path the most probable for the development of the revolution in Colombia… the principal form of struggle in Colombia was the peaceful one.” He added, “Of course, if the armed struggle becomes the principal form of struggle, becomes widespread and gains the broad and decisive support of the people, it will become the principal form of struggle throughout the country.”[301] However, that was clearly not considered to be the case in 1970.
It was not until June 1967 that the Maoists began their guerrilla activities. They labeled their military organization the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación; EPL). In October 1968, it was described in the U.S. Maoist publication DeSafío as being “composed of peasants and workers: and it is the armed branch of the Communist Party of Colombia (M-L).”
This article went on to say that “the components of the EPL, which is under the direction of the Party, know the countryside like the palm of their hand. This has permitted them already to obtain great victories and defeat the government garrisons and the patrols sent out to annihilate them.”
The article claimed, “In the face of the rude blows suffered at the hands of the popular forces of workers and peasants guided by the luminous thought of Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the puppet army punishes the peasant masses of neighboring regions, establishing concentration camps, where hundreds of girls, boys, old people, women and unwary peasants are subject to famine and outrages. … These outrages of the government, far from cowing the people, only serve to elevate the combativeness of the Popular Army of Liberation (EPL) and the Revolutionary Peasant Militia.”
This article ended by saying that a statement of the EPL, signed by its political commissar, Pedro Vázquez Rendón, and its military commander, Francisco Caraballo, “reports that it toasts the success achieved by the Colombian people and all the exploited and oppressed peoples of the world, as well as our brothers of the already liberated countries like China and Albania.”
This same statement clearly condemned the Castroite guerrillas who were also in the field by that time. It said, “This struggle is not being carried on by a simple guerrilla group—as are various others—headed by some intellectuals who hardly know the countryside; who pretend to occupy a ‘neutral’ position between the alliance of popular forces and the alliance of antipopular forces; ‘and who think that the ideological dispute is a debate about the sex of angels.’”[302]
The EPL was operating in the Alto San Jorge region, “which covers the departments of Antioquia and Cordoba, near the Caribbean Sea.”[303]
In September 1968, The New York Maoist newspaper Desafío reported an example of the EPL guerrilla war in terms reminiscent of operations of Chinese Red guerrillas in the 1930s. It said, “On April 23, guerrilla fighters of that section attacked three large haciendas. The proprietors of those haciendas, in collaboration with the government and reactionary and pro-Yankee troops, had converted the haciendas into centers of operations for oppression of the popular armed struggle. The guerrillas executed various counterrevolutionaries guilty of bloody crimes, captured a large quantity of arms, and distributed the haciendas among the poor peasants. At the same time a unit of the same sector carried out an ambush of another unit of the army on the way to the haciendas. The commander of that unit was killed.”[304]
The EPL suffered severe setbacks in the early 1970s. Daniel Premo reported in 1973 that “the EPL has not fully recovered from the loss of its principal leaders who were killed in a clash with the government troops in December 1971. Colombian army units continued to inflict heavy casualties on the EPL in 1972, and reportedly captured two of the movement’s founders. … At the end of the year surviving units of the EPL were operating principally in Antioquia Department.”[305]
In 1973, the EPL suffered further setbacks. In February, one of its principal leaders, Luis David Manco, was killed in a clash with the army. In September, the Colombian army claimed that “the EPL has for all practical purposes been eliminated… fewer than 20 members are believed to remain. … The surviving guerrilla unit is led by Francisco Caraballo. Its activities have been confined to a small area near the Córdoba-Antioquia border.”[306] Colombian President Misael Pastrana Borrero declared early in November that the EPL had been “exterminated.”[307]
However, these announcements of the extinction of the EPL were clearly premature. In April 1975, it was reported to be operating in the department of Santander del Sur.[308] In the following year, “one attack on a town in Córdoba was attributed to members of the EPL,” and the EPL was said to have engaged in “various terrorist attacks,” and to have engaged in a number of “rural attacks and kidnappings” in 1977.[309]
However, according to Daniel L. Premo, writing in 1979, although “The basic form of struggle adopted and approved by the PCC-ML is rural guerrilla warfare, peasant indoctrination, and the creation of a popular liberation army that will eventually achieve revolutionary victory. … the EPL has limited its operations largely to urban areas since 1975, although several rural attacks and kidnappings were attributed to the group in 1978.”[310]
297
Daniel Premo, in
306
Daniel Premo, in