 "Photo: Dustin Winegar")
Millions of Colombians marched worldwide on Thursday, Feb. 4 showing their disapproval against the guerrilla group FARC and their terrorist tactics. The group is known for kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and coercion used to finance arms and their four decades of conflict with the government and paramilitary groups.
Among those millions, Baruch College's club Por Colombia joined in on the march in New York City. The organization, whose acronym translates to Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is a Marxist-Leninist group, although it is considered a terrorist group by more than 30 countries. The demonstration is considered the largest civil display against FARC in Colombia's history.
Messages of support were heard from five continents and cities like New York, London, Madrid and Tokyo held marches. Thanks to social networking, Colombians also demonstrated in places as remote as the Kurdistan region in Iraq, the Red Sea in Egypt and the Chilean Patagonia region.
In New York City, the march was held in front of the United Nations building at 42nd Street and First Ave. Early Monday morning, Por Colombia members Angie Van Den Berghe, John Moreno and Jeffrey Navarro joined 5,000 others to march for the cause. According to the Baruch website, Por Colombia is an organization whose goal is to "provide students with the means and the support to act on personal initiatives and accomplish specific goals focused on Colombia."
Marchers wore white t-shirts with the slogan "I am Colombia" and "No More Kidnapping! No More Lies! No More Murder! No More FARC!"
"We protested in an orderly fashion, Colombians from the tri-state area attended the rally to send a loud message to the FARC that we're not going to tolerate their terrorist activities anymore," added Dr. Claudia Cujar, medical researcher at Columbia University and director of the march.
Organizers used vacation time, sick days, weekends and long nights preparing the demonstration. Supporters even came from Connecticut and Pennsylvania, taking a day off from work. "Colombians showed that we can organize and work together towards a peaceful country," added Navarro.
Social networking played a vital role; organizers used Facebook to communicate logistics and maintained forums about marketing and promotion ideas. "Un millon de voces contra las FARC" (A million voices against FARC) grew to 277,000 members in less than two months.
"Facebook was an invaluable tool for us to coordinate all aspects of the march, but none of these [would] be possible without the tenacity and compromise from Angie, John and Jeffrey from Baruch College," says Cujar. "They worked with fortitude and charisma, they care about hostages and their long captivity, their families and the future of Colombia," he says.
Besides Facebook, the group printed 25,000 posters and 50,000 postcards that were distributed in restaurants, parks and in front of churches. A party bus was also rented to go around nightclubs and spread the word, according to Luz Carreño, the logistics coordinator of the march.
But criticism was drawn from some victim's families who disapproved of the march because of fear of retaliation from their captors. Some opposition members and scholars argued that the message of the protest was too narrow. In an article published by opendemocracy.org, journalist Catalina Holguín argues that the simplicity of the march's message presents a distorted view of the complexity of the Colombian armed conflict.
The FARC, government, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitary group AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) have been key players in the Colombian conflict for the last four decades. It has spilled over its borders, provoking tensions with Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has improved the internal security situation that keeps his approval ratings above 80 percent, according to independent polls. But he has failed so far to disarm the FARC or to reach a peace accord that guarantees the safe release of all the hostages.
Here in NYC, the march's organizers are evaluating their experience using feedback coming in via Facebook. " We didn't feel comfortable to sit there and do nothing when hostages have nothing but hope," said Navarro.
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