Word: farce
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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They are beginning to sound like an organized criminal enterprise that happens to have some echoes of a revolution - like FARC in Colombia or Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers. Right. We often compare the war in Afghanistan to the war in Iraq, and in my opinion, it much more closely parallels the war in Colombia and the transformation of the FARC from a Maoist group into a criminal smuggling organization that came to control a Switzerland-size chunk of Colombia. [Many] of the Taliban commanders have lost their ideological roots and are really just in it to make a buck...
...These questions are complex and echo in many places around the globe where non-state actors control territory: with the Zapatistas in Mexico, the FARC in Colombia, and the Maoists in Nepal. Although the groups may be condemned terrorists, there comes a point when one wonders whether adopting absolutist “us vs. them” rhetoric is worth...
...that when he was 12 years old, paramilitary soldiers murdered his mother and brother. (His name and those of other former guerrillas have been changed to protect their identity.) "I felt a lot of anger, like revenge," he remembers. He signed up with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's biggest guerrilla group, and within a few years was ordering deadly attacks of his own--including the kidnapping and murder of 13 politicians. "I killed a lot of people, but here I am," he says. Now 17, Humberto is studying confectionery and will soon enter the 10th...
...decision made lightly: such disloyalty can often mean a death sentence for former guerrillas or their families. In the midst of a workshop, William, 14, leaves the room to take a phone call from his mother. He returns, distracted, biting his nails. His mother is now on FARC's hit list. "If I didn't demobilize, this wouldn't be happening to my mom," he says, looking down. "I don't know what to do. I love my mother very much." Despite the danger, many do leave, disillusioned by the lack of pay and traumatized by the constant danger...
Maggie Mauer, a Miami psychologist volunteering her expertise in trauma, points to a drawing of a body lying in a pool of blood as a good sign. "Last year, he wouldn't even draw anything," she says of the artist, Alejandro, who was drugged and raped by his FARC commander. Alejandro is able to talk about it now but says, "What happened to me, you can't make go away." Next to a drawing of an explosive, he sketches the school bus he now boards every day, and he works on penciling the road to the future. Alejandro dreams...