San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia April 14, 2001
Patricia (left) with her friend Ginette (right).
San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia, April 14, 2001
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The day begins at 4:30 am with a heavy program of physical exercise followed by breakfast, military drills and ceremonial raising of the Colombian flag. Throughout the day there are education workshops. The troops study political economy, the history of the FARC, radio communications, munitions and explosives. There are also tasks to perform for the camp--gathering wood and attending to gardens of plantain and vegetables.
At lunch I have a chance to talk with several of the combatants. Some joined the guerrillas after paramilitaries massacred people in their villages. Others like Patricia, a pretty twenty-year-old tells me she ran away from abuse at home.
"My mom used to beat me every day. I couldn't stand it and so when I was eleven I ran away and joined the guerrillas. At first it was very hard getting used to taking orders and carrying a heavy gun. But you grow accustomed to the rhythm of military life."
When I ask Patricia what she thinks of kids who join gangs she recalls the kids from the urban neighborhood where she once lived. "In one way you can understand the gangs because they defend their barrio. But they also harm other people. In the guerrilla we're fighting for all of Colombia not for a barrio. We're fighting for women and for children, to change society. It's true that many more people are going to die in this war. To see change you must see death. But our struggle is just. And we will fight as long as the army hides behind paramilitaries who kill the peasants."
Patricia isn't sure that peace will come in her lifetime. And she tells me that she thinks that the FARC will exist as a military force even after peace comes. When I press her about her postwar dreams and whether she wants to have children of her own someday she replies, "I want to be an example--a comandante. I would find civilian life boring. Maybe I want children someday. But I don't like being around children much. After one hug and a kiss I just feel strange like I want to get away. I don't know why."
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