Jacobo Arenas

Infobox Military Person
name = Luis Morantes
born = birth date|1917|1|1
died = death date and age|1990|10|10|1917|1|1


caption =Jacobo Arenas in Casa Verde, town of La Uribe, Colombia 1984.
nickname = Jacobo Arenas
serviceyears = 1964-1990
rank = Founder and Ideological Leader of FARC-EP
branch = Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
commands =
battles = Colombian armed conflict

Jacobo Arenas "nom de guerre" of Luis Morantes (1917 or 1918 died August 10, 1990) was a Colombian guerrilla founder and ideological leader of the FARC ("Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia" FARC). He was also one of the FARC figures involved in the organization and creation of the Patriotic Union political party in 1985. He was fluent in several languagesFact|date=March 2008 other than his native Spanish, including English and Russian.

Jacobo Arenas spent most of his life involving himself in the activities of Marxist revolution in Colombia since the 1960s. During this time, he mostly lived in the mountains, jungles and remote villages. Arenas sometimes had to hide from those who wanted to capture him, including Colombian security forces, the CIA (which Arenas believed responsible for numerous alleged plots against him)Fact|date=September 2007 and eventually paramilitary fighters as well. Arenas is thought to have followed the example of Che Guevara, who changed his way of life when he saw that the people of Latin America were facing hardships during a regionwide motorcycle trip (partially included in the film "Diarios de Motocicleta" - The Motorcycle Diaries) when he was a senior year medical student. Jacobo Arenas admired Che Guevara and started his life as a revolutionary due to similar realizations, first through his experiences in the Colombian Communist Party (PCC) and finally in the FARC.

Arenas is credited for helping to lay the foundation for the FARC's organizational structure and promoting its later development into what is usually considered as one of the strongest and longest lasting Marxist guerrilla movements in the world. To implement the policy of "standing steadily", he taught them in several areas, such as Anthropology, international military law and counter techniques for any changing situation.Fact|date=September 2007

Initial activities in Marquetalia

Political influence

Arenas was sent by the Communist Party (PCC) as a political activist in order to help organize existing self-defense and guerrilla units in a rural enclave known as Marquetalia, peasant-based groups that had originated during "La Violencia" (1948–1958), when the Communists developed organic links to several Liberal guerrilla and irregular rural forces, most of whom nominally depended on the official Liberal Party and eventually demobilized by the end of that period.

Those groups with more direct relations with the PCC tended to not demobilize, keeping their weapons and organizational structures mostly intact.

Most of the original members of these armed groups did not have a formal ideological background beyond vague political affiliations, but they were motivated to use guerrilla-style fighting techniques both as a mechanism of defense and to conduct raids against their enemies when possible. As such, the Conservative Party and in general the nation's central government didn't think that most of these groups represented a real threat, beyond being mere "bandits" with little or no long-lasting political motivation.

The Communist Party interpreted this situation as a potential for future growth, and found ways to foment, influence and infiltrate existing peasant groups, including those in the Marquetalia area, in order to reorganize their struggle with a more specific political direction.

Ideologue of FARC

After his arrival, Arenas soon met Manuel Marulanda, who had once been a young Liberal peasant leader among his relatives after 1948 but later increasingly embraced Communist influences, and eventually they both became the two top leaders of the FARC, after the fall of the so-called "Marquetalia Republic" in May 1964 during a massive Colombian Army offensive.

To later observers, Marquetalia had thus been the place where FARC's so-called "heart and mind" combined together, in particular Manuel Marulanda and Jacobo Arenas. Throughout the rest of the history of the FARC, these two leaders were in charge of increasing FARC's strength from time to time for more than 25 years, until Arena's natural death in August 1990.

Memories of Marquetalia diary

Jacobo Arenas later wrote a book called "Diario de la resistencia de Marquetalia" ("Diary of Marquetalia's resistance") in 1972. The book includes a chronicle of the events of the fight between the guerrilla fighters and the soldiers of the Colombian army brigade.

Diary contents

In the diary, Arenas describes the geographical location and the natural beauty of the Marquetalia area with many details, giving the reader a detailed mental picture of the area, made up of 800 square km in the Andean mountainous region, at around convert|6000|ft|m above sea level and monsoon precipitation. In particular, one of the snowed mountains in the Huila Department is more than convert|12000|ft|m high; Nevado del Huila.

The diary puts the guerrilla and peasant struggle in Marquetalia in context, happening six years after the triumph of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which filled the minds of many worldwide with revolutionary fervor. While the events in Cuba absorbed most of the world's and the region's attention, information about the events in Marquetalia and their aftermath later began to be of great interest throughout these sectors in all of Latin America.

The diary highlights some of the inner workings of Marquetalia as a sort of improvised "commune" or small socialist society, where not only the peasant fighters and Communist Party ideologues were present, but also several members of their families and some of their friends, who worked together as a community for both common socioeconomic and military/defense purposes.

Arenas describes the military operations against Marquetalia in May 1964 as part of an United States initiative called Plan LASO (Latin American Security Operation), allegedly meant to suppress dissent and possible communist rebellions that might spring up in the entire region. In Colombia, Arenas claims that the offensive against Marquetalia was designed with assistance from the Pentagon and believes that some 16,000 Colombian Army troops, with the support of military helicopters and airplanes, took part in the operation (term used in the book is: 16,000 "Bloodhounds" commanded by the Pentagon "Hawks"). The number of peasant communist fighters was thought to be much smaller, but allegedly a previous CIA intelligence report argued that it could reach as many as 2000, though other estimates and claims have since differed.

Arenas narrates how since the application of the Plan LASO in Colombia, the scattered fighters soon gathered to give birth to the FARC, after the former Marquetalia fighters of Marquetalia hid in jungles and remote villages throughout Colombia, organizing to fight a long-lasting war by using guerilla warfare techniques in order to someday seize power.

Life in FARC

Guerrilla organization

As an intellectual cadre, Arenas organized a large scale educational program intended to educate the early FARC guerilla fighters, as most came from low income peasant families with limited previous educational background. He had studied Marxist-Leninist theory and with extensive knowledge of Communism he was able to improve the organic structure of the guerrilla group in order to better suit a revolutionary movement.

In jungle and rural areas under guerrilla influence, Arenas was able to organize schools to educate both local inhabitants and guerrilla members in ideological and practical matters. At the time, he considered that most Communist movements in the world did not teach the ideology to their members properly, and thus did not deeply study books such as "Das Kapital" ("The Capital", often known as the "Bible of Communism") and other works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. These schools had their own teaching methods and in some respects the more developed courses could theoretically approach college levels in certain specific areas of knowledge.

According to some FARC opinions and unofficial outside estimatesWho|date=September 2007, it is believed that, as a consequence of the schools originally organized by Arenas, the level of ideological education within the FARC's leadership and the more veteran guerrillas could allegedly be perhaps of almost a very high standard, comparable to that of other Communist organizations in the world.Fact|date=September 2007

The symbol in the center of the FARC-EP flag is a book and two rifles in the middle of a map of Colombia, which transmits the message "learn and fight for Colombia", as a sign of the importance ideological education has for the FARC-EP.

It has been speculated that it could surpass the level of Cuban ideological education, though no specific comparisons nor structured academic analyses have been conducted in order to prove or disprove this.

Female fighters

Jacobo Arenas understood the problems relating to the women in Colombia as well as in Latin America, where socio-economic and educational deficiencies exist, such as the issue of relatively limited coverage of available programs for free primary education and the generally expensive and restricted nature of higher education.

As a result, many poor women have to face hardships, including getting involved in prostitution at an early age in brothels in order to find money to finance their education and overall living cost, thus "child prostitution" is a serious problem throughout Latin America. Some analysts consider that it is also usual for some women to react to this situation by seeking to find the means to counter existing machismo in their country's culture and social organization.

In Colombia, it is said that one of the available responses throughout Arenas' time as FARC leader was for poor rural women to join FARC either independently or through their relatives. Sometimes similar behavior and recruitment patterns also occurred around leftwing movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba and Peru, as well as during the Chinese revolution and during the Soviet (USSR) participation in World War II.

Arenas introduced a manner of social system for women in FARC, that would allow most of them to maintain a family life while in the group with a degree of access to both external and internal child education systems, in order to suit the culture of their future Communist style state. There are also some rules for women guerrillas that are meant to keep their potential role as mothers and their love affairs from interfering with the groups's activities.

Results have apparently been mixed, as human rights analysts such as Human Rights Watch argue that the participation of women in FARC and other armed groups has also resulted in noticeable reports of physical and mental abuse from all parties (enemies, comrades and superiors) while in such structures.

It is known that a sizable number of FARC guerrillas are female (it is unofficially estimated by some sources that they could make up a third of the group), originally very small but increasing gradually after the fall of Marquetalia.

The establishment of FARC families throughout areas under guerrilla influence following the instructions of Jacobo Arenas has been considered to be similar to the so-called "Iron Triangle" in Vietnam, where thousands of "Viet Cong" families lived in a secret underground tunnel system for more than a decade as a safety measure to protect themselves from chemicals such as Agent Orange and from generalized bombing in many jungle areas. This is considered to reflect an aspect of Communist theory, due to a statement of Karl Marx which stated that the "Baby of the new society, pregnant in the mother of old society".

Influence of the Cuban Revolution and Che Guevara

The 1959 triumph of the Cuban revolution, greatly influenced revolutionaries in Latin America and all over the world. This had been among the influences of the Colombian Communist Party's strategy of sending promising Party cadres such as Luis Morantes to organise the Liberal and Communist peasants in its areas of influence, in a manner akin to how Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Ernesto Guevara ("Che" Guevara) helped organize Cuban revolutionaries.

After the fall of Marquetalia and the formation of the FARC in 1964, the ideas of Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution influenced Jacobo Arenas in his work as the ideological leader of the group. The death of Che Guevara in October 1967 was interpreted by the FARC as a display of revolutionary sacrifice, one that was held as an example by Jacobo Arenas and other guerrilla ideological figures.

Guevara's ideas came to be held as the correct revolutionary path in Latin America by Jacobo Arenas and his FARC comrades. Guevara's written works, such as "Guerilla Warfare", "Message to the Tri-continental" and the "Bolivian Diary" were closely studied and appreciated by Colombian guerillas and are usually still kept as handbooks. Photos or images of Che Guevara, as well as political propaganda slogans such as "Che, the hero of Latin America", are prominent among FARC ideological teaching schools and media offices inside and outside Colombia, sometimes to a greater extent than those of other Communist leaders and theoreticians.

eventh Guerrilla Conference

Arenas is credited with allegedly being the main figure behind the FARC's 1982 Seventh Guerrilla Conference and a contemporary "Strategic Plan", which would have outlined a series of goals and steps that would organize the FARC into an "Army of the People" (the initials "EP", Ejército del Pueblo, were adopted during this Conference) capable of potentially seizing power sometime in the 1990s, explicitly combining both the illegal and legal forms of struggle (organically implementing a traditional Marxist and Communist strategy termed "the combination of all forms of struggle"), as well as the political and the military aspects of their group.

Influence of Arenas in the FARC-EP belligerence

Many U.S. and other military experts argueWho|date=September 2007 that Manuel Marulanda, as a veteran guerilla fighter and as an excellent commander for four decades, heads perhaps the most capable and dangerous Marxist guerilla organization in the world. Marulanda is very often referred to as "Sureshot" ("Tirofijo"), because of a reputation for using firearms very accurately during his earlier years as an insurgent. For some of those analysts,Who|date=September 2007 an allegedly problematic aspect in Marulanda's profile concerns the fact that he has limited educational background, due to the poor economic conditions that his family and many others had to face when growing up in rural Colombia. Jacobo Arenas, in contrast had a political and ideological education as a communist intellectual, thus it is believed that he realized that FARC's initial status was not up to the necessary standards needed to properly fight a Colombian Army that could count on the aid of the United States from time to time.

This was possible since, after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the United States increased its military influence throughout the region through the activities of the U.S. Southern Command, an organization tasked with overseeing and handling military affairs in Latin America. U.S. Special Forces, such as the Green Berets, specifically trained to fight in Latin America jungles for counterinsurgency operations. Additionally, the widespread Spanish language was also taught to many members of U.S. forces in the region. From the perspective of Arenas, the challenge of having to potentially face a military with the highest standards in the world made upgrading FARC's own military capabilities a necessity.

The role of Jacobo Arenas in FARC's military reorganization was significant. After the Seventh Guerilla Conference in 1982, Arenas started to work toward the goal of turning the FARC from a guerrilla organization to a rebel army (the "People's Army"). According to his instructions, FARC added ranks and badges to many of its uniforms, as well as introducing a new inventory system for firearms and ammunition, in addition to providing new weapons and technology for FARC militants. In theory, a properly organized and trained guerrilla army would thus meet the international requirements for the recognition of a "state of belligerence", contained within the Geneva Conventions of August 12 1949 and its additional protocols.

Some of the reforms implemented by Arenas were later published and transmitted to the media, as follows:

Area: The military operations has to be carried out only within the territory of Colombia, there are no such military activities outside the Colombian borders.

;FARC regulations:

# The Statute - formulates the ideological foundations of the FARC-EP; it defines its organic structure, the regime of command, the obligations and rights of the combatants and the basic principles of the revolutionary organization.
# The regulations of the disciplinary regime - deals with essential matters of military order.
# The internal rules of command - deals with the usual daily practices of the different units of the FARC-EP.

;FARC structure:

# Squad: the basic unit consisting of 12 combatants.
# Guerilla: consists of two squads.
# Company (Compañía) : consists of two guerrillas.
# Column: consists of two or more companies.
# Front: consists of more than one column.
# The Central High Command (Estado Mayor Central) designates the highest command of each front.
# Block of Fronts: consists of five or more fronts. It co-ordinates and unifies the activity of the fronts in a specific zone of the country.
# The Central High Command or its secretariat designates the High Command of each Block. They co-ordinate the areas of the respective blocks.
# The Central High Command (Estado Mayor Central) is the superior organism of direction and command of the FARC-EP. Its agreements, orders and decisions rule over the entire movements and all its members.

The significance of the work done by Arenas to upgrade the FARC's military organizational standards has had important consequences to date. For example, analysts argueWho|date=September 2007 that this is reflected by the factFact} that the U.S., through Plan Colombia a total of nearly 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in counternarcotics and counterinsurgency aid to Colombia. In addition, in late 2004 the U.S. increased its military advisor and civilian contractor caps to 800 and 600, respectively. The U.S. military has trained around 10,000 Colombian Army and Police in order for them to better face the FARC. The FARC's new military offensive started in February 2005, executed in the southwest of the country after previously reducing or halting many of its other attacks due to the U.S. sponsored 2004 Plan Patriota, led to a series of tactical defeats for the Colombian Army and Police, though analysts have also pointed out that these were not of the scale of previous FARC operations between 1996 and 1998.

tudy of anthropology

An important subject that Jacobo Arenas taught to the FARC cadres was Anthropology, which intended to give them a suitable attitude for the "future socialist state of Colombia and the Communist world, which Karl Marx described is not a dream, it will become true one day". Anthropology was taught in lower to roughly equivalent to college level grades in FARC schools in different forms. Most of the guerillas study in lower level grades which taught this subject in a summarised form, but in the higher grades the teachings are very in depth.

This subject has been historically taught in United States and United Kingdom universities, sometimes divided into four fields, such as physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology and archaeology. Jacobo Arenas intended to combine all the fields of study and also apply Marxist dialectical theory to it. Arenas also added to the FARC's anthropology courses an additional emphasis on the study of Colombian indigenous communities of the Cauca department (some of them partially related to the Inca civilization, whose northernmost limit was near the southwest of Colombia). Marquetalia, where Arenas was involved in what was termed a "Project of Socialism", was located around the Tolima department, close to parts of Cauca. It is believe that his thoughts on the matter still echo within the FARC, and thus a number of its members would still believe that socialism is not a dream but will be future of mankind. This belief is thought to give them more strength to continue their life as a Marxist revolutionary in remote Andean jungles and valleys.

The study of anthropology, as Arenas taught, started with the study of civilizations. Karl Marx "believed that the beginning of the civilization was the beginning of the oppression", by analyzing early communist societies. Significant early civilizations include the Maya and Inca in America, in addition to others in Africa and the Middle-east such as the Mesopotamian and Babylonian civilization, as well as Europe's Western civilization from Athens (Greece), the Asia Indus Valley and China Howangho civilizations. Jacobo Arenas found an easy way to meet the goals of his study by analyzing the Incan civilization because of its famous archaeological site Machu Picchu in the Andean mountains of Peru. The famous Inca leader Tupac Amaru, from a Marxist interpretation, is thought to have showed the way to fight against oppression. Modern Latin American society has acquired massive influences from the Athens based Western civilization, but increasingly minoritary segments of the Latin America population still have strong indigenous roots dating to the archaeological heritage of the Inca and Maya civilizations and their communities.

Arenas taught his students about the "evolution of man" in a Marxist perspective, supported by the theories of Charles Darwin. This is seen as very important in teaching communist ideology, because the theory of evolution can lead to conclude that the progression of humanity from primitive to modern status is similar to progression of society from early communism to feudalism, feudalism to capitalism, capitalism to socialism, and socialism to communism. The famous Soviet scientist Nesthurrh wrote a book called "Evolution of Man" including how all those theories apply to Marxism, giving what can be considered as a clear picture of the scientific background of communism.

Jacobo Arenas taught the FARC cadres there is a burden for them to protect all the archaeological things in Latin America, because they tell about human history with real life examples. He taught them not to be mislead with the idea that socialism is outdated and invalid for the modern world, because it could be explained that the study of human anthropology could scientifically prove that one day socialism will happen. Arenas once said that he believed that the CIA and The Pentagon were placing an image of them (the FARC cadres and communists at large) in the people's mind. As the CIA and the Pentagon, from the perspective of Arenas, represent the world's most powerful forces, no one can defeat them, but Arenas believed that they don't know that they are representing an old society of capitalism, and thus they do not have enough strength to stop the future development of society. He further said that the comrade Che Guevara sacrificed his life because he wanted the other people of world liberated quickly and that those he considered as the backward thinkers (CIA and The Pentagon) of society were responsible for destroying him, and this was a very good lesson for the FARC to be more patient and cautious; Arenas believed that it is not necessary to hurry for the revolution, because according to clear scientific theories, the "twenty first century man" would live in a "Communist world".

Arenas on finances of FARC

When the FARC began operations after May 1964 as a small guerrilla group it initially did not have significant financial problems, in particular because of their small size and the easy availability of the few needed food rations from allied villagers or their rural surroundings. Some additional help was also received through donations channeled through the Colombian Communist Party. Many early supplies were also acquired through individual clandestine sales, small scale extortions and after successful guerrilla ambushes and raids. After its numbers increased, just as the capabilities and training of the Colombian Army increased through United States training and military aid, the FARC needed to find more money to buy weapons and specialized equipment such as communication systems to face its enemies.

Jacobo Arenas played an important role in key FARC financial matters at this point. He considered the example of North Korea as particularly useful. Kim Il Sung had participated in the Korean resistance against the Japanese Empire in the early 1920s, eventually managing to overcome them in 1945. Kim Il Sung thus established a socialist state of North Korea, which to several Western analysts was a sort of "Secret State" or "Stalinist State". The term "secret state" was introduced as a way of describing that North Korea's economy and military build-up was mostly done by its own strength with relatively limited help from outside (coming from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, for example). This would mean that North Korea's survival throughout the Cold War demonstrated that a policy of "standing on its own feet" was the only way to adapt to changing situations in the outside world.

Arenas appreciated this policy and formally introduced it to the FARC. The FARC did receive some token aid from the Soviet Union, though it did not overly depend on it. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many guerilla organisations like FMLN in El Salvador and socialist countries like Cuba were considerably weakened due to the lack of Soviet foreign aid. The FARC, however, did not suffer any significant loss at the time and in fact was able to buy newer weapons and to increase its recruitment rate. It is considered that this was due to the policies previously implemented by Jacobo Arenas, though his 1990 death prevented him from witnessing later developments: The FARC's so-called "standing steadily" policy is attributed to Arenas and as such is greatly appreciated by its cadres, supporters and sympathisers inside and outside of Colombia.

During the 1982 Seventh Guerrilla Conference, the FARC had formally codified the need to continue its preexisting practice of gaining funds from the establishment of "revolutionary taxes", in particular those now levied upon the growing drug business in its areas of influence, but also affecting other economic sectors. Those that did not pay the required "taxes" were subject to extortions and kidnappings. The situation created increasing conflicts with local druglords and large landowners, which then decided to respond to FARC extortions by heavily financing paramilitary groups and strengthening their own private armies of mafia hitmen.

After the death of Jacobo Arenas in August 1990, FARC has increasingly been blamed for a greater degree of involvement in drug trafficking and for generalized kidnappings in order to raise its funds. The FARC's official position regarding the drug business, once communicated by FARC spokesman "Raúl Reyes" to a reporter, is that "we don't want drugs to be here, but there are no other ways to find living expenses for the peasants in some regions of Colombia". That being the case, FARC believes that, while the drug business continues to exist, it can take advantage of such an economic activity (through the implementation of "taxes" and "vaccines" in its areas of influence and control) in order to finance itself.

As a form of response to some of those criticisms, in 2004 and 2005, FARC and its sympathizers have tended to mention the arrest of several U.S. army men in Colombia, accused of involvement in drug trafficking (using U.S. military cargo flights) and the supplying arms and ammunition to paramilitary groups.

Role in the Patriotic Union

Forming a political wing

Within the terms of a 1984 declaration of ceasefire with the Belisario Betancur government, the FARC officially formed the Patriotic Union (UP) in 1985. This political party was originally inspired and unofficially led by Manuel Marulanda's longtime friend and then FARC's second-in-command, Jacobo Arenas, who was also initially expected to run as the UP's presidential candidate for the 1986 presidential race, while an active key member of the FARC.Fact|date=September 2007

The UP was considered as a legal political vehicle for the FARC; the UP would at first exist more independently and the FARC would remain armed (though still under a cease-fire), but theoretically the FARC would eventually use the UP to demobilize and promote its ideas within a democratic framework.Fact|date=September 2007

Decline and collapse of UP activities

The situation was complex and full of tension between both sides. The FARC was accused of continuing to execute a reduced number of armed operations, promoting recruitment of armed fighters, as well as being involved in extensive kidnappings during the ceasefire, which created tension during the ongoing negotiations. Arenas and the FARC claimed that most of such armed operations were in response to Army activities and perceived provocations.

Arenas officially resigned his possible UP presidential candidacy after the series of events that followed the 19th of April Movement's November 1985 takeover of the Colombian Palace of Justice (a building which then housed the Colombian Supreme Court). Months after this, the UP was increasingly becoming a victim of violence from both druglords, paramilitaries and members of the state's security forces, racking up between 2000 to 3000 members dead, eventually two Presidential candidates of UP also among them (Jaime Pardo in 1987 and Bernardo Jaramillo in 1990).

By 1987, most of the few FARC members directly involved in the UP were gradually separating themselves from the party, which continued operating on its own roughly until the mid-1990s, but now much diminished in numbers and in importance.

Jacobo Arenas continued to be an active and influential figure in the FARC until his natural death in August 1990.

Criticism of the "Threat of Imperialism"

Throughout the life of Jacobo Arenas, before and after the formation of the FARC, he considered matters of high importance, including what Marxists usually call the "imperialist threat" that the United States of America allegedly represents to Latin America, in several ways. The major aspect of the threat would be the "economic Threat". According to the view of Arenas and others, as multinational investors from the United States began to take over local businesses, they initially gained some profits and benefits, but through them they later gradually increased their economic influence in a region located very close to the United States. Arenas stated that the United States has achieved the gaining of political influence in Latin America through its economic policies, which permits it to better control the regional economy.

Examples of this includes infrastructure developments in the transportation sector, which allowed for the easy exchange of raw materials and finished goods. Arenas indicated that the construction of the Panama Canal and the Pan American Highway system a continuous roadway running the full 25,800km (16,000 mi) from Alaska to the bottom of Chile (which runs over Cauca department very close to Marquetalia), as the major infrastructure development projects in the region, had the purpose of transferring wealth to the United States. He also stated that the Arauca and Putumayo departments in Colombia are extremely prone to attracting the influence of the United States, because these two departments are very rich in natural resources like oil, natural gas and coal. Arenas invited all "progressive" Latin Americans to come forward and protect their economic wealth, using it for the benefit of their own economies and the prosperity of their own people.

Jacobo Arenas frequently quoted the theories of V.I. Lenin's book "", which discusses imperialism. Arenas defended the Leninist theory which claims that capitalism is using its power of capital beyond the limits of a single territory, in Latin America and the world. He also used to quote the theories from "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith (the so-called "father of Capitalism") in 1776 at the beginning of the "Industrial Revolution", which according to many marxists analysts explains how to apply imperialist theories to gain the wealth produced by others.

Just before the death of Jacobo Arenas in August 1990, he also interpreted quotes from a speech made by former US President Reagan, to the effect that Latin America was the United State's political "garden", with a few unwanted "plants" like Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Relations with the international community

An "Ideology of Solidarity"

The idea of an "ideology of solidarity" with other international communities is seen by many Marxist politicians and their supporters as one of the most important goals for a sovereign state. It is considered that Jacobo Arenas shared this idea from the beginning of his career as a communist revolutionary, partially stemming from a study of the situation of the USSR during the 1930s and 1940s, when it was practically the only communist state in existence and thus had to face a large degree of international isolation, including tensions with Germany and England in particular.

Arenas reached the conclusion that foreign relations must use different terms than those used in real life, day to day relations between individuals. The term "enemy" can be used to show a high level of policy differences between two countries, and the term "friend" to show the opposite (a low level). However, in this scenario, most of the individual citizens of two different countries wouldn't fit the previous framework of "friends" and "enemies", but rather they would simply tend to coexist in peace. Arenas would have explained this by using the following analogy: "the people of the world belong to different races, cultures, religions, with biological differences such as complexion of skin, hair and etc, height and weight, but the biological structure is same as all of them have red blood".

Jacobo Arenas believed in the idea of a foreign policy of solidarity for the future socialist state that he eventually expected that Colombia would become. In this context, friendly terms would be implemented to deal with foreign governments as well as with their people. For Arenas, "solidarity doesn't only signify an economic relationship, we must develop friendship with other people, that is the true identity of the Latin American people".

Positive relations with other countries

After the establishment of a future Colombian socialist state, Arenas considered that a very good relationship with the five neighboring countries of Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Panama should be maintained. He is said to have once stated that in spite of political and ideological differences between all these countries, as neighbors they must keep good relationships among themselves and with Colombia. Additionally, according to Arenas, if the situation of one of these countries changes in an unfavorable way (from Arenas' "a future Colombia's perspective"), in that type of situation the matter should be approached in a friendly manner. He argued that all countries in Latin America, as neighbors, share the same culture, and in a Communist World the social differences between people aren't a concern, but in the non-Communist world different attitudes develop regarding different cultures. Therefore, socialist countries like Cuba and Nicaragua (Nicaragua being socialist during Arena's later life, until 1989) would become socialist countries in the region with which a future Colombian state could build solidarity.

From such a point of view, in Africa, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Europe also have different cultures, but the foreign policy of a Colombian socialist state would have to be friendly with them as well. For Arenas, Colombians should adopt the perspective of a "twenty-first century man", as described in Che Guevara's famous book "Man and Socialism in Cuba". Arenas appreciated the people of China very much and when he worked in what was termed as "Project Marquetalia" (as described in his "Marquetalia Diary"), he tried to implement a system similar to what the Chinese people and peasants were doing, as originally initiated by Mao Zedong.

Arenas loved what he referred to as the "peasant culture" in China and appreciated the role of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), who he believed were supporting their people's work just as he considered that the guerrillas in Marquetalia were doing the same. He taught FARC cadres to have solidarity with China in the future, for the future benefit of Colombia. He also stated that everybody in FARC should keep in mind that the workers in the Chinese manufacturing field were capable of producing from "the needle to the aircraft", as a displayment of their commitment to work for the benefit of their own country. Arenas further taught his cadres that the foundations for a manufacturing culture in China were established by Mao Zedong, and that one day they would be the leaders in the field, by supplying anything required in the world.

The idea of having solidarity with China as a way of giving more benefits to a future state is also considered to have been supported by two famous people's thoughts about China. Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, once stated that "China is like a sleeping giant, one day the will giant get up, and he will terrorize the whole world". Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom later said that "China will be the next superpower".

In Europe, Spain and Portugal, seen as the original forefathers of a significant part of Latin America's culture, and thus Arenas believed that friendly ties with them should be established. He taught FARC cadres that most of the European people have a shared mental attitude stemming from their belonging to a larger Western civilisation. He said that Europe is a very good place for cultural exchange to take place, as Europeans would tend to appreciate Latin America's culture heritage very much.

Negative relations with other countries

Jacobo Arenas believed that for the most part only the United States of America and the United Kingdom, who in his discourse are thought to be like "son and father", would have a directly unfavorable foreign policy with a future socialist Colombia. But the people of these countries are different, they are very innocent and peace loving people, yet their intelligence services like the CIA and MI5 would mislead them against socialist states in future. He clearly taught his cadres that if the governments of these countries considered a future socialist state as an enemy, that wouldn't change the fact that solidarity should be maintained with their people.

Some examples mentioned by Arenas: In August 1945 the U.S. tested two Atomic bombs in Japan killing many people, but the people of the U.S. and the UK later turned critical of such nuclear attacks. In the 1960s the U.S. military used napalm bombs in Vietnam, but the people in both countries protested against such actions by considered them as crimes. In 1983, the U.S. invasion of Grenada was also protested by the people of that country.

According to some Marxist analysts, after the death of Jacobo Arenas in August 1990, it can be argued that in recent times, the people of the U.S. and the UK also protested against the crimes executed by U.S. and UK forces stemming from the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is also mentioned that in August 20 2005, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, as presidents of Cuba and Venezuela, participated in the graduation ceremony of the Havana medical school for more than 1500 graduates from low-income families from all over the world, including United States, illustrating the idea of solidarity that Arenas proposed.

Death and aftermath

Importance to FARC

Jacobo Arenas died on August 10, 1990, possibly due to cancer, but perhaps also due to diabetes or an ulcer, or even assassinated by a vindictive comrade (according to different versions).Fact|date=February 2007 His death was considered a major blow to the FARC, as he was one of the persons responsible for transforming the FARC from a small guerilla force to a belligerent rebel army.

Arenas' son, apparently known as "Francisco Arenas", would have continued to be a member of the FARC after his father's death.

Alfonso Cano subsequently became Arenas' replacement as ideological leader of the group throughout the 1990s, and has become the new leader of the FARC-EP as of May 2008.

FARC's Jacobo Arenas Front

His son Francisco Arenas eventually would have led the "Jacobo Arenas Front" mobile column, named in honor of his father, and according to an Europa Press report, he would allegedly have died in combat with the Colombian Army in August 2004 [http://www.lukor.com/not-por/0408/03053140.htm] .

Since February 2005, the "Jacobo Arenas Front" has played a significant role in the renewed series of FARC military operations in the southwest of the country against the security forces of president Álvaro Uribe's government, coming after a period of what was considered as either a temporary halt in operations or as a necessary strategic retreat on the part of the guerrillas, in part as a response to a massive U.S. government-backed military offensive known as "Plan Patriota" taking place in the southeast of Colombia, according to different analysts.

This guerrilla unit has participated in different military activities, such as a recent attack on the municipality of Toribio in the Cauca department on 14 April 2005, where four people were killed and 23 injured, together with the displacement of many of the villagers as the fighting in the general area continued intermittently for about a month.

Impression on other revolutionaries

Jacobo Arenas was seen as a hero among other Latin American Communist revolutionaries both inside and outside Colombia. For example, the ELN commander Antonio García once stated Jacobo Arenas was a hero to him, just as he considered Simón Bolívar, José Martí and Che Guevara as heroes, in an interview with a Latin American journalist.

References

*"Diario de la resistencia de Marquetalia", Jacobo Arenas, Ediciones Abejón Mono, 1972
*"Dance of the Millions: Military Rule and the Social Revolution in Colombia : 1930-1956", Vernon L. Fluharty, ISBN 0-8371-8368-5, 1975
*"Blood and Fire: La Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia, 1946-1953", Mary Roldan, Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-2918-2, 2002
*"Human Rights Watch", “The Sixth Division: Military-Paramilitary ties and US Policy in Colombia”, September 2001. [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/index.htm]
*"Martin Hodgson, CSM, April 26, 2000 (UN Report)"

External links

* [http://www.farcep.org/ FARC-EP Official website]
* [http://www.colombiajournal.org/index.htm Colombia Journal Home]
* [http://ciponline.org/colombia/index.htm Center for International Policy - Colombia Program]