Expat Community > Colombia

huepucha
Joined 2022
Posts: 464

La Segunda Marquetalia

1 year ago

In 2019 following the peace deal dissident FARC guerrilla regrouped under leader Iván Márquez calling themselves La Segunda Marquetalia. The name derives from La Republica de Marquetalia, one of eight self styled independent republics established by Communist communes in remote parts of Tolima, Huila and Cauca departments during the nineteen fifties and early sixties where they evaded government control. They were armed and called themselves "Autodefensas Campesinos Communistas" long before the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) of the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands. The communes were in part inspired by the Cuban revolution and were a thorn in the side to then president Guillermo León Valencia. Under his direction the military with extensive collaboration from the CIA and other US counterinsurgency entities developed Plan Lazo for the purpose of eliminating the Comunist cells of the independent republics. A result was Operacion Soberánia in 1964 which employed an estimated ten thousand government soldiers (though the general in command, Valencia Tovar said there were no more than twelve hundred), seven helicopters and Lockheed T-33 aircraft. The target was approximately thirty armed guerrilla in the altiplano of Marquetalia. The area was bombed to smithereens but some of the "autodefensas" escaped. Among the was Manuel Marulanda alias "Tirofijo" who had been organizing the campesino autodefenses already for some years. Following that attack he formed the FARC (Fuerzas Armados Revolucionarios de Colombia) and the rest is history.

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