DISQUS

Social Times: Facebook Used to Battle Colombian Revolutionaries

  • Eric Eldon · 1 year ago
    The Colombian government has been convicted in its own courts of having close ties to the country's right-wing paramilitary organizations (which are guilty of terrorist activities, growing cocaine, etc. just like their enemy, FARC).

    I'm guessing FARC would respond to your post by saying its the Colombian elite that's terrorizing the poor of the country. You know, the elite that has decent access to the internet and knows about sites like Facebook.

    I'm not trying to justify FARC's actions -- they're also wrong. I'm just saying that in a country like Colombia, torn by civil war, everybody's usually right to call their opponents terrorists.
  • Anthony LaFauce · 1 year ago
    Eric:

    I didn't write this post to try and create a social political argument about semantics. I simply stated that many of the residents of that country, my girlfriend included, live in fear of these guerrilla groups.

    I simply wrote this piece to demonstrate that the young, disenfranchised, youth of Colombia are using a social tool to try and instigate change.

    As for the fact on what the 'Farc' would comment on. I really find that internet access to be one of the great levelers of social economic classes. I have lived in many different regions and have always marveled the 'lower' classes ability to utilize internet cafes and public access points.
  • Colombiano · 1 year ago
    Eric: The very first thing you say shows part of the fundamental difference: there are ways to condemn or punish the Colombian government, or some of its representatives, for several of those actions.

    FARC doesn't really punish anyone within its own ranks for such crimes, unless you count digging trenches or making meals a credible "punishment".

    For the record, I don't use Facebook, but I did participate in the march against FARC.

    Are they the only ones worthy of protest? No, but they are comparatively worse, precisely because of their objectives (armed revolution), methods (kidnapping, terrorism and extortion) and completely militarized nature (they don't exactly have anything resembling a real justice system or anything similar).