The Obama administration has simple demands for the long-suffering people of Colombia and their legitimate government: Do not just negotiate with murderous Marxist narco-terrorists, but surrender to them. Give them full amnesty for everything from mass murder and kidnapping to torture and treason, and then allow them into positions of power. That was the message delivered most recently by Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry in Havana meetings last month amid “peace” talks between Colombian authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army, or “FARC,” as the savage terror group (shown) is more commonly known.
With support from Obama, the “negotiations” have been ongoing for about five years. Basically, the FARC-Obama position is that the Marxist-Leninist terrorists responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths will keep their weapons and blood money, will avoid any jail time for decades of atrocities and massive slaughters, will not have to compensate victims or victims’ families, and will be allowed to enter government positions despite their barbaric crimes. The radical scheme also throws the Colombian military under the bus, according to critics, and puts it on par with the terrorists.
Obama is serious about pushing the deal through, as evidenced by Kerry’s meeting with the terror bosses in Havana. There are also reports that the administration plans to potentially release some convicted FARC terrorists, drop charges against others, and even offer legal protection. The administration even nominated a “special envoy,” globalist Council on Foreign Relations operative Bernard Aronson, to secure the massive FARC victory that would have otherwise been inconceivable. Some of the terrorist leaders reportedly even got to attend a baseball game in Cuba with Obama and Castro.
Incredibly, the leftist president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, increasingly viewed as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” appears ready to go along with it all. That is despite the wishes of most Colombians, nine out of ten of whom oppose amnesty for the terrorists, according to polls. The scheme is also being advanced in defiance of Santos’ many promises to the public not to provide amnesty for terrorists in any “peace” deal.
The Obama lifeline to the terror group and its sponsor in Havana came as the Castro regime was desperate for cash as its previous Sugar Daddy in Caracas imploded amid an economic collapse and a popular revolt. It also came as the Colombian government was reportedly closer than ever to crushing the 50-year campaign of terror, which was flailing as its backers in Havana, Caracas, and beyond struggled to keep even themselves in power amid crumbling economies and explosive unrest among their victims.
The newly legitimized Communist Castro regime, which has hosted the discussions and is set to receive a massive infusion of American cash thanks to Obama’s diehard efforts, was no doubt pleased to receive Obama’s support for its ruthless Colombian proxies. So was the FARC. “We hope that as a consequence, we are recognized as a political force committed to the expansion of democracy and social progress in Colombia,” the ruthless butchers announced after the meeting with Kerry in Havana.
It all happened during Obama’s bizarre trip to bow before Cuban mass-murderer Raul Castro, push a communist vision of what “rights” mean, and have his photo taken in front of a giant image of the self-styled “blood-thirsty” executioner Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Kerry, who was also there, took the opportunity to meet and greet top leaders of the FARC in a spectacle that some analysts slammed as “treason.” Among those who met with Kerry was FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, the Soviet-trained mass-murderer also known as “Timochenko,” who is worth $5 million in “most wanted” reward money from the same State Department that Kerry leads.
The wanted terrorist even gave Kerry an autograph in the form of a signed copy of his memoirs. Other signatories, according to FrontPage magazine, included FARC leader Pablo Catatumbo, wanted for “the production, manufacture, and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world” and “the murder of hundreds of people who violated or interfered with the FARC’s cocaine policies.” Another signatory, wanted for the same charges, was FARC chieftain Iván Márquez, worth $5 million in reward money.
The FARC and its leadership, of course, have been on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1997, though they were brutalizing, butchering, murdering, and terrorizing Colombians and Americans long before that. The Soviet- and Castro-backed outfit was placed on the list for, among other crimes, murdering thousands of civilians, brutally torturing its victims, blowing up countless peasants with landmines, kidnapping children and forcing them to fight or serve as sex slaves, holding people hostage to extort ransom money, and more.
The terror group also uses child soldiers, trafficks massive quantities of drugs, corrupts elections in other countries, bombs police and troops, perpetrates forced abortions among its rape victims, and engages in numerous other mass atrocities. Hundreds of thousands of people have died so far in the FARC’s brutal war against Colombia. Numerous Americans have also been murdered and tortured by FARC. Christians and missionaries have been particularly targeted, although even leftist environmentalists from the United States have been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the group.
The goal of the terrorist group, which doubles as one of the world’s largest drug cartels, has never been a secret: Subjugate the people of Colombia under the guise of imposing a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. All of the group’s evil and terrorism have been supported by the Castro regime in Cuba, and the Soviet Union before that. More recently, the socialist regime in Venezuela has been helping, too. Also a key supporter of the FARC today is the broader Foro de São Paulo (FSP) network of socialist and communist Latin American movements. Founded by the FARC, Castro, the Sandinistas, former Brazlian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and others, the alliance was created with help from globalists and Moscow to subjugate the region. So far it has been very succesful, having taken power across much of Latin America.
A year ago, FARC actually requested and celebrated the support it was receiving from the Obama administration. “We consider it a necessity, given the presence and the permanent impact that the United States has in the political, economic and social life of Colombia, that the U.S. would now be able to contribute to the establishment of social justice and true democracy, and to overcome inequality and poverty, which is the right way to open the path to peace,” the terror group said in a statement. Other FSP members have also received major backing from Obama.
FARC may have been pleased with Obama’s intervention on its behalf in Colombia’s domestic affairs. Critics, however, were outraged by the Obama administration’s actions and the broader deal being worked out to protect the mass murderers from justice. Countless Columbians feel betrayed by the United States, too.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, for example, blasted the meeting between Kerry and the “cocaine trafficking cartel and terrorist group” as an insult to Colombians. Last year, he noted that the scheming “has opened the way to all manner of political participation for the terrorists, without excluding those responsible for atrocities.” He also accused his successor, President Santos, of “cozying up to terrorism.”
Former Minister of Defense Marta Lucia Ramírez, meanwhile, ridiculed the spectacle in expressing outrage over the developments. “After the meeting of Kerry with the FARC I’m waiting for when there will be a meeting with [Mexican drug lord] El Chapó Guzmán,” the official said in a statement. She may have only been partly joking, considering the Fast and Furious scandal in which the administration was caught arming Mexican drug cartels under the phony guise of conducting an “investigation” into two drug lords already on the FBI’s payroll.
Miguel Gómez Martínez, a family member of murdered presidential candidate Álvaro Gómez, compared FARC to the Islamist terrorists who struck Brussels around the same time Kerry was appeasing the Marxist narco-terror group. “Someone explain to me, why those in Brussels are terrorists and those [FARC terrorists who in 2003 murdered dozens of civilians by bombing the Bogota club] Nogal are ideologues that deserve impunity,” he wrote on Twitter in a post picked up by various media outlets around the world.
In the Wall Street Journal, one of the few U.S. media outlets to properly cover Kerry’s efforts on behalf of the FARC, columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady also highlighted the parallels between the Islamic State (ISIS) and FARC. “The double standard is obvious,” she wrote. “When pressed by [TV host] Ms. Arrarás [in an interview from Havana], Mr. Kerry said that ‘if our attitude was we have to kill everybody who was involved in World War II, where would we be with Germany and with Japan?’” O’Grady added. “This just in, Mr. Secretary: Germany and Japan surrendered.” The leaders were then, in many cases, brought to justice.
Breitbart writer Joel Pollack also slammed the meeting. “The paradox is part of a broader pattern throughout seven years of the Obama administration, in which President Barack Obama seeks peace at any price with America’s historic enemies while abandoning its allies and friends,” he wrote. “Obama’s appeasement has taken on a particular urgency in Latin America, where he famously embraced the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, tolerated an anti-American harangue by Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, isolated the legitimate government of Honduras in favor of Chávez-backed, would-be dictator and antisemite Manuel Zelaya; and welcomed left-wing governments throughout the region…. America’s enemies will pocket Obama’s concessions and demand more while they consolidate their power. This is not peacemaking; it is sowing the seeds of crisis and conflict.”
Another stinging rebuke of what he called “treason” came from Daniel Greenfield writing at FrontPage magazine. “The Cuba policy is solidarity with Communist enemies of the United States,” he noted. “Reversing JFK’s inaugural address, Obama and Kerry will pay any price, oppose any friend and support any foe in order to assure the death and defeat of liberty. That much they have pledged and done. 50 years after Kerry first turned traitor, his betrayal of the United States continues without end.”
Like the FARC, Obama’s domestic friends have also been major beneficiaries of the Castro brothers’ regime. Obama infamously launched his political career in the home of communist terrorist Bill Ayers, whose cop-killing terror organization the Weather Underground bombed numerous federal targets in the United States with support, guidance, and financing from the regime in Havana. According to Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the outfit for the FBI, the Weathermen planned to intern, re-educate, and exterminate tens of millions of American “counter-revolutionaries” once they overthrew the United States with help from Havana and the international communist conspiracy run out of Moscow. Instead, they weaseled their way into positions of power and influence across America, where they remain to this day, celebrating Obama’s assistance to Castro, the FARC, and other mass-murdering enemies of liberty, humanity, and decency.
FARC is hardly the first designated terrorist group to receive direct and indirect support from the Obama administration. From communist to Islamist and everything in between, Obama has been showering support on some of the most brutal groups on the planet. If an everyday citizen engaged in such activities, they could be jailed for flouting federal terror laws. It is absolutely unconscionable for Congress to continue allowing this sort of abuse from the administration.
Photo of members of FARC terror group: AP Images
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected]
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