After pushing FARC rebels out of one of their base camps in western Colombia, the military on Tuesday found instruction manuals for new guerrilla initiates.
After an intense battle with insurgents in the rural municipality of Policarpa in the troubled southwestern department of Nariño, the Colombian military found an arsenal of grenades, rifles, munitions, and reportedly enough supplies for as many as 32 rebels.
What caught the security force’s attention was the novice handbook explaining life in the FARC rank and file — a “FARC for dummies” if you will. Five such manuals, of about 400 pages each, were discovered.
The cover drawing depicted Manuel Marulanda, one of the FARC’s founders, embracing Simon Bolivar, the revolutionary who liberated Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia from the Spanish in the early 19th century. Titled “Marulanda and the FARC, handbook for beginners,” the manual contained a number of precepts and principles related to subversion, as well as historical accounts of the birth and development of the guerrilla group.
The manual included a map of Colombia demarcating the general locations of the Caribbean, central, southern, western, and eastern FARC blocs. Interestingly enough, the beginner’s manual did not show a FARC presence in the Arauca and Vichada departments, which experience significant FARC activity.
The book deliniated the FARC command structure as such.
“A square is the basic unit and consists of 12 individuals. A company is two guerrillas. A column is two companies. A front consists of more than two companies.”
Authorities remain puzzled as to who could have written this document.
