Alias ​​’Jonnier’ is uncovered: leader of FARC dissidents reveals secrets of their motivations, operation, division and financing

Ariel Ávila and Andrea Aldana, for the newspaper El Espectador, they managed to enter the jungle area of ​​Cauca and spoke with alias Jonnier, third in command in the structure led by Gentil Duarte and Iván Mordisco. There, they talked about the functioning of what the commander of the Western Coordinating Command called the true armed resistance of the FARC.

“We stayed making resistance in the first Armando Ríos front and, for this reason, We are neither dissidents nor are we narco-paramilitary groups, as we are often called, we are the true armed resistance of the FARC, who have followed the legacy left by our unforgettable commander Manuel Marulanda Vélez, Jacobo Arena, the same comrade, Jorge Briceño, and many more martyrs who lost their lives in this just cause “ Jonnier explained.

The Peace Agreement, signed in 2016 by the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos and the defunct FARC guerrillas, was the great turning point for the dissolution within the armed organization outside the law that, today, is It is distributed in different groups with different interests: Although a part is participating in the country’s politics, others returned to arms in disagreement with the peace process, as the guerrilla explained to the journalists of the newspaper El Espectador.

The peace process

“The misnamed peace process all it did was spread the FARC in different structures, some at the service of the State, others at the service of the mafia and others like what the second Marquetalia project is doing, the party is more divided today than ever. The gang of four (as they call the negotiating coalition made up of Rodrigo Londoño, Carlos Antonio Lozada, Pastor Alape and Mauricio Jaramillo) are the cause of the demise of Manuel Marulanda Vélez’s army, it is a complete betrayal of our principles ”, he said Jonnier. The guerrilla explained that, since the agreements were signed, the number of guerrillas who have been linked to them has increased by 60%.

For the masses of the FARC resistance, as Jonnier calls them, what was done with the process, which earned Juan Manuel Santos a Nobel Peace Prize, “has neither head nor tail” and it was a “betrayal”, an unfair process that left many members of the oldest guerrilla in Latin America unheard, and outside of a treaty that was supposed to seek the benefit of victims and perpetrators.

“Peace without justice does not exist, peace with hunger does not exist. We must change the military doctrine, the political system, the neoliberal model, we must renegotiate free trade agreements that are harmful to small and medium producers, we must study the country’s external debt (…)”Asked the guerrilla commander, who argued that this had not been resolved in the signing of the document that declared peace between the country and the FARC.

The relationship between Farc

For Jonnier, neither the gang of four, nor the ex-combatants who decided to lay down their weapons, are considered enemies because, although they feel cheated and ignored, they would not do anything against them, “they would never attempt against their integrity as long as they do not become informants in favor of the enemy ”, that is, the State and the National Army, stressed that for the same reason, they have not murdered any former member of the guerrilla, therefore least not outside of armed combat in which death is inevitable.

He accepted that they have had armed confrontations with his former colleagues who rearmed themselves and named themselves the Second Marquetalia, mainly because of the fight for the territory, “There is no room for two FARC in a territory where we already have a position of two or three years. They have wanted to retake our areas, they want to exterminate our structures from the face of Cauca and Nariño ”.

In turn, he explained that several ex-combatants have even returned to enlist again in the ranks because they argue that reestablishing themselves in society has been a complicated task, that the State, in its breach of the agreements, has left them with their arms crossed . For example, he says that many of them have their doors closed financially and professionally when they try to access loans or jobs to survive.

The new recruit

The guerrilla commander stressed that entering the FARC resistance is not forced labor; on the contrary, being in a guerrilla is a labor of will and conscience, which justified that at no time have they done forced recruitment, neither of ex-combatants nor of minors as has been alleged in the media for some time.

“We are guided by the documents that have governed the FARC for 56 years. There are the recruitment rules and they clearly say that people who wish to enter must be recognized in the region, must have good conduct, and must be over 15 years old and under 30 years old “Jonnier stressed that he described the versions that said they had minors in their ranks as far-fetched because, according to him, “that doesn’t fit in anyone’s head.”

Weapons are key at this point, Jonnier explained, because supposedly they were not going to drop a rifle on just anyone, a child under 15 being a member of that population that he calls ‘anyone’. These weapons are financed thanks to drug trafficking as expressed by the commander, who said out loud that this was not a secret for anyone, but that it did not make them drug traffickers.

Your financing

“If we were drug traffickers, we would have ‘talks’ to finance the war they have declared on us, but it touches us with our fingernails, with the tax that comes from drug trafficking and illegal mining”, And it is that, as Jonnier explained, the economy of that organization, known by him as resistance, comes from the taxes they charge drug traffickers to let them pass coca through certain territories, as well as how they charge those who dedicate themselves to the illegal mining to let them explore specific areas rich in whatever they want to get off the ground.

“We cannot tell Donald Trump to send us helicopters and planes. With the little that we are collecting, we have to finance ourselves (…) We charge $ 100,000 for the coca pass, between $ 100.00 and $ 300,000. We charge the narcos, not the peasants. The one who buys it is the one who pays the tax. We are a guerrilla, we cannot leave our work as revolutionaries to dedicate ourselves to drug trafficking ”, stressed.

The violent people who are present in Cauca

In questioning the violence in the area, taking into account that drug trafficking routes are handled that could generate confrontations between armed groups and even the death of civilians who were in the middle, Jonnier denounced that the name of the FARC resistance was being defamed and used to attribute crimes of which they, for the most part, have been unaware, such as the attack on the indigenous social leader Feliciano Valencia.

“The violence in Cauca has to do with the war with other armed groups outside the law. They say that social leaders have been assassinated by FARC dissidents, we are not dissidents, so it is not us. The murder of social leaders is being used to discredit our organization “, denounced Jonnier who, in turn, explained that there are “several structures in different settings in the country. We have come to create this western coordinating command structure that includes the structures that are on the north of Cauca, Nariño, El Valle, Huila, Tolima (…). We have eight structures, there is the Jaime Martínez, the Dagoberto Ramos, the Franco Benvides, the Urías Rondón, the Rafael Aguilera 30 front, the Carlos Patiño front, the Ismael Ruíz front and the Adán Izquierdo company ”.

For Jonnier, and the members of the resistance, the second Marquetalia is a ghost that has generated other conflicts such as identity theft, “We have sometimes found that five or six individuals appear who with armbands of the second Marquetalia, we have sent our structures to verify and we ended up shooting ourselves with the army. We do not know if it is an army strategy to deploy on behalf of that second Marquetalia, as well as they have appeared in the group of Los Pelusos, who appear with the bracelet of the second Marquetalia, or with the ELN, with whom the same thing has happened ”.

The peace process, which today is at risk due to the number of edges that have stood out from it, such as the dubious functioning of the JEP as its opponents have said or the rearmament of former peace negotiators such as Jesús Santrich, El Paisa and Iván Márquez, was defined as a selfish movement that became a “The alternative that they themselves were looking for, they sought to create a movement, a political party that would allow them through politics to achieve the interests they wanted”, concluded.