Talk:Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia/Archive 1

message: In the overview section it is stated that they are responsible for acts of terrorism, but no source for this is provided. However the source no. 65 at the bottom of the page is a good source for this argument. Can someone please link this source to the overview section as well, so that the claim can be made with a support from an independent source that justifies this definition?
Ashrawi (talk) 04:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main argument for labeling FARC a terrorist organization 

message: Just a thought. I just watched the film "Guerilla Girl" (2005) and it's about FARC. The director lives in a FARC training camp for months and films the development of a new recruit. It gives a good overview of what the FARC training looks like and so on.
Or as IMDB's plot summary puts it: "This film is about a young girl who enters FARC and her training to become a guerrilla soldier. It describes the transformation this young city-girl undertakes, when having to adapt to strict military training and primitive conditions of life."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463286/
And I'm sure if searched, more films could be found about FARC too. I think the article could use at least a list of those films in end of it. :) Androg 10:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A section for films about FARC? 

message: I think a sub division for criticism should be added. I'm open to your opinion on this. -Don Quijote's Sancho 05:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: How do you join?????
sweet mother of jesus christ who the hell thinks about that? joining the farc isnt is like joining scouts, in fact, nobody joins the farc. their infantery is composed (mainly) by farm workers and people from small towns who are recluted at gun, or to save the life of their family.
- Dane Genarro Curley
None, or very few of the fighters in the FARC have joined wishingly.  Most are recruited by force from thir house/farm when they reach 15-16 years of age.  Yet others join simply because of the need to have a job, and FARC pays their fighters above minimum wage, provides meals, and "security" for their family in case they are killed or captured.  Of course, there must be exceptions.
I doubt that anyone here is with the ejército del pueblo. Pehraps FARC will have info in their website at http://www.farcep.org/
172 05:04, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a link in the article related to this, about forced recruiting of children in their lines, can someone help introduce it properly into the article? --F3rn4nd0  14:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This may be quite some question but, 

message: I'm rather unsure as to the actual usefulness, neutrality and reasoning behind filling up the article with pictures of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, JFK, Karl Marx, Southcom and so on. In other words, with graphical representations of individuals, objects and situations that already have their own encyclopedia entries and are only marginally related to the main subject of the article, which is the FARC and its role in the Colombian conflict. This is supposed to be an article ostensibly fit for inclusion in an encyclopedia, according to Wikipedia's guidelines, and such articles (here and elsewhere) usually do not need the presence of so many indirectly related images. At the very least, this makes the article look more disorganized than it already is. As an example of this kind of logic, this is like filling up an article on Hugo Chavez or his MVR political party with images of Simón Bolivar, Rafael Caldera, George W. Bush, oil wells and so on. This could even be termed image spamming. Including one or two of these images might make sense, but not so many of them. Juancarlos2004 22:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought the same thing.  I see that you've cut most of them.  I think that it's even a little silly to include Che in the article.  Besides being leftist Latin American guerrillas, I really don't see the connection.  FARC is less Cuban and Foco inspired than the ELN.  The picture of Uribe strikes me as odd, also.  FARC has fought for what, 42 years or something?  They've fought against a whole lot of Colombian administrations, not just that of Uribe.  I think that the article would look a lot better if instead we had some pictures of the FARC leadership (certainly Marulanda) as well as actual guerrillas.  There seem to be a whole lot of pictures of the guerrillas marching in columns, raising the FARC flag, and other activities on the internet.  I'm sure that we could find at least a few ones that are usable on wikipedia.  The FARC itself puts out a lot of pictures for propaganda purposes.  I don't know what the copyright status on those things are -- FARC is an illegal group in Colombia and the United States, so I doubt that they could go to court to claim a copyright violation.  Plus, even if FARC could claim a copyright, the pictures are used for propagana, so you might be able to give it the {Promotional}} tag. --Descendall 21:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my comments on Military Structure of the FARC-EP, Jacobo Arenas. and Military History of the FARC-EP, all of which have useless images in my opinion. --Descendall 22:04, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance of Newly Added Pictures 

message: I've created a new cat :Category:Designated terrorist organizations as a subcat of :Category:Terrorist organizations. The aim of this is to provide a more factual and NPOV description of orgs. DTOs have been specified on one or more lists - in this case both the US and EU. AndrewRT 12:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well done. We shouldn't be afraid to call a spade a spade. Its not against NPOV to call a group deliberately targetting civilians as terrorists when its a fact.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.203.186.161 (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Designated Terrorist Org 

message: I kind of like the "Wikipedians in Colombia may be able to help!" tag.  Yeah, right:  if you're in Colombia, just saunter on over to your local FARC base and take some pictures, I'm sure no one will mind.  --Descendall 18:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out this awesome article: sarcasm.  --Descendall 21:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for pictures

message: I see that :Image:Farcflag.PNG has been moved down the page and been changed to an "identification symbol" rather than a flag.  I think that the most identifying symbol of the FARC is not their flag, but their armbands.  Apart from that, their sheild is more of an "identifying symbol" in my mind than their flag.  I think this should be changed to "flag" and should probably be moved back up on top of the page.  Also note that the current picture on top of the page, which is licenced PD-self, is a fairly obvious copyvio, and I've tagged it as such.  --Descendall 21:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you on the flag being a flag, though the fact that the shield is, basically, a small version of the flag gives some room for interpretation as far as which is more of an "identifying symbol". It seems you're right on the copyvio bit... Juancarlos2004 08:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: yep I agree. --F3rn4nd0  04:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: When is a flag not a flag?

message: I'm using Cite.php to cite some of the sources given in the article.  This article is basically a poster boy for Cite.php:  it has a million inline links, a great number of which are dead, to webpages that don't have static URLs.  It will take me a few days to finish this up.  --Descendall 04:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My work here is done. --Descendall 04:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cite.php

message: The photos of the FARC on this page are listed as works of the United States Department of Justice.  While it may be true that these photographs were used by the United States Department of Justice, it's pretty hard to imagine that they were originated by the Department of Justice.  The FARC would have certainly killed any Department of Justice official who wandered into one of their camps and started to take pictures.  Consequentially, I think the copyright status on these pictures is incorrect.  --Descendall 23:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Photos of the FARC

message: You can't add a picture of Che Guevara in Congo and say that he influenced the FARC. Is totally out of context and not diplomatic and non-objetive!!! Clearly non objetive.
Also, there is no evidence that Che Guevara influenced the FARC directly. The FARC may take Che Guevara as a symbol, but that doesn't mean that they were influenced and teached by Che Guevara. There is no evidence that he had ever visited the FARC. If anyone has any evidence, please add a quote to the article and from a trusted source. And that picture is not about Che Guevara teaching the FARC!! It's about Che Guevara in Congo!
There is no link between Che Guevara and FARC. And as someone who has read and studied Guevara, I can say that if he lived today, he would never support a cocaine producer movement like FARC. But of course this is just my opinion and I would never add this statement to an article. So, I ask the same to the other corner, to not add your political views to this article and keep objectivity. The objective point of the article is clearly disrupted with that addition.
Just noticed that other users are thinking the same as me, by reading some posts above. So, the fact is that we have one user with certain political views (who added the picture and that statement about Che Guevara) and many other users who are trying to keep the objectivity of the article, which means that the picture should be removed and the statement changed. 
Ale2007 21:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Che Guevara picture should be removed and the statement should be changed... 

message: Well I made some changes to the structure of the article, and...
* I strongly think that the introduction is basically contradicting with the "overview" section, these should be merged and summarized intro 3 or four paragraphs. 
*The same for some other sections that could be summarized or moved to a separate article. 
*There is information that is constantly repeated such as in the case of the Irish bomb makers.. man! the article was way out of focus.
*We should follow WP:DEV, WP:MOS and WP:NPOV.
--F3rn4nd0 (Roger - Out) 08:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Review 

message: Wiki says: “Despite their terrorist label, the FARC-EP still claims to be a guerrilla movement, and some analysts argue that the group's ideology has remained consistent”. This is biased, principally because of the “despite” and “still”. It is more objective to say: 
:“The FARC-EP claims to be a guerrilla movement, and some analysts argue that the group's ideology has remained consistent. It has been labelled as a terrorist organisation by some countries.” Basicdesign 04:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FARC can claim what they want, but actions speak louder than words. If they act like terrorists, then they deserve to be labelled terrorists.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.203.186.161 (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  terrorists or guerilla 

message: From the lead: 
 "... With an estimated 3,000-4,000 members at 2007.[2]), " 
However, later on:
 "... An estimated 20-30 percent of FARC combatants are under 18 years old, with many as young as 12 years old, for a total of around 5000 children."
Both statements are referenced, making this kind of awkward -- any thoughts? -Etafly (talk) 06:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Relatively recent edits have messed several things up somewhat. I found the original source for the number (a %, actually, not a solid figure) of children and re-added it. The estimate for the total number of combatants has been changed without changing the source, so that one should be fixed as well. Added a different source and number. Juancarlos2004 (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Membership inconsistency 

message: removed this but if you got some sources somewhere or something I saved it here so you can add it in a constructive manner:
randam Fact:the Farc trades with ammerica for guns and columbai offers them drugs for the poeple in America to sell to people, the Farcs slaves have no say they must grow drugs or that the Farc will kill there family and them.
UltimateDogg (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 21:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random Unsourced Added Comment 

message: We recently removed material from Code Pink after determining that said material was off-topic as far as Code Pink was concerned.  An editor identified the material as being more appropriate on this article.  If you're interested, here's the diff where we removed it: .  SchuminWeb (Talk) 11:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Material removed from Code Pink article 

message: Hi.  I just created the page List of FARC Political Hostages.  It is still being written but all the name are in... I think.  Please help out filling out the empty spaces though or making any formatting changes.  Thanks, Colombiano21 (talk) 03:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Page 

message: You can read the whole article and find out nothing about why it exists. What's the point of this article, then? --shmooth- (talk) 14:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  FARC wants to force its communist ideology on an unwilling population, at the point of a gun.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.200.115.107 (talk) 18:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purpose of FARC is what? 

message: The FarcEP and AnnCol links are broken and should be removed (until we can find valid URLs). Apparently those two websites are no longer working.
Rmleon (talk) 07:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The ANNCOL link was working today (8 April), though it took a long time to load. RolandR (talk) 00:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  FarcEp and AnnCol links are broken 

message: Why is there no reference to how popular the FARC is in Colombia? I think if people see that 1% approval rating they'll realise why the FARC deserves the title "terrorist organization".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.228.106.214 (talk) 14:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  FARC popularity 

message: I have been looking at the source for the quote "Female members are subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation, including non-consensual abortion" (footnote 23), a Human Rights Watch (HRW) publication. Page 9-10 of the HRW publication clarifies the Wikipedia quote, and perhaps it should be substituted for the now-standing vague quote I listed above. The HRW publication reads: "Girls sometimes join to escape sexual abuse at home; in other respects, the reasons they join are similar to those of boys.Many told Human Rights Watch that in the guerrillas, they had roughly the same duties and possibilities of promotion as males. Yet girls in the guerrilla forces still face gender-related pressures. Although rape and overt sexual harassment are not tolerated, many male commanders use their power to form sexual liaisons with under-age girls. Girls as young as twelve are required to use contraception, and must have abortions if they get pregnant."
Mdt187 (talk) 21:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Female FARC members subjected to sexual abuse. 

message: Remember, the FARC are a threat against our nation, and for ALL the nations of South America, including Venezuela and Ecuador. REMEMBER, THE FARC ARE *NOT* YOUR FRIEND! If killing people in massacres, assaulting towns, killing civilian people, kidnapping people for more than 10 years, including but not limited to Ingrid Betancourt..., is to be the "people's army"? (No, they are not the army of the people)
"...It's an insult for a colombian than the FARC aren't treated as a terrorist group..." - OAS' Chancellor from Colombia
Sincerly,
some colombian who are worried about the international FARC opinion.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.50.2.178 (talk) 02:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remember, everyone! 

message: No matter how many terrible things they have done, their ideology should be presented. And that should be done in a neutral way. The only information I find about their ideology is the following in the infobox: "Ideology: Marxism-Leninism".
Even if the ideology is illogical or contradictory, it should still be presented, and it should be done from their point of view. This is because there is no objective link between someones ideology and someones actions. 
--130.242.107.211 (talk) 07:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV: Nothing is said about their ideology. 

message: I think the above statement is too much to make without any direct proof to support.  Accusations are present, but even the Colombian government has stopped short of saying they are allies.  I believe their names should be removed.  Colombiano21 (talk) 22:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed and done. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ortega and Chavez as Farc Allies