The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Marxist terrorist organization launched 24 near-simultaneous deadly bomb attacks in the Southwestern regions of Valle del Cauca and Cauca on Tuesday, killing eight and leaving at least 78 injured.
Fourteen victims are reportedly in critical condition at press time.
Most of the attacks targeted local police and government facilities. According to several local law enforcement officials, including the head of Colombia’s National Police Carlos Triana, the “fundamental and principal factor” behind FARC’s latest wave of terrorist attacks is “commemorating the anniversary of the death of former FARC chief Leider Johani Noscué, also known as ‘Mayimbú.’”
Noscué, who reportedly joined FARC at the age of 12, was killed in a military operation on June 13, 2022, and oversaw the terrorist organization’s drug trafficking activities in Northern Cauca and Valle de Cauca until his death. “Mayimbú” is attributed with at least 15 homicides as well as kidnapping and terrorist attacks. The FARC group that was once under his command controlled an illegal gold mining operation dismantled by the Colombian military in 2019 that generated an income of up to $440,000 per year for the terrorist organization.
“We know that for these organizations commemorative dates have a high symbolic value. That is why they prepare violent actions in advance,” Cali deputy police commander Germán Manrique told El Tiempo.
The FARC, originally founded in 1966, claim the guerrilla “abandoned terrorism” and “demobilized” after the group signed a supposed “peace deal” in 2016 with former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, for which he won a Nobel Peace Prize that year.
As part of the deal, FARC’s leadership was granted benefits such as legal immunity and uncontested congressional seats. Despite the “peace deal,” the FARC continue to carry out terrorist attacks and drug trafficking activity in Colombia. The Colombian government and mainstream media claim that the active FARC forces are a “dissident” faction and the “true” FARC is the leadership in Bogotá.
Valle del Cauca governor Dilian Francisca Toro spoke with Blu Radio on Wednesday morning and called for the administration of far-left President Gustavo Petro to intensify security in the region, stressing that her local administration is dedicating efforts to uphold security as much as humanly possible, but that support from the government is required.
Asked if she was tired of making the same request to the Petro government, the governor answered, “Well, it’s our turn to get tired, and not to shut up.”
“We do what we humanly can do in our orbit, the rewards are great and there have been good catches,” Toro said. “We need more public force, more intelligence.”
FARC issued a public statement following Tuesday’s wave of terrorist attacks in which the Marxist group’s top brass threatened the use of drones in future attacks and threatened to launch more explosive vehicles. According to the statement, the terrorist group claimed that its main targets are the Colombian military and public law enforcement personnel. The group also accused the Colombian government of allegedly deploying U.S. military personnel as part of a purported “destabilization” campaign against Venezuela’s socialist regime, a close FARC ally.
The statement read:
Although we have repeatedly insisted on a political solution to the social and armed conflict in the country, the national government has chosen to wage war against the FARC-EP [EP stands for People’s Army], using lies spread by the media to create a negative image to justify the war, deploying hundreds of U.S. military personnel who direct operations from 13 US. military bases, including the three that he ordered to be installed during his term in office, strategically located in Colombia to initiate a plan of destabilization against the Sister Republic of Venezuela and to control the Amazon and other areas with natural resources for their delivery and exploitation.
They also maintain, by action or omission, a plan to expand paramilitarism under the guidelines of high-ranking military officials such as Brigadier General Federico Mejía. The war against FARC-EP is because they want to perpetuate paramilitarism and promote megaprojects in areas where we are present.
The Marxist terror group also “advised” civilians to follow a series of “recommendations” to “reduce the impact on civilian population,” such as evacuating households if they are in the vicinity of military or police headquarters, avoiding military vehicles of any kind, keeping civilian vehicles within a certain distance from military vehicles on the road, and avoiding military or police headquarters.
Interior Minister Armando Benetteti claimed on Tuesday that the Colombian government is evaluating if FARC’s wave of attacks holds any relation to the recent assassination attempt against Colombian conservative senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in the head by a 14-year-old during a weekend campaign event in Bogotá.
Far-left President Gustavo Petro announced in a social media post late Tuesday that he would travel to Cali to participate in a military-police meeting where “all information linking the region’s mafia offices to the attack on Senator Uribe Turbay will be studied.”
In a separate post, Petro claimed that FARC leader Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, also known as “Ivan Mordisco,” allied himself with the “Dubai Narco-Junta,” a criminal network allegedly operating out of Dubai which, Petro further claimed, “has ordered my death.”
According to Petro, a hypothesis claims that said criminal network is behind the assassination attempt on Sen. Uribe.
“The EMC [Central General Staff, the ‘official’ name of the FARC ‘dissident’ group] offensive leaves civilians and law enforcement victims. They commemorate the death in combat of one of their leaders, alias Mayimbú, the very one who initiated the shift toward traquetismo [ostentatious drug trafficking wealth lifestyle]. Five civilians and two police officers have died,” Petro said.
“Ivan Mordisco has been allied with the drug trafficking junta for over a year, as has the Gulf Clan,” he continued. “The drug trafficking cartel ordered my death. A growing hypothesis is that it was behind the attack on Miguel. Meetings have been held in Medellín and Panama to concentrate resources and destabilize the country. A member of the Albanian mafia, among others, attended the Panama meeting.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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