Colombia: FARC Terrorists Assassinate Local Politicians After Declaring War

LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images
LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images

Police found a mayoral candidate, her mother, and four others dead in western Cauca, Colombia, on Monday, victims of an ambush by Marxist FARC terrorists.

The Colombian government is offering 150 million pesos ($43,574.25) for information on the whereabouts of a terrorist known as “Majimbu” or “Majin Boo,” and his accomplice known only as Marlón, who authorities have blamed for the massacre.

The killings follow the release of two videos depicting fugitive leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) calling for all-out war against the Colombian government, which they refer to as an “oligarchy,” for allegedly violating the 2016 peace deal. The deal offered uncontested senate seats to FARC leaders, including the two now declaring war: “Iván Márquez” and “Jesús Santrich.” Santrich appears to have abandoned the peace deal after being indicted for attempting to smuggle thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

Karina García Sierra was traveling with her mother, Otilia García, and four others, including city council candidate Yeisón Obando Llantén, in an SUV on Friday through a rural area in her town of Suárez when, Colombian authorities say, FARC terrorists intercepted the vehicle. Police found the car on Monday, apparently set on fire and littered with bullet holes. García, her mother, Obando, a bodyguard, and three others were found in the car.

García was 32 years old. She leaves her father, husband, and a three-year-old son.

The discovery followed the killing of four other members of García’s Liberal Party in the area on Sunday.

The Liberal Party is a member of the Socialist International. Members of radical Marxist groups like the FARC often disparage the Socialist International as insufficiently violent or leftist. The Socialist International has repeatedly condemned the socialist regime governing Venezuela, which aids and abets the FARC.

Prior to her assassination, García posted a video on Youtube denouncing armed criminals who had threatened campaign workers to remove all literature supporting García’s mayoral run. She claimed that political opponents were spreading lies among the rural population that she was interested in stealing their land and “bringing in the multinationals [corporations],” talking points commonly used by FARC terrorists against their enemies.

“Four armed subjects claiming to be from an illegal group [said they] had a direct order to prevent my campaign literature from being posted and to remove what has already been distributed,” García said in the video, posted on August 21. “It is very sad that this is being done today, just as the first woman runs of office and raises her hand to say she wants to participate in elections.”

She accused campaign opponents of, “before these armed groups, [making] irresponsible comments on [her] candidacy.”

“Like that I’m going to bring in paramilitaries, I’m going to bring in multinationals [corporations], I am going to take land from people. My God, don’t be irresponsible, this could have fatal consequences for me,” she pleaded.

García was actively campaigning against the FARC and Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorists who take advantage of the rural nature of Cauca to do their business there and against the illegal cultivation of marijuana there. Colombian reports describe Suárez as being in the heart of the FARC’s “marijuana triangle … where the world’s best weed is cultivated” and a place where indigenous chiefs regularly rail against drug culture: traffickers “cruising in luxury cars, wearing giant gold chains, high-end clothes.”

“We can confirm that alias “Majin Boo,” one of the leaders of the FARC dissidence, is responsible through the influence he has in that zone of this atrocious crime,” Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos said following the discovery of the burned out vehicle. The Colombian government insists on referring to FARC terrorists who engage in violence as “dissidents” even though only one major FARC leader has kept his promise of abandoning terrorism: their chief, “Timochenko.”

“Timochenko” ran a failed presidential campaign in 2018 and suspended it after suffering a heart attack. His delicate state of health has apparently kept him from returning to the terrorist activities that Santrich, Márquez, and much of the FARC membership has chosen.

Defense Minister Guillermo Botero announced the reward for information that would lead to “Majin Boo,” the marijuana mogul of Cauca, and deployed special intelligence troops to the region to investigate the case. Local reports estimate that over 120 law enforcement officials have moved into Cauca to find those responsible.

Botero described the killing as premeditated murder, “a massacre executed in the worst way.”

The FARC have been waging war on Colombia for over half a century, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, disappearances, forced abortions, kidnappings, and use of child soldiers. Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won a Nobel Peace Prize for giving the FARC leadership legal immunity and uncontested representation in Colombia’s Congress. The “peace deal” triggered the biggest cocaine boom in the history of the country. Newly enriched, the FARC called for a new terrorist campaign last week against Bogotá’s “oligarchy.”

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