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klaus-michael schneider
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Editorial Remark: It must be noted that all the opinions are of the authors and not of FOTW. Our site is non-political and concentrates only on vexillological issues.
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The Partido Agrario Nacional, PAN (English: National Agrarian Party) was a
party established by Erasmo Valencia and was later joined by Juan de la Cruz
Varela Aldana, promoting land ownership for small peasants as well as free
choice of crops to grow in the lands they worked on, against landlords who
possessed the lands but did not grant land ownership nor free election of crops.
Its area of influence was mainly located (http://www.scielo.org.co/img/revistas/tara/n4/n4a13f2.gif)
in the subregion known as Sumapaz (in Cundinamarca and it included also the
bordering eastern Municipalities of the Department of Tolima, mainly Icononzo,
Cunday and Andalucía (today known as Villarrica). It was a region that
flourished in the early 1920s thanks to coffee growing.
Due to the
confrontation between the
Liberal and
Conservative parties, in which there were even
violent crimes committed against each party's supporters in rural areas of the
country (hence the period that was later known as La
Violencia (English: The Violence) (1948-1958), in this region (as well as
several others) people loyal to the Liberal party began to arm themselves in
small guerrillas to fight against the paramilitary forces loyal to the
Conservative party, including Juan de la Cruz Varela, who joined the Communist
party and formed his own guerrilla movement. This new guerrilla movement, of
Liberal and Communist backgrounds, is what became later the main nucleus and
driving force of the
Farc. In fact, the Farc emerged
initially as the armed wing of the
Communist Party until they split
in
1993.
Meanwhile, members of this political party, Partido Agrario
Nacional, who did not want armed struggle, either joined the Unión Nacional
de Izquierda Revolucionaria, UNIR (English: National Union of the
Revolutionary Left, UNITE) (1933-1935), which were dissidents of the Liberal
party which would eventually joined back and adhere to the Liberal party
again) and later onwards others joined the
MRL (which eventually
joined the mainstream
Liberal Party as well) while some
others joined the Communist Party (which was prohibited for some time). In
fact, Juan de la Cruz Varela Aldana, thanks to a government amnesty in 1957,
went back to politics and joined the MRL himself. The Partido Agrario
Nacional lost influence due to both, the killing of some of its members, as
well as the armed struggle that ensued as consequence of political violence
between the
two main traditional parties becoming extinct in
the early 1930s.
Sources:
https://pacifista.co/juan-de-la-cruz-varela-la-primera-voz-campesina-del-archivo-general-de-la-nacion/,
http://www.banrepcultural.org/biblioteca-virtual/credencial-historia/numero-172/el-siglo-xx-colombiano-cien-anos-de-progreso-y-violencia-sin-fin,
https://addi.ehu.es/bitstream/handle/10810/21336/TFG_AgirreSanVicente%2CD.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y,
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1794-24892006000100013,
https://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1289,
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni%C3%B3n_Nacional_Izquierdista_Revolucionaria
and
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuerzas_Armadas_Revolucionarias_de_Colombia#Or%C3%ADgenes
The flag is a green horizontal flag with the logo (http://www.scielo.org.co/img/revistas/tara/n4/n4a13f3.gif) in the middle, as
seen here:
http://pacifista.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IMG_9182.jpg
(source:
https://pacifista.co/juan-de-la-cruz-varela-la-primera-voz-campesina-del-archivo-general-de-la-nacion/). The logo is a peasant of the region, holding an axe and wearing a machete,
over a crop, with the inscription on top "TIERRA, LIBERTAD Y JUSTICIA"
(English: Land, Liberty and Justice) and below "PARA LOS CAMPESINOS DE
COLOMBIA" (English: For Colombian Peasants), all in golden capital letters.
Today, this very same logo is used by the "Sindicato de Trabajadores
Agrícolas de Sumapaz" (English: Trade Union of Agricultural Workers of
Sumapaz) (established in 1957) as seen here:
https://www.prensarural.org/spip/epc_3c/imagenes/logo_sintrapaz.jpg.
Sources:
https://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?rubrique22,
http://semanariovoz.com/60-anos-lucha-la-defensa-del-territorio/
Esteban
Rivera, 21 August 2018
image by Jaume Ollé
image by Jaume Ollé
This is the review on the (CNG - CGSB) taken from www.tkb.org:
"Mothertongue Name: Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar
(CGSB). Base of Operation: Colombia.
Founding Philosophy: In the 1980s, several leftist terrorist
organizations in Colombia created an umbrella organization, from
which to coordinate negotiations with the Colombian government
and to coordinate certain terrorist activities. The National
Guerrilla Coordinating Board (CNG), formed in 1985, was the
forerunner to a broader coordinating board. In 1987, CNG was
reconstituted as the Simon Bolivar Coordinating Board (CGSB).
CGSB was created as a unified front for the
terrorist-organization members. While CGSB engaged the government
in negotiations, the terrorist members simultaneously held onto
their rebel-controlled areas and remained willing, at varying
levels, to commit terrorist attacks. The Simon Bolivar
Coordinating Board was comprised of Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), April 19 Movement (M-19), National Liberation
Army (ELN), Popular Liberation Army (EPL), Workers' Revolutionary
Party (PRT) and the
Quintin Lame Command.
CGSB participated in a series of government talks in the early
1990s. The talks were jeopardized several times by terrorist
attacks of the FARC and ELN. Despite the continuing aggression of
the two largest terrorist groups, CGSB did achieve limited
success. Resulting from government negotiations, M-19 put down
its arms in 1990. EPL's main body followed step, ceasing its
operations in 1991. However, Colombia's largest leftist terrorist
organizations, FARC and ELN, did not reach a settlement with the
government and continue terrorist operations to this day. In
fact, while some groups seriously negotiated for an end to
hostilities, other elements of the CGSB continued to perpetrate
terrorist attacks, claiming attacks both under the umbrella of
CGSB and as individual terrorist groups.
Current Goals: The Simon Bolivar Coordinating Board (CGSB)
disbanded in the early 1990s. While certain CGSB factions ceased
terrorist operations in the early 1990s, the FARC and ELN remain
significant terrorist organizations".
E.R., 23 March 2005
image by Ivan Sache, 23 Febuary 2002
The flag of Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional is at www.eln-voces.com.
The flag and emblem of ELN is explained by the organization in
this site.
Dov Gutterman, 8 March 1999 and Jaume Ollé, 19
April 2001
From www.tkb.org:
Mothertongue Name: Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN). Base of
Operation: Colombia.
Founding Philosophy: The ELN is a Cuban Revolution-inspired
group, heavily influenced by the early actions and theories of
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The ELN emerged following the
overthrow of the Cuban government by Guevara and Castro in 1959.
The National Liberation Army was founded by two distinct groups.
The first group comprised of urban, left-wing intellectuals with
strong ties to rural farmers. They co-founded the group with a
radicalized group of oil sector unionists from Barrancabermeja's
oil industry. Radical members of the Catholic clergy joined the
group in late 1965. This was the first time that Christians and
Marxists had joined together in a Colombian revolutionary
movement. The ELN's unique founding philosophy strongly
emphasized socialism, mixing Castro-ism with the liberation
theology of the Catholic Church. More concretely, the ELN's
self-appointed role was to represent the rural poor and decrease
the foreign presence in Colombia. The ELN's goal was to take
power from the Colombian government and replace it with a more
egalitarian "popular democracy" that would represent
all Colombians equally under the law. The ELN strongly opposed
foreign investment, in part due to its location in an oil-rich
area and its connections to trade unionists in the energy sector.
The Colombian Department of Administrative Security estimates
that in 1998 alone, the ELN obtained U.S. $84 million from
ransoms and U.S.$255 million from extortion. Employees of oil
companies constitute a large percentage of the ELN's targets. The
kidnapping and extortion of oil company employees is ELN's
primary source of income. This is a natural legacy of ELN's
formation in an area rich with oil wells and oil companies. A
third, more recent source of income is the collection of a
"property" tax from coca and poppy cultivators. It is
not known whether the collection of property taxes is a
centralized or decentralized activity.
Current Goals: Throughout its history, the National Liberation
Army steadily gravitated towards violence and armed struggle as a
means to attain a socialist Colombia. At the ELN's 1996 national
conference, the group decided to decrease emphasis on creating a
purely socialist Colombia. Instead, the ELN has returned to its
founding objective: popular democracy for all Colombians,
propagated at the local level. The ELN has not given up the use
of violence in its efforts.
E.R., 23 March 2005
I found another version
of the ELN's flag at www.ejercito.mil.co.
The ELN uses sometimes their Coat
of Arms on their red/black flag,
E.R., 8 and 16 June 2005
![[M19 Guerilla Movement (Colombia)]](../images/c/co}eln1.gif)
image by Eugene Ipavec, 17 August 2008
There is another version of the armed group called ELN at Army's
official website at news article dated June 2005. Motto in
white ring is "NI UN PASO ATRAS - LIBERACION O MUERTE"
(Not one step back - Liberation or death). There is another
curved inscription above the ring that is unreadable.
E.R. and Eugene Ipavec, 31 August 2006
![[M19 Guerilla Movement (Colombia)]](../images/c/co}eln2.gif)
image by Zoltan Horvath, 18 May 2014
During a recent video
one can see a white flag with the
logo (on the left)
of the ELN. This is a variant of the already reported flag.
Esteban Rivera, 18 May 2014
image by Jaume Ollé
The National Liberation Army- Camilista Union, (ELN-UC),
insurgent group in Colombia, uses also Black & Red flag and
generally, with the abbreviations of the group on the division of
the stripes in yellow letters. Given the bonds of ELN with Cuba,
it's possible that the ELN's flag is based fundamentally on the
one of "July 26' Movement".
Carlos Thompson, 30 September 2004
image by Jaume Ollé Casals posted in I Love Flags, 29
December 2012
The called "Pérez the Priest", famous Catholic father and leader of the
Ejército Nacional de Colombia, born in Aragon, deceased in March 1998. In an
archival image we can see the Curate Perez with a flag that seems to be from a
mass organization supported by the guerrillas: The Unión Camilista. Probably
the name is derived from the first leader of the guerrilla, another catholic
father, Camilo Torres.
Jaume Ollé Casals, 29 December 2012
image from www.cedema.org
The ELN has had over the past years several breakaway
factions. One of the most important ones was the Corriente de
Renovación Socialista (CRS, Socialist Renovation Movement). It
emerged during the peace talks between the leftist guerrillas and
the Colombian government in the early 1990's. It appeared
officially in 1991, and it acted mainly in the Departments of
Sucre, Córdoba and Bolívar. It also signed a peace agreement on
April 9, 1994.
Source: www.mediosparalapaz.org.
E.R., 19 February 2007
image by Eugene Ipavec,
I found a PDF
document with important information on the CRS. In it you can
see pictures of armed fighters wearing the new version of the
demobilized CRS flag and logo (on pages 129, 133 and 134 of the
document). It has three white letters CRS, on the tricolour flag
resembling the Colombian flag.
E.R., 14 September 2007
The CRS was at one point part of the
ELN. The
ELN-uc was the result of the merger of these two groups as
this declaration (http://www.cedema.org/ver.php?id=4519)
shows, issued on June 23, 1987.
Now, before the CRS had that name, it was
called MIR-PL (Movimiento de Integración Revolucionaria - Patria Libre,
Revolutionary Integration Movement - Free Fatherland).
(source: page 14 of
this PDF document: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4716503.pdf ,
titled "EJÉRCITO DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL COLOMBIANO: DESDE LA RENOVACIÓN POLÍTICA
A LA CORRIENTE DE RENOVACIÓN SOCIALISTA, 1978-1994" (COLOMBIAN NATIONAL
LIBERATION ARMY: FROM THE POLITICAL RENOVATION UNTIL THE SOCIALIST RENOVATION
MOVEMENT, 1978-1994), an article published by Jaime Reyes in "Revista
Divergencia" ISSN: 0719-2398 Issue No. / Year 2 / January-July of 2013 / pages
71-88). The logo of MIR-PL is seen here:
http://www.cedema.org/uploads/patria_libre_web.jpg (source:
http://www.cedema.org/ver.php?id=4519).
The name Patria Libre (Free
Fatherland) is derived from the oath (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juramento_del_Monte_Sacro)
that Simón Bolívar took on August 15, 1805 before his Tutor Simón Rodríguez in
which he stated that he will not rest until he sees his fatherland free of
oppression)
(source:
https://www.desdeabajo.info/....html).
MIR-PL emerged from the schism
within the
PCC-ML in the 1970s. This divergence among its
members led to the creation of other tendencies, of these, the most important
ones being the Tendencia ML (Marxist Leninist Tendency) which gathered some of
the splitting members (i.e. Liga ML (ML League), PCM-LP (Partido Comunista
Marxista - Linea Proletaria, Communist Marxist Party - Proletarian Linea) and an
Eln breakaway faction called Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria (MUR,
Revolutionary Unit Movement). This led to the unification under one single name:
MUR-ML (Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria - Marxista Leninista) (Revolutionary
Unit Movement - Marxist Leninist), which in turn was merged with another group
called MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, Revolutionary Left
Movement), giving birth to the MIR-PL in 1983. After the MIR-PL started peace
talks with the government in Caracas (Venezuela) but were forced to move to
Tlaxcala (Mexico) because of a coup d'état by Hugo Chavez in 1992 (who would
eventually take power in 1999 following the 1998 elections. The MIR-PL advocated
for peace, and other factions within the ELN did not agree, and that's when the
MIR-PL is forced out of the UC-ELN, adopting a new name, CRS and starting
independent negotiations with the government (apart from the
CGSB)
which was the acting party representing all united guerrillas in peace talks
with the government at the time) which eventually led to their demobilization.
Source:
http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-94010
The MIR-PL logo
is seen here:
http://www.cedema.org/uploads/patria_libre_web.jpg (source:
http://www.cedema.org/ver.php?id=4519). It is the outline of the country and
inside the name of the group "PATRIA LIBRE" in capitals.
The CRS was granted political representation by Resolución (Resolution) No.
253 of August 23, 1994 by the CNE. On their IV
Congreso Nacional (National Congress) held on June 6, 2000, they decided to
change their name to PSD (Partido del Socialismo Democrático, Democratic
Socialism Party) and during the I Congreso Nacional (National Congress) of the
new party held in August 24 and 25, 2000 they decide to incorporate other
organizations as follows: "Alternativa Socialista y Democrática del Tolima para
Colombia" (Socialist and Democratic Alternative of Tolima for Colombia), la "Asociación
de Ciudadanas y Ciudadanos por la Democracia" (Association of Citizens for
Democracy), el "M-19 del Valle del Cauca (Yumbo)"
(M-19 faction of the city of Yumbo and the Department of Valle), Espacio
Democrático (Democratic Space), Compatriando (Unifatherland), among others.
Sources:
https://es.scribd.com/doc/96737491/Historia-Corriente-de-Renovacion-Socialista
and
http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-1282067
Esteban
Rivera, 26 September 2016
image located by Esteban Rivera, 16 October 2015
Clara López, currently running
for Mayor of the city of Bogotá in the upcoming October 25 local
elections by the
Polo party, portrays a
campaign flag featuring the logo with an inscription
that cites "Ola de la Victoria" (Victory wave) and the name of the
Localidad (Locality, an administrative subdivision of the city). In
this case for example, the flag is seen portraying the name of
Localidad de Ciudad Bolívar (official website), during a political rally in the San Francisco neighborhood of this
Localidad.
For the different logos with the different Localidades' names on the
logo, please refer to: http://www.claralopezalcaldesa.com/la-ola-de-la-victoria.html
Image cropped from news report by CM& TV news yesterday. The complete image is seen
here.
Source: http://www.cmi.com.co/concejal-antonio-sanguino-respalda-candidatura-de-clara-lopez
).
Esteban Rivera, 16 October 2015
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